The government finally paraded Bradley Manning, suspected of being the source of the Wikileaks publication of thousands of documents that were embarrassing to our sleazy and conniving politicians. After holding Manning in conditions that barely qualify as humane -- and that's for animals at the pound -- he was finally paraded in public for the first time since his arrest last year. The media circus presented the hearing thusly:
The comments came as lawyers for the two sides made their closing arguments at a hearing to determine whether Army Private First Class Bradley Manning, 24, should be court-martialed on charges including aiding the enemy and wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the Internet."
What seems most disturbing about this entire charade upon justice is the minuscule harm done to US national security by the release of these purportedly secret files, none of which carried a secret or top secret classification. In a regime such as the current US government, where secrecy is a rampaging malignancy eating its way ravenously through the body politic, the game of classification has run amok, and Manning's alleged crime is nothing but a secrecy-obsessed cabal's attempt to squelch any violation of its mania against accountability.
What chit-chat goes on between busybody diplomats who are abusing their status to manipulate and undermine other sovereign governments is not really a matter of national security, but more mundanely an exercise of ass-covering and plausible deniability. The cynical machinations being carried out by the minions of the US government, on behalf of its corporate masters, should really be more exposed, rather than less, but the persecution of Bradley Manning shows the state's determination to silence its critics and squelch any dissent that comes by way of dirty secrets being aired in public.
Does anyone who's familiar with the now-frequent news stories of how easily Chinese government-backed hackers can gain access the US corporate and military secrets -- to say nothing of the ability of "friends" like Israel -- think that this diplomatic yammering is really unknown to the various governments of the planet with competent intelligence services? The Russians and Chinese are fully aware of what the US government is doing in its many spheres of influence -- to put it benignly.
The real obsession of the government is not to keep this out of the hands of other governments, but to keep their dirty laundry out of the press, where it can be used to call for a halt to the excesses of nascent totalitarianism in all the formerly "democratic" governments in the US orbit. Keeping a restive population diverted from the real objectives and agendas of the ruling oligarchy is the primary role of silencing the whistle blower -- something that is being carried out with ever-increasing ardor by the Obama administration, in its role as guardian of the status quo against the agitation of the 99 percenters.
Bradley Manning, whether responsible for the leaks or not, must be made an example for anyone contemplating an answer to the pangs of conscience, who dares blow the state's cover on its many crimes and transgressions against people and common decency. To the US government, Manning and Assange are the greatest threats to national security, as the state attempts to close the barn doors of secrecy before the sheep escape...
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