More Glenn on Bradley Manning

because it's so important that the behavior of our government be exposed for the horror it's wreaking on one young whistleblower, i'm taking the liberty of re-posting glenn's latest in its entirety...

To follow-up on yesterday's observations about the prolonged forced nudity to which Bradley Manning has been subjected the last two days: brig officials now confirm to The New York Times that Manning will be forced to be nude every night from now on for the indefinite future -- not only when he sleeps, but also when he stands outside his cell for morning inspection along with the other brig detainees. They claim that it is being done "as a 'precautionary measure' to prevent him from injuring himself."

Has anyone before successfully committed suicide using a pair of briefs -- especially when under constant video and in-person monitoring? There's no underwear that can be issued that is useless for killing oneself? And if this is truly such a threat, why isn't he on "suicide watch" (the NYT article confirms he's not)? And why is this restriction confined to the night; can't he also off himself using his briefs during the day?

Let's review Manning's detention over the last nine straight months: 23-hour/day solitary confinement; barred even from exercising in his cell; one hour total outside his cell per day where he's allowed to walk around in circles in a room alone while shackled, and is returned to his cell the minute he stops walking; forced to respond to guards' inquiries literally every 5 minutes, all day, everyday; and awakened at night each time he is curled up in the corner of his bed or otherwise outside the guards' full view. Is there anyone who doubts that these measures -- and especially this prolonged forced nudity -- are punitive and designed to further erode his mental health, physical health and will? As The Guardian reported last year, forced nudity is almost certainly a breach of the Geneva Conventions; the Conventions do not technically apply to Manning, as he is not a prisoner of war, but they certainly establish the minimal protections to which all detainees -- let alone citizens convicted of nothing -- are entitled.

The treatment of Manning is now so repulsive that it even lies beyond what at least some of the most devoted Obama admirers are willing to defend. For instance, UCLA Professor Mark Kleiman -- who last year hailed Barack Obama as, and I quote, "the greatest moral leader of our lifetime" -- wrote last night:

The United States Army is so concerned about Bradley Manning’s health that it is subjecting him to a regime designed to drive him insane. . . . This is a total disgrace. It shouldn't be happening in this country. You can't be unaware of this, Mr. President. Silence gives consent.

The entire Manning controversy has received substantial media attention. It's being carried out by the military of which Barack Obama is the Commander-in-Chief. Yes, the Greatest Moral Leader of Our Lifetime and Nobel Peace Prize winner is well aware of what's being done and obviously has been for quite some time. It is his administration which is obsessed with destroying and deterring any remnants of whistle-blowing and breaches of the secrecy regime behind which the National Security and Surveillance States function. This is all perfectly consistent with his actions in office, as painful as that might be for some to accept (The American Prospect, which has fairly consistently criticized Obama's civil liberties abuses, yesterday called the treatment of Manning "torture" and denounced it as a "disgrace"). As former Army officer James Joyner (and emphatic critic of WikiLeaks and Manning) writes:

Obama promised to close Gitmo because he was embarrassed that we were doing this kind of thing to accused terrorists. But he's allowing it to happen to an American soldier under his command?

And I'll say this again: just fathom the contrived, shrieking uproar from opportunistic Democratic politicians and their loyalists if it had been George Bush and Dick Cheney -- on U.S. soil -- subjecting a whistle-blowing member of the U.S. military to these repressive conditions without being convicted of anything, charging him with a capital offense that statutorily carries the death penalty, and then forcing him to remain nude every night and stand naked for inspection outside his cell. Feigning concern over detainee abuse for partisan gain is only slightly less repellent than the treatment to which Manning is being subjected.

"repellent" may be an accurate term but it's also a gross understatement... can any one of us imagine being exposed - no pun intended - to this kind of treatment...? bradley manning could be my son, my next-door neighbor, a student in my mba class, a professional colleague... and, just think how many "detainees" have suffered similar degradation, human beings that we don't even know or at least can't identify with as closely as we can mr. manning... it doesn't matter who or where or why... this is wrong on every level...

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Glenn has more on the utter degradation being suffered by Bradley Manning

and the jaw-dropping lies that the obama administration is using to try to cover it up...

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The complete disgrace of Amazon kicking Wikileaks off its servers

glenn once again talks about the appalling hypocrisy between what our fair country preaches and what it practices...

Talking Points Memo -- in an article headlined: "How Lieberman Got Amazon To Drop Wikileaks" -- detailed that Lieberman's "staffers . . . called Amazon to ask about it, and left questions with a press secretary including, 'Are there plans to take the site down?'" Shortly thereafter, "Amazon called them back . . . to say they had kicked Wikileaks off." Lieberman's spokeswoman said: "Sen. Lieberman hopes that the Amazon case will send the message to other companies that might host Wikileaks that it would be irresponsible to host the site."

