The oppression of a whistle-blower, and the disgrace of the American establishment
Manning up
America - the country and its establishment - is a disgrace. That is not to levelled at the American people, just their machinery of government. I know quite a few and they are perfectly pleasant, considerate, and usually more polite than the average in my experience. But their nation state and its machinery and figureheads of government are an absolute howling disgrace.
Barack Obama came to power, initially, on a tide of hope and expectation. A new broom to sweep clean the excesses and misanthropies of his predecessor. There was going to be a new era of trust, democracy, and equality. It didn't happen. There was going to be greater transparency in government, the dark secrets in dark corners were going to feel the harsh light of day - with those who exposed them protected and hailed as heroes. It didn't happen. Nevertheless he was elected for a second term, and without the burden of having to consider the consequences of his action on his prospects of re-election he should have been unleashed to try harder, and deliver a real legacy. That too has not happened. As far as I can see nothing that he promised, nothing that was supposed to matter, has been achieved.
How is it that America uses its core position in the world's communucations infrastructure to give it the power to snoop on just about piece of electronic communication traversing the globe?
How is it that America - despite repeated promises to decommission it - still operates the detention centre at Guantanamo?
How is it that Bradley Manning - a small, unassuming, almost incongruously frail young serviceman who whilst serving his country alighted upon records of wanton destruction and murder and took the brave decision to do what his colleagues had not and expose the horrors - today faces the prospect of a sentence of 35 years imprisonment? He already endured over three years' incarceration and physical and mental abuse. How is it that instead of hailing Manning a hero and protecting him from those whose blushes he had exposed, the president was publicly condemning him as guilty before his trial ever began? The conviction should be overturned, or at the very least Manning should be pardoned, and allowed to get on with life.
Obama, you have become a disgrace, particularly so seeing as you are nominally a Democrat espousing liberal social principles. You are a hypocrite and a sham. And worse, you are a disappointment. That you have failed to attain your promised goals in the face of stiff Republican opposition is understandable, and forgivable. You could - to use one of your own country's idioms - have stepped up to the plate, and really taken a swing. You haven't. That you have apparently compromised the very principles you supposedly stand for, or that your government has been exposed as at least as self-serving and shadowy as its predecessor, is not. I do not know what history will remember your legacy to be, but I can tell you this - it will not be as the new broom who cleaned up government and protected the truth.
FREE BRADLEY MANNING!
