U.S. Demands to Assassinate Assange

High-level U.S. government officials, including Clinton and Biden, demand for the assassination of Assange and to list WikiLeaks as a terrorist organization. In this country, do we prosecute whistleblowers ?

Accused WikiLeaks Whistleblower Bradley Manning Testifies He Thought He Would "Die in Custody"

Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army private accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks, has testified for the first time since he was arrested in May 2010. Speaking on Thursday, November 29, 2012, at a pretrial proceeding, PFC Manning revealed the emotional tumult he experienced while imprisoned in Kuwait after his arrest in 2010, saying, "I remember thinking, ’I’m going to die.’ I thought I was going to die in a cage."

Read more : Accused WikiLeaks Whistleblower Bradley Manning Testifies He Thought He Would "Die in Custody"

USA WikiLeaks CableGate Detainee Policies

Manual (SOP) for procedures for medical evaluation of detainees Iraq | http://wikileaks.org/detaineepolicies/doc/US-DoD-Detainee-In-Processing-TFM-115-SOP-2005-02-12.html

Manual (SOP) for detainee dispensary services, Iraq | http://wikileaks.org/detaineepolicies/doc/US-DoD-Detainee-Dispensary-Services-TFM-115-SOP-Draft-2005-02-12.html

Manual (SOP) for dental personnel, Iraq | http://wikileaks.org/detaineepolicies/doc/US-DoD-Detainee-Dental-Inprocessing-TFM-115-SOP-Draft-2005-02-12.html

Manual (SOP) for duties in event of detainee death, Iraq | http://wikileaks.org/detaineepolicies/doc/US-DoD-Detainee-Death-Policy-Draft-2005-02-12.html

Manual (SOP) for detainee assault or abuse reporting, Iraq | http://wikileaks.org/detaineepolicies/doc/US-DoD-Detainee-Assault-or-Abuse-Reporting-Policy-Draft-2005-02-12.html

President Obama praises Pentagon Papers Publisher, but not War Crimes Whistleblower

Obama eulogizes NYT publisher Sulzberger ; Still Persecuting Whistleblower Manning

After the death of Arthur Ochs Sulzberger was announced yesterday, President Barack Obama praised the courage of Mr. Sulzberger throughout his journalism career.

Although President Obama didn't mention Mr. Sulzberger's risky -- but legal -- decision to publish the Pentagon Papers, President Obama acknowledged the important role that Mr. Sulzberger has played in improving our democratic form of government.

"He was a firm believer in the importance of a free and independent press -- one that isn't afraid to seek the truth, hold those in power accountable, and tell the stories that need to be told," Mr. Obama said.

But Mr. Obama made no connection between his praise for Mr. Sulzberger, but his continued campaign to prosecute the government whistleblower, PFC Bradley Manning.

Activists question how could the Obama administration reward Bradley Birkenfeld for his acts of whistleblowing, but then prosecute PFC Bradley Manning for exposing war crimes ?

Save Bradley Manning Rally Outside Obama NYC Campaign Headquarters

On the Evening of President Obama's Acceptance Speech at the Democratic National Convention, Activists Demand Freedom and Liberty for PFC Bradley Manning.

A coalition of activists and members of groups, like World Can't Wait, Veterans For Peace, and others, showed up for a rally outside of President Barack Obama's NYC campaign headquarters to demand freedom for LGBT service member and whistleblower PFC Bradley Manning. PFC Manning faces 22 charges in an unjust court martial, which denies him due process and other basic civil rights. PFC Manning faces government accusations that he released government documents and videos to WikiLeaks.

For more information, please visit : BradleyManning.org or CourageToResist.org or WorldCantWait.net

If you believe that whistleblowers should not be prosecuted, please ask President Obama to release PFC Manning -- send Tweets to the White House at : @whitehouse and @BarackObama

ASIO Spied On Julian Assange

Quoted entirely from The Age :

Assange told of ASIO snooping

Philip Dorling
March 16, 2011

WIKILEAKS founder Julian Assange is believed to have been tipped off more than seven months ago about Australian intelligence scrutiny of his whistleblowing activities.

Senior government ministers yesterday claimed to have no knowledge of co-operation between Australian intelligence agencies and the United States government concerning Assange after WikiLeaks began publishing thousands of secret documents leaked from the US Defence Department.

But sources within Wikileaks have told The Age that an Australian intelligence official privately warned Wikileaks on August 11 last year that Assange was the subject of inquiries by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, and that information relating to him and others associated with Wikileaks had been provided to the US in response to requests through intelligence liaison channels.

The Australian intelligence official is also claimed to have specifically warned that Assange could be at risk of ''dirty tricks'' from the US intelligence community, including the possibility of sexual entrapment.

The information is said to have been provided to WikiLeaks by means of a submission through the website's electronic ''drop box'' on the day Assange flew from London to Stockholm to speak on freedom of the press.