That Joe Lieberman is abusing his position as Homeland Security Chairman to thuggishly dictate to private companies which websites they should and should not host -- and, more important, what you can and cannot read on the Internet -- is one of the most pernicious acts by a U.S. Senator in quite some time. Josh Marshall wrote yesterday: "When I'd heard that Amazon had agreed to host Wikileaks I was frankly surprised given all the fish a big corporation like Amazon has to fry with the federal government." That's true of all large corporations that own media outlets -- every one -- and that is one big reason why they're so servile to U.S. Government interests and easily manipulated by those in political power. That's precisely the dynamic Lieberman was exploiting with his menacing little phone call to Amazon (in essence: Hi, this is the Senate's Homeland Security Committee calling; you're going to be taking down that WikiLeaks site right away, right?). Amazon, of course, did what they were told.

and here we have jay rosen talking about why an organization like wikileaks even exists and why our completely degraded approach to journalism and transparency makes it necessary...

Jay Rosen on Wikileaks: "The watchdog press died; we have this instead." from Jay Rosen on Vimeo.

(thanks to glenn greenwald...)

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The progressive blogosphere doesn't walk its talk, Think Progress edition

"d" list bloggers deserve respect too...

Dear Think Progress Colleagues:

I sent in a blog post to Think Progress yesterday regarding the omission of the allegation of perjury on the part of General Ricardo Sanchez in media and blog coverage of his recent speech. I waited the requisite four hours and, since I did not receive a response, put up the post on my own weblog. Imagine my surprise this morning when reading The Progress Report to see that you had decided to call attention to that allegation. Imagine my further surprise when I saw my own words printed verbatim.

The Progress Report

"A memorandum written and signed by Sanchez on Sept. 14, 2003, contained as an enclosure the specific interrogation techniques authorized to be used in Iraq, and also noted that these methods were potentially in contravention of the Geneva Conventions."

And, yes, I DO take it personally

"The memorandum written and signed by General Sanchez on September 14, 2003, contained as an enclosure the specific interrogation techniques authorized to be used in Iraq, and also noted those that were potentially in contravention of Geneva."

I find the lack of the simple courtesy of even sending a private email with a thank-you for the tip to be both disappointing and sadly unprofessional. You can be certain I won't make the same mistake twice.

i take great pains to credit all sources whether they be news media outlets or bloggers... the last thing i want to do is try to pretend that all the stuff i put out here is the product of my own fertile mind and diligent research... i don't think it's too much to ask to expect the same treatment in return...

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Normalizing the unthinkable

do yourself a favor and go read the transcript, watch the video or listen to the mp3 of this john pilger speech during the Socialism 2007 conference in Chicago...

here's a teaser, thanks to democracy now via co-blogger tobymandrake...

John Pilger - the eminent investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker - is a harsh critic of the corporate media. Pilger began his career in journalism close to half a century ago. He has made over 50 documentaries and is the author of numerous books, his most recent is titled "Freedom Next Time: Resisting the Empire."

[M]edia clichéd language ... is designed to normalize the unthinkable; of the degradation of war, of severed limbs, of maimed children, all of which I've seen. One of my favorite stories about the Cold War concerns a group of Russian journalists who were touring the United States. On the final day of their visit, they were asked by the host for their impressions. "I have to tell you," said the spokesman, "that we were astonished to find after reading all the newspapers and watching TV day after day that all the opinions on all the vital issues are the same. To get that result in our country we send journalists to the gulag. We even tear out their fingernails. Here you don't have to do any of that. What is the secret?"

What is the secret? It is a question seldom asked in newsrooms, in media colleges, in journalism journals, and yet the answer to that question is critical to the lives of millions of people. On August 24 last year the New York Times declared this in an editorial: "If we had known then what we know now the invasion if Iraq would have been stopped by a popular outcry." This amazing admission was saying, in effect, that journalists had betrayed the public by not doing their job and by accepting and amplifying and echoing the lies of Bush and his gang, instead of challenging them and exposing them. What the Times didn't say was that had that paper and the rest of the media exposed the lies, up to a million people might be alive today. That's the belief now of a number of senior establishment journalists. Few of them—they've spoken to me about it—few of them will say it in public.

there's plenty more, much of which confirms the complicity of our two political parties' and our media in keeping us from learning the truth...

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Turkmenistan deja vu AND it has ENORMOUS GAS FIELDS!

there i was, innocently skimming through my nyt emailed headlines, when suddenly, a familiar name¹ ... hark² , i said to myself, what is THIS...? turkmenistan...?

