Farewell to a brave whistle blower - Bradley Manning

Private Bradley Manning, gave up his life to expose war crimes

By Dark Politricks

With the news today that Bradley Manning has been convicted of 19 out of 21 offenses, the only good news is that he had not been charged with the more serious charge of "aiding the enemy" plus he wasn't found guilty of espionage for showing the war crimes revealed in the infamous “Collateral Murder” video.

However even without the most serious charges unless the Judge is very lenient with his sentencing Bradley Manning is looking at a very long stretch for daring to speak to truth to the most powerful military force on the planet.

For that he must be admired. Anyone willing to give up their life, which is what Manning has basically done by pleading guilty to crimes that could see him spend the best years of his life in prison, should be praised for that sacrifice.

Yes we all knew that the US forces in Iraq were slaughtering innocent civilians. That Xe/Blackwater employees had engaged in massacres on multiple occasions that were covered up.

That British forces were prepared to raid Iraqi prisons to release soldiers suspected of staging false flag terror attacks, and that torture was a daily occurrence by all allied forces from UK bases to the Abu Ghraib prison.

However when WikiLeaks released the Collateral Murder video it revealed the extent of the callousness that US soldiers showed towards the Iraqi population.


The US neo-con talking heads, COINTELPRO and Agent Mockingbird placed government mouths shouted "treason" and demanded WikiLeaks be shut down. They even managed to get Amazon, PayPal and hosting companies to block services that WikiLeaks were legally entitled to. They saw this act of whistleblowing not for what it was, an attempt to reveal US war crimes but high treason.

Remember that President Obama had promised on the campaign trail, before being elected, to provide more protection for people willing to blow the whistle on government crimes. He promised the following:

Protect Whistleblowers: Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled as they have been during the Bush administration. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process.

However, as expected, he did a full 360 and instead has gone down in history as the POTUS who has gone after more whistleblowers than any other President in history.

In fact the Obama administration has prosecuted twice as many cases under the Espionage Act as all other administrations combined. Under the President, the Justice Department has prosecuted six cases regarding national security leaks. Before he took office, federal prosecutors had used the Espionage Act in only three cases.

This is a President who promised the world, hope and change. The world was so drunk on his promises and so willing to believe that he would be so much different from the neo-con, pro-war, Bush administration that they even gave him a Nobel Peace prize days into his administration.

I wonder how foolish those people feel now?

I wonder if President Obama can even stomach to look at the prize or does he actually believe that he has brought the hope and change he bribed the public with into office?

In reality the only change was the colour of the skin of the President and Obama took Bush policies and rammed them full of steroids.

He has kept the Constitution killing PATRIOT ACT and added another Bill of Right destroying piece of legislation to it, the NDAA, that authorises him to lock up and even kill American citizens on his say so alone.

The sad thing is that so many people still voted for him for a second term. Did they really believe he would change his spots because he didn't have to run for office again?

Maybe he is scared of ending up like MLK or JFK.

Maybe he is being bribed by more powerful string pullers who know the truth of his sex and drugs past.

Maybe he is just too weak to stand up to the real power brokers.

Or maybe he was just a bare-faced liar who didn't realise that people would actually expect him to do as he promised once elected.

Nothing shows how illiberal the Democratic President of the United States is than his treatment of the US public over recent privacy invasions by the NSA and Prism. And nothing shows how much he want's these state crimes to remain secret than his lust for punishment to those who dare reveal the nature of the Governments lurch towards a police state, people such as Snowden and Assange, Sibel Edmonds and Thomas Drake to name a few.


The ACLU has accused the US government of "seeking to intimidate" anyone who might consider becoming a whistleblower in the future by prosecuting Bradley Manning under the Espionage Act.

Here's the ACLU's full statement commenting on the Manning verdict:

While we're relieved that Mr. Manning was acquitted of the most dangerous charge, the ACLU has long-held the view that leaks to the press in the public interest should not be prosecuted under the Espionage Act," said Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. "Since he already pleaded guilty to charges of leaking information – which carry significant punishment – it seems clear that the government was seeking to intimidate anyone who might consider revealing valuable information in the future.

It is clear from the President's words, his NSA heads words and all the talking heads that parrot the National Security point of view that they believe that they are doing nothing wrong by illegally wiretapping millions of people without warrants.