Nine days later, on August 20, a Swedish newspaper reported that Assange was wanted by Swedish police for questioning in relation to sexual assault allegations involving two women in Stockholm. Assange immediately tweeted on the WikiLeaks Twitter page: "We were warned to expect 'dirty tricks'. Now we have the first one.''

Subsequently, on August 23, Assange said in a telephone interview with Arab news channel Al Jazeera: ''We were warned on the 11th [of August] by Australian intelligence that we should expect this sort of thing.''

Assange is appealing a British court decision to uphold an arrest warrant for him to be extradited to Sweden for questioning about the sexual assault allegations. He and his lawyers have retreated from earlier claims that the allegations are the product of a conspiracy involving foreign intelligence agencies.

WikiLeaks also learnt its Australian intelligence source was aware of the group's intention to seek legal advice from a prominent Melbourne lawyer - information not public at the time and known only to people within WikiLeaks.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard was confronted with a video message from Assange when she appeared on ABC TV's Q&A program on Monday.

Assange asked the Prime Minister whether her government had exchanged information about Australian citizens, specifically people linked to WikiLeaks, with foreign powers.

He asked that if she could not give a straight answer to the question, whether the Australian people should consider her to have engaged in treason.

Ms Gillard replied ''I honestly don't know what he's talking about,'' adding that no one had asked her about Assange during her recent visit to Washington.

''So I'm afraid I can't help him with a full and frank exchange about people who work with WikiLeaks.''

Mr Gillard did acknowledge Australia regularly exchanges information about Australian citizens with other countries in relation to law enforcement matters, but she said in regard to WikiLeaks, ''to my knowledge, it hasn't happened''.

A spokesman for the Prime Minister yesterday declined to say whether Ms Gillard had initiated any inquiries to determine whether Assange's claim was correct.

A spokesperson for Attorney-General Robert McClelland said that the Attorney-General was unaware of information sharing concerning Assange, but said it was ''entirely appropriate'' for the US to investigate the leakage of classified information.

Egypt And The U.S. : Interference With The Internet #LeakSpin

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak :
The Countdown To Regime Change

The right to Internet access is so critical to citizens' participation in their own governments that the revolution taking place in Egypt has implications for the United States. Tonight, U.S. President Barack Obama addressed the bloody crackdown on the protests in Egypt.

From The New York Times :

Mr. Obama also said that Egyptian officials should "reverse the actions that they have taken to interfere with the Internet, cellphone service, social networks that do so much to connect people in the 21st century." He added, "going forward, this moment of volatility has to be turned into a moment of promise."

In a 2007 editorial ABC News online, Internet access was described as an important underpinning to democracies. When the governments of Burma and China restricted Internet access, the consequences to freedoms were indisputable. ''Democratic governments understand the connection between human rights and Internet freedom. They have been quick to condemn the Internet crackdown in Burma and China and the lack of Internet freedom in much of the world,'' wrote Leslie Harris.

Remember that before the Egyptian government suspended Internet access inside its country, ''President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States ... .''

Remember that before the Egyptian government shut down cellphone service, President Obama ordered the Justice Department to obtain a secret court order to demand that Twitter turn over, among other things, the ''subscriber names'' of the five individuals associated with WikiLeaks, an act that would blatantly deny subscribers their rights to due process.

Earlier today, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also made a statement to express her request that the Egyptian government restore Internet access.

''Mrs. Clinton also urged the government 'to reverse the unprecedented steps it has taken to cut off communications,' referring to its decision — apparently unprecedented — to cut off all Internet services in the country, as well as mobile phone networks in some areas,'' reported The Times.

For the U.S. government to actualise the exceptionalism that we know it to have, and for the U.S. government to truly support democracy in Egypt, it must be more honest about the dishonesty of the Egyptian government (''GOE''). Today, WikiLeaks published new U.S. Embassy cables, including one that gave some perspective into the inside information available to the U.S. government.

''The GOE has not begun serious work on trying to transform the police and security services from instruments of power that serve and protect the regime into institutions operating in the public interest, despite official slogans to the contrary.''

#CableGate, #LeakSpin, #09CAIRO79

Of Benazir Bhutto #LeakSpin

After The WikiLeaks Publications, What Needs To Be Explained About The Assassination Of Benazir Bhutto

Benazir Bhutto returned to Karachi on 18 October 2007 to prepare for the 2008 Pakistan national elections ; the BBC reported that Ms. Bhutto's return was the result of a ''power-sharing agreement with President Musharraf.'' She was assassinated on 27 December 2007. One day after the assassination of Ms. Bhutto, Hana Levi Julian published a report in IsraelNationalNews.com that the governments of each of Israel, the U.S., and Great Britain had ignored Ms. Bhutto's appeals for protection. Yet, after the publication by WikiLeaks of U.S. State department diplomatic cables, the exact role of the U.S. in Ms. Bhutto's October 2007 return to Pakistan, and her obvious need for protection, needs to be explained. For, in one of the cables, Asif Zardari, Ms. Bhutto's widower, recounted how Ms. Bhutto ''had returned despite the threats against her because of support and 'clearance' from the U.S.''