Seeking the Persona of New Turkmen Leader

the article's headline triggered the association... i hurriedly went to my blogpost archives, and, sure enough, there it was...

How do journalists get to the REAL truth?

why, yes, indeed, i HAD posted on turkmenistan, and only a week and a half ago too... (no smart remarks about short-term memory loss, please...) it was all about ken silverstein's undercover exposé of washington lobbyists in harper's magazine where he posed as the representative for a group of turkmenistan investors.. (while a journalistic coup, it nonetheless ignited a small brushfire of ethical criticism, see here)... under his assumed persona, silverstein met with two p.r. agencies, seeking to contract their services for improving the image of turkmenistan, a country silverstein and many others characterize as "slightly less Stalinist" than north korea... part of what each agency proposed in response was to conduct an intensive p.r. campaign to improve turkmenistan's image with both congress and the public, in part by strategically placing favorable news items in major media outlets... well, stick me in a dress and call me shirley if the nyt article doesn't come across as just that kind of placement...

Since a rigged election in February, the new president [Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov] (whose name is pronounced gur-BAHN-goo-lee bair-dee-mukh-ha-MAY-doff) has assumed a job extraordinary in both its oddness and its possibilities. He has succeeded the megalomaniac who called himself Turkmenbashi, the Leader of All Turkmens.

With this post, Mr. Berdymukhammedov sits atop a personality cult so pervasive that even in death the identity of the president is inseparable from that of the country.

But he has inherited more than golden statues and unchecked dominion over a frightened population. He holds the keys to enormous gas fields and state coffers, and has lines of eager suitors from China, Russia, Turkey, Iran, Israel, the European Union and the United States.

He has promised reform, and there are signs of change, including a slight easing of the government’s iron grip over the populace.

question... is this news or is it a p.r. placement...? i lean toward news mainly because the article does go on to state the following...

• Turkmenistan is governed in part by fear, a place where uttering the president’s name in public can cause people to flinch, whisper and hush.

• Diplomats describe [Saparmurat Niyazov, the dictator who had ruled since the Soviet Union’s collapse, and Berdymukhammedov's predecessor] with words diplomats do not typically use: madman, sadist, freak, thief.

• [Niyazov] assembled a government that was opaque and impenetrable. Six months after his death, no one pretends to be able to peer in.

• [O]ne European diplomat, describing interactions with Turkmen officials ... “They are afraid to talk in all meetings, because everything is bugged as far as they know.”

it's up to us to decide - truth or spin, real or memorex... but, don't forget, TURKMENISTAN HAS ENORMOUS GAS FIELDS...!

1. hark
Pronunciation: 'härk
Function: intransitive verb
Etymology: Middle English herkien; akin to Old High German hOrechen to listen, Old English hIeran to hear
: to pay close attention

2. dé·jà vu
Pronunciation: "dA-"zhä-'vü, -'v[ue]
Function: noun
Etymology: French, adjective, literally, already seen
1 a : the illusion of remembering scenes and events when experienced for the first time b : a feeling that one has seen or heard something before
2 : something overly or unpleasantly familiar

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How do journalists get to the REAL truth?

there's an interesting journalistic ethics kerfuffle percolating... a number of news outlets, including alternet, picked up on ken silverstein's exposé of washington lobbyists in this month's harper's magazine... silverstein went undercover to gather information for the lengthy article, assuming the alias, "kenneth case," and, according to bill moyers' blog, posed...

...as the representative of a fictitious investment group with business interests in Turkmenistan, and approached several prominent Washington lobbying firms to see how they might bolster the image of Turkmenistan as a viable international economic and diplomatic partner.

from the harper's article...

The U.S. General Accounting Office estimated in 1990 that less than half of foreign lobbyists who should register under FARA [Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938] actually do so, and there is no evidence that matters have improved. In theory, violators can be heavily fined and even sent to prison, but almost no one has been prosecuted for ignoring the act, so there are few risks for non-compliance. Those firms that do register generally reveal little information beyond the names of their clients, the fees they pay, and limited information about whom they contact. Because disclosure requirements are so lax, it is nearly impossible to monitor the activities of foreign lobbyists. What little knowledge we do have of lobbyist-orchestrated diplomacy—including most of the projects discussed above—has been gleaned not from FARA filings but from serendipitous revelations or investigative reporting.

Which leaves Americans to wonder: Exactly what sorts of promises do these firms make to foreign governments? What kind of scrutiny, if any, do they apply to potential clients? How do they orchestrate support for their clients? And how much of their work is visible to Congress and the public, and hence subject to oversight? To shed light on these questions, I decided to approach some top Washington lobbying firms myself, as a potential client, to see whether they would be willing to burnish the public image of a particularly reprehensible regime.

why turkmenistan...?