They apparently don't see anything wrong with the mass searching and storing of emails, instant messages, photos, videos, phone calls and other telecommunications for later analysis.

Not only does this breach the supposed law of the land, the US constitution, but it is immoral and devious behaviour that treats every US and NON US citizen as a potential terrorist to be monitored and watched. Then again I have been saying for years that the war on terror was not designed to catch terrorists.

How could it be when our supposed enemy al-Qaeda was created by the CIA to fight the Soviets and has been used by both the CIA and MI6 to destabilise countries and fight proxy wars in Kosovo, Libya and now Syria. The most gagged woman in history, Sibel Edmonds, revealed that bin-Laden and al-Qaeda has close links with the CIA right up to 9.11!

With such close ties to our supposed enemy it was always clear that the real role of the war on terror was to roll back civil liberties and increase the possibility of implementing a high-tech surveillance state by using the threat of terrorism as an excuse.

People are more likely to be killed by lightning or in a plane crash than to be killed by a terrorist attack. Therefore we are fooling ourselves if we think this massive billion dollar spy industry is for own benefit. We have allowed ourselves to walk into a surveillance society by just doing nothing.

Just by allowing Facebook, Google, Microsoft and other Internet companies to store, sell and milk our private information for fun it makes it so much harder to draw the line when those companies then link up with the Government and do it "for our security".

However if the recent Manning, Snowden, Assange and NSA stories are anything they are warning signs that our Government cares little for our thoughts and wishes.

As we say farewell to Bradley Manning, a brave whistleblower who is going to prison for a long time, it is far too late to blow the whistle on this new surveillance state. The train left the platform years ago and we all stood and waved goodbye.

View the original article Bradley Manning, whistleblowers, Obama and the NSA on the main website darkpolitricks.com.

Help Bust Bradley Manning Out Of Jail!

Help Bust Bradley Manning Out Of Jail!

By Dark Politricks

This is a campaign video for the organisation "I am Bradley Manning".

They are campaigning for the release of the young tortured whistleblower who had the balls to see something wrong and stand up and be counted. They also want the charge "aiding the enemy" dropped.

As the video says not many young soldiers would be brave enough to see a war crime committed and try and do and something about it and whistle blowers are supposed to be protected by US law.

However we all know that isn't true as President Obama (a supposed Liberal) has persecuted more whistleblowers than any other President in history.

However instead of being protected Bradley Manning has been tortured and humiliated through lack of visits and daylight, plus forced to stay naked in his cell (for his own safety of course).

He now faces a long time in prison, and maybe even the death penalty, particularly due to the "aiding the enemy" charge.

All the time he is up in court he can be proud to know that he is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee and that thousands of people are supporting and thinking about his plight.

Please visit the website iam.bradleymanning.org and show your support.

Also pass the link on and help the site anyway you can by promoting it and subscribing to the mailing list.

The sites mission statement says the following:

Amidst courtroom secrecy, whistleblower and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Bradley Manning is on trial after three years of confinement.

The information that Bradley gave to the public has been a catalyst for pro-democracy movements in the Arab world, exposed the unjust detainment of innocent people at Guantanamo Bay, shown us the true human cost of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and changed journalism forever.

There is no evidence that anyone died as a result of the leaked information, yet Bradley faces life in prison or possibly death. The greatest charge against him is that of “aiding the enemy,” a capital offence. As the public who benefited from this information, does that make us the enemy?

What price will future whistleblowers pay?

I have added a link to the "I am Bradley Manning" site to my list of campaigns down the right hand side of the page and I have also just realised I still had a link to the "Free Gary McKinnon" campaign site down there.

Whilst the unfair and unbalanced extradition treaty between the US and UK has still not be resolved yet - particularly due to the feeble version of the Freedom Bill ( or Protection of Freedoms Bill ) that was actually passed when compared to the original proposed Freedom bill. Gary McKinnon himself has won his battle to not be extradited to the USA.

Therefore I will be removing the link as his future has been secured and he will not be prosecuted by English courts either.

Therefore I am happy to tick a campaign off my list!

If you missed the reasons why, and the outrage from the Americans following Theresa May's decision not to extradite him, then the following article from the site explains the reasons why.