Moreover, several months following Ms. Bhutto's assassination, Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, had kicked the proverbial hornet's nest after it came to light that Mr. Khalilzad was providing advice and counsel (in some form or another) to Mr. Zardari. In the diplomatic confusion that played out in the news article published in The New York Times, it was reported that :

''Officially, the United States has remained neutral in the contest to succeed Mr. Musharraf, and there is concern within the State Department that the discussions between Mr. Khalilzad and Mr. Zardari, the widower of Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister, could leave the impression that the United States is taking sides in Pakistan’s already chaotic internal politics.''

If the U.S. was, indeed, remaining ''neutral,'' as The Times had reported, then what did Mr. Zardari mean when he said that his late wife ''had returned despite the threats against her because of support and 'clearance' from the U.S.?''

The foreign policy in play by the U.S. during the time leading up to, and following, Ms. Bhutto's return to Pakistan, and her subsequent assassination, reveal the doomed U.S. strategy in Pakistan, and, to some extent, in Afghanistan. After having invested billions of dollars in planning a strategy of the war in Afghanistan on an expectation of a partnership with Pakistan, and in particular with then-President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, the Bush administration was surely already ''taking sides in Pakistan’s already chaotic internal politics.''

Militants Set The Agenda

Following the coördinated terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush became obsessed with causing regime change in Iraq, even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. After it became apparent that the president did not believe that diplomacy alone was going to lead to regime change in Iraq, the president mobilised a unilateral first-strike in March 2003 against Iraq, in spite of opposition from the United Nations. This, and other belligerent examples of U.S. foreign policy under the Bush administration, would leave no cause to doubt that the Bush administration wanted to single-handedly ''control'' the circumstances of individual countries, during the prosecution of the war on terror. So, naturally, in August 2008, when John D. Negroponte, the deputy secretary of state, and Richard A. Boucher, the assistant secretary of state for South Asia, became ''angry'' over news that the U.S. United Nations Ambassador Khalilzad was offering counsel to Mr. Zardari in the time leading up to the Pakistan national elections, it was precisely because the aim of U.S. involvement in Pakistan was never to promote democratic elections, but to reserve the channels of communication and assistance between Pakistan and the U.S. solely at the hands of Mr. Negroponte, Mr. Boucher, Anne W. Patterson, the American ambassador to Pakistan, and Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. Secretary of State.

Notwithstanding Ambassador Patterson's remarks to Mr. Zardari, wherein she said that, ''we continue to support the [Pakistan People's Party] and our shared struggle against extremism and in favor of the democratic process in Pakistan,'' the U.S. couldn't even tolerate any kind of assistance or counsel that was being provided to Mr. Zardari or to the Pakistan People's Party, as evidenced by the backlash faced by Ambassador Khalilzad.

On the one hand, the U.S. wanted regime change in Iraq, but it could not, on the other hand, support democracy-building in Pakistan.

A Limited Strategy Of Containment

Many members of the U.S. Congress maintained close relations with Ms. Bhutto, according to one of the cables. Not only that, but three unnamed U.S. Senators also interceded on behalf of Ms. Bhutto's safety, when she requested President Musharraf for '' 'basic security,' including vehicles with tinted windows and private guards in addition to police guards. '' What is more, even as Ms. Bhutto's life was in danger, the CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer was in possession of information about the danger Ms. Bhutto was in, but he chose not to report about it until after she was killed.

If it was true that the Bush administration did not want any non-State Department channels of communication or support to be involved in the Pakistan national elections, then how did the Bush administration react, officially or unofficially, with the 3 U.S. Senators and the reporter, Mr. Blitzer ?

Beyond that, now that we are in the midst of the Cablegate news cycle, will the Obama administration deal with Julian Assange's role in the publication of the State Department cables the same way that the Bush administration dealt with the trading of sensitive information regarding Ms. Bhutto's safety, which would no doubt have risen to be considered, at the very least, sensitive State Department information, by the 3 U.S. Senators and the reporter, Mr. Blitzer ? Whatever the approach that the Obama administration takes in respect of Mr. Assange, it will look like a selective and arbitrary application of restrictions that would apply to Mr. Assange, but not to Mr. Blitzer.

The Predictable Election Cycle Offensive

Even though the Bush administration was conveying, through The New York Times article about Ambassador Khalilzad, that the Bush administration did want to be seen being involved in the Pakistan national elections, in one of the State Department cables, we find that Mr. Zardari was thanking the visiting Congressional Delegation of U.S. Representatives Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Allyson Schwartz (D-PA) for U.S. government ''support of credible national elections'' in Pakistan. Further, the U.S. government should have reasonably expected, even without Mr. Zardari's mentioning, that ''what happens in Pakistan has a spillover effect in Afghanistan, Iran, and India