Given that my first pick, North Korea, seemed too reviled to be credible, I settled on the only slightly less Stalinist regime of Turkmenistan. Until his sudden death last December, President-for-Life Saparmurat Niyazov built a personality cult that outdid that of any modern leader except possibly Kim Jong Il. High school students were required to study The Ruhnama, Niyazov’s book of personal and spiritual wisdom, described on its official website as being “on par with the Bible and the Koran.” The self-declared “Turkmenbashi,” or “Leader of all Ethnic Turkmens,” Niyazov had his image plastered on billboards and buildings across the country, as well as on the national currency, salt packets, and vodka bottles. He named after himself not only a town but an entire month of the year (the one we unenlightened non-Turkmen still call January). Any opposition to the Turkmen government is considered to be treason, and thousands of political dissidents have been imprisoned. In 2004 a man seeking permission to hold a peaceful demonstration was sent to a psychiatric hospital for two years.

Following Niyazov’s demise, Minister of Health Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, the Turkmenbashi’s personal dentist, became acting president. Berdymukhamedov was relatively unknown when he was declared acting president. Some have speculated that he is the Turkmenbashi’s illegitimate son, which would explain his unexpected ascendancy. He had been responsible, according to the BBC, for implementing Niyazov’s 2004 reform of the health service, “which many observers have blamed for its near collapse.” Berdymukhamedov was confirmed as president in an election held in February—he ran against five other candidates, all from the ruling party, and won 89 percent of the vote—in a balloting that he described as being held “on a democratic basis that has been laid by the great [late] leader,” but which just about everyone else deemed to be a sham.

one of the firms approached by silverstein, posing as kenneth case, was apco, the 2006 pr agency of the year according to pr week magazine... from apco's website...

APCO Worldwide is a global communication consultancy specializing in building relationships with an organization's key stakeholders. These relationships are critical to the full range of challenges our clients face.

We believe an organization's reputation is the culmination of how such challenges are managed. In the end, this work builds and protects an organization's value and the value of its products and services.

It is our goal to be your trusted partner of choice and help you create this value – by pushing the boundaries of communication and providing global service, culture by culture.

"case" met with several "key professionals" of apco this past february who presented him and a colleague with what i would characterize as a high-powered dog-and-pony show touting apco's capabilities, its connections in congress, and its proposed strategy for turkmenistan... according to Barry Schumacher, a senior vice president at APCO Associates...

"This really is an opportunity to define the new government of Turkmenistan."

the subsequent article in harper's, a powerful inside look at how lobbying firms operate in d.c., even generated an interview with bill moyers... the issue that has subsequently emerged centers on the ethics of undercover journalism, and, in fact, there is even a poll up on moyers blog asking readers to register their opinion of undercover journalism... needless to say, silverstein's article provoked a response from apco... here is a portion of apco's response, taken from their website...

In violation of recognized journalistic principles, Silverstein neither asked us for comment nor gave us an opportunity to respond to his “facts”. In addition, Silverstein appeared on Bill Moyers Journal on PBS and neither he, nor representatives of the program, contacted APCO for comment. Had they asked, we would have told them these facts:

* In advance of the meeting, and to help us determine if a meeting should take place, we began our standard due diligence by contacting people in the policy community who are expert in the region to determine their view of the new government. Our due diligence gave us reason to hold a preliminary meeting to determine the legitimacy of the client.
* We then held a preliminary meeting where we told Silverstein, “Case”, we would need more information before we would be comfortable moving forward, and that if we decided to proceed, we would need to register the representation with the U.S. Department of Justice in a manner fully consistent with U.S. law and regulation. This regulation requires full disclosure, whether working directly for the government or on behalf of business interests which benefit the government indirectly, contrary to Silverstein’s representations.
* We ended the meeting politely and without any commitment or contractual relationship. There was never a further meeting, therefore no way for Silverstein to determine whether we would have taken the assignment.

as a refugee from many years in the corporate world, i can tell you flat out that there is no way in hell silverstein would have been able to see what he saw and hear what he heard had he approached apco as a journalist... no way would they have allowed him to see their presentation on turkmenistan... rather than being shown what apco presented to someone they believed was a good faith representative of the interests of turkmenistan, they would have given silverstein the journalist version of their dog-and-pony show, a presentation that would have been qualitatively and substantially different from the one he was shown... yes, i have qualms about undercover journalism, particularly the "under false pretenses" part... however, in these days of undiluted spin and outright lies that are passed off as truth, i don't know of another way to get a clear picture of what's REALLY going on...

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