 Remember the site is still campaigning to get the extradition laws changed:

Joint CPS/MPS statement on the case of Gary McKinnon

Statement by Keir Starmer QC, Director of Public Prosecutions, and Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service on the case of Gary McKinnon

Between 1 February 2001 and 19 March 2002, Gary McKinnon allegedly gained unauthorised access to 97 United States (US) Government computers. An investigation was launched in the US and a request for assistance was made to the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit in England and Wales. Following discussions between the US Department of Justice, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service in the autumn of 2002, a decision was taken that the appropriate place for Mr McKinnon to be tried was the United States.

The reasons for that decision were:

The harm occurred in the US - the activity was directed against the military infrastructure of the US; An investigation had already been launched in the US; There were a large number of witnesses, most of whom were located in the US; All of the physical evidence (with the exception of Mr McKinnon's computer) was located in the US; The US prosecutors were able to bring a case that reflected the full extent of Mr McKinnon's alleged criminality; and The bulk of the unused material was located in the US. Given the nature of the offence, this inevitably included highly sensitive information and the US courts were best placed to deal with any issues arising in relation to this material.

As a result, the US sought Mr McKinnon's extradition from England and Wales for trial in the US.

The decision that the appropriate place for Mr McKinnon to be tried was the US was affirmed in 2009 and subsequently challenged in the High Court. That challenge failed. As Lord Justice Stanley Burnton said in his judgment: "... [it is] the decision of the DPP, which I consider to be lawful and unchallengeable, not to prosecute him here ... the USA is the appropriate forum for his prosecution."

On 16 October 2012, the Home Secretary decided not to extradite Mr McKinnon to the US on the basis of his health. She also announced that it was now for the DPP to decide whether Mr McKinnon had a case to answer in a UK court. At that stage there was no live criminal investigation in England and Wales, nor had there been for many years.

The DPP and the Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police therefore agreed to convene a joint police/CPS panel to consider whether a new criminal investigation should be commenced.

None of the reasons for the original decision in 2002 that the appropriate place for Mr McKinnon to be tried was the United States have altered. So far as the evidence is concerned, the position in 2012 is the same as it was in 2002. Most of the witnesses are in the US, as is nearly all the physical evidence and the bulk of the unused material, some of which is sensitive. Accordingly, in November this year, the CPS and the police met senior officials from the US Department of Justice to discuss the possibility of bringing the US witnesses to England and Wales for trial and of transferring all the US material to this jurisdiction to be considered.

The potential difficulties in bringing a case in England and Wales now should not be underestimated, not least the passage of time, the logistics of transferring sensitive evidence prepared for a court in the US to LONDON for trial, the participation of US government witnesses in the trial and the need fully to comply with the duties of disclosure imposed on the CPS. The prospects of a conviction against Mr McKinnon which reflects the full extent of his alleged criminality are not high.

After consulting with the Metropolitan Police Service and the CPS and having carefully considered matters, on 4 December this year, US authorities indicated to us that they would be willing to co-operate with a prosecution in England and Wales if that would serve the interest of justice. However, they do not consider that making all the US witnesses available for trial in London and transferring all of the US material to this jurisdiction would be in the interests of justice given our representations and the reasons for the decision that the US was the appropriate forum as set out above. That is a decision the US authorities are fully entitled to reach and we respect their decision.

Against this background, the joint CPS/police panel recommended to the Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police that he should not commence a new criminal investigation into Mr McKinnon. The Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police has accepted that advice.

Therefore I am very happy to remove this link now Gary McKinnon is safe from US prison life.

You can still visit the site at freegary.org.uk to get up to date information on details to any changes to the extradition treaty if and when they happen.

I just hope I can remove this campaign link for iam.bradleymanning.org as soon as possible.

View the original article I Am Bradley Manning - Help Bust Him Out Of Jail! at the main site darkpolitricks.com.

Is Julian Assange just a criminal on the run or a hero?

Is Julian Assange a hero or a rapist trying to avoid justice

By Dark Politricks

After the much awaited speech given from the balcony of the very unluxurious Ecuadorian embassy by Julian Assange the other day the whole world is debating the question - "Is Julian Assange a hero or a rapist trying to avoid justice".

The text of the speech in full is at the bottom of the page but it has led commentators all around the world to denounce Julian Assange as just a sex offender trying to avoid justice whilst totally ignoring the rest of the relevant pieces surrounding his case.

Quotes about the speech:

"what was much more serious - the elephant in the room, so to speak - was Assange's wilful failure to say anything about the actual reason that the Swedish police want to question him." - Andy McSmith - The Independent.

"Odious Julian Assange loved every second of his pompous balcony rant. His speech was long on egotistical claptrap, but oddly failed to mention what this extradition case is actually about — the rape of one woman and sexual molestation of another." - The Sun

"Not since the Argentines invaded the Falklands has Britain had its tail so humiliatingly tweaked by a Latin American dictatorship. Suddenly, Ecuador is on the lips of people who previously would have struggled to find it on a map. All this merry mayhem is, of course, being orchestrated by Assange, who continues to play the British governing class for suckers." - Melanie Phillips - Daily Mail

"He's not going anywhere"' Metropolitan police officer.

In fact you would be hard pressed to find many mainstream media commentators giving a good word to Julian who is facing sexual assault charges - charges that the Ecuadorian President said the other day do not even exist on his countries law books - like many others.

Charges that relate to two WikiLeak "groupies" who had sex with Assange on consecutive nights and allowed him to have sex without a condom. They may have protested about that last bit once they found out about each other but not before and it seems a strange law to charge someone on in the first place. If we were arresting every man in the world who didn't like wearing a condom when having sex there would be very few men left.

However it seems these constitute crimes in Sweden and many people ask why Julian doesn't just go and face his accusers.

The answer is simple.

He is very, very afraid that the Swedes will pass him along to the the American's who are literally frothing at the mouth at the damage he has done to their national security. First by realising tapes of their pilots cheering as they massacred a crowd of reporters and men without guns in Iraq and then the WikiLeaks release of the #Cablegate stash of US embassy emails which have made many a Middle Eastern nation look like two faced liars who say one thing in public and another to their neighbours in private.

More worryingly for Assange is the way that the presumed source of the information a Private Bradley Manning has been treated by the US military. He has been stripped naked, held in a cell for many months without anything to do and basically treated in the most horrible way possible - some even claim this constitutes torture.

He is now facing a charge of possible death or life imprisonment (if prosecutors keep their word)  for communicating national defense information to an unauthorized source and aiding the enemy. His chances do not look good.

Therefore as the UK does not extradite to countries where there is  the possibility of the death penalty and a multitude of US commentators and government employees have stated that he deserves two in the head. It is no wonder Julian is afraid of going to Sweden as he honestly believes it is a ruse to get him sent to the USA.

As no charges have actually been laid out against Assange and the Swedish police only want to "question him" it seems far fetched that in this day and age a compromise could not be made out which allowed for this questioning.

Over a hundred years ago there was this amazing invention called the telephone that allowed people at far distance from each other to communicate by voice.

In the last twenty years we have had Skype, Video Conferencing, Messenger and other tools that would allow for a full face to face interview that could be recorded, analysed and allow the Swedish police to ask their questions without any expensive plane travel.

But why should Julian Assange get special treatment you might ask.

Well he shouldn't and the the same rules should apply to all European citizens.

The European Arrest Warrant is a joke that allows Brits to be dragged from their beds and sent of to Eastern European jails on the say so of a Polish or Greek police commander.

Just like the unfair and unbalanced UK to USA extradition treaty. Which can see British people carted off to spend long time in orange jumpsuits without any evidence being examined in a UK court first as a US citizen has the right to before extradition here. Both of these extradition treaties should be abolished ASAP.

Therefore I don't say that Julian is just trying to avoid spurious charges that only emerged after each woman found out about the other but I say that he is blatantly scared shitless of being sent to the USA.

Also as I predicted in my last article the whole of South America is now standing in unison behind Ecuador after the British threat to storm their embassy which has only increased tension with a region that we are already having difficulty with.

From the  BBC news website.

The Union of South American Nations said it backed Ecuador after Mr Assange publicly thanked it and other South American countries for their support.

A document agreed at the Union of South American Nations meeting said it supported the country "in the face of the threat" to its London embassy.

.. in the context of the UK's perceived heavy-handed approach to the recent question of Argentina's renewed claim over the Falkland Islands - the British government's reputation in South America was undoubtedly being affected by this stand-off.

As I predicted - the fact that a country with a far from clean human rights history is making supposed western liberal and free countries look like despotic dangers to world civility is a stain on our own moral standing across the world. Plus it has swelled the chest of Latin and South America to extreme proportions.

If the Brits storm the embassy they will look like criminals in the eyes of many countries - fairly or not and if they let Julian hop onto a plane to Ecuador they will look like sops in the eyes of the USA and a million Daily Mail readers eyes.

The best thing would be to come to a compromise as suggested by Ecuador's President Rafael Correa who suggested Mr Assange could co-operate with Sweden but only if assurances were given that there would be no extradition to a third country. Any breaking of such an agreement would make the USA look like the "great Satan" Iran always claims they are and it would allow Julian to fulfill his obligations to face Swedish police questions and possible charges.

Whatever happens it looks like a farce from both sides of the argument.

Here is the full text of Julian Assange's speech:

I am here today because I cannot be there with you today, but thank you for coming. Thank you for your resolve, your generosity and spirit.

On Wednesday night, after a threat was sent to this embassy, and police descended on this building, you came out in the middle of the night to watch over it, and you brought the world’s eyes with you.

Inside the embassy, after dark, I could hear teams of police swarming up into the building through the internal fire escape. But I knew that there would be witnesses and that is because of you.

If the UK did not throw away the Vienna Conventions the other night, it is because the world was watching and the world was watching because you were watching.

The next time somebody tells you that it is pointless to defend those rights we hold dear, remind them of your vigil in the dark before the embassy of Ecuador. Remind them how in the morning the sun came up on a different world, and a courageous Latin American nation took a stand for justice.

And so, to those brave people, I thank President Correa for the courage he has shown in considering and in granting me political asylum. And I also thank the government, and the particular Foreign Minister, Ricardo Patino, who have upheld the Ecuadorian Constitution and its notion of universal citizenship in their consideration of my asylum

And to the Ecuadorian people for supporting and defending this Constitution. And I also have a debt of gratitude to the staff of the embassy, whose families live in London, and who have been showing me hospitality and kindness despite the threats we’ve all received.

This Friday there will be an emergency meeting of the foreign ministers of Latin America in Washington, DC, to address this very situation. And so I am grateful to those people and governments of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Venezuela and to all other Latin American countries who have come out to defend the right to asylum.

To the people of the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Australia, who have supported me in strength, even when their governments have not. And to those wiser heads in government who are still fighting for justice. Your day will come.

To the staff, supporters and sources of WikiLeaks, whose courage and commitment and loyalty has seen no equal.

To my family and to my children, who have been denied their father. Forgive me. We will be reunited soon.

As WikiLeaks stands under threat, so does the freedom of expression, and the health of our societies. We must use this moment to articulate the choice that is before the government of the United States of America.

Will it return to and reaffirm the revolutionary values it was founded on? Or will it lurch off the precipice, dragging us all into a dangerous and oppressive world, in which journalists fall silent under the fear of prosecution and citizens must whisper in the dark?

I say it must turn back.

I ask President Obama to do the right thing.

The United States must renounce its witch-hunt against WikiLeaks.

The United States must dissolve its FBI investigation.

The United States must vow that it will not seek to prosecute our staff or our supporters.

The United States must pledge before the world that it will not pursue journalists for shining a light on the secret crimes of the powerful.

There must be no more foolish talk about prosecuting any media organization, be it WikiLeaks or be it the New York Times.

The US administration’s war on whistleblowers must end.

Thomas Drake, and William Binney, and John Kiriakou and the other heroic US whistleblowers must — they must be pardoned and compensated for the hardships they’ve endured as servants of the public record.

And the Army Private who remains in a military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, who was found by the United Nations to have endured months of torturous detention in Quantico, Virginia, and who has yet — after two years in prison — to see a trial—He must be released. Bradley Manning must be released. If Bradley Manning did as he accused, he is a hero and an example to all of us and one of the world’s foremost political prisoners. Bradley Manning must be released.

On Wednesday, Bradley Manning spent his 815^th day of detention without trial. The legal maximum is 120 days.

On Thursday, my friend, Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Human Rights Center, was sentenced to 3 years for a tweet.

On Friday, a Russian band [Pussy Riot] was sentenced to 2 years in jail for a political performance.

There is unity in the oppression.

There must be absolute unity and determination in the response.

Thank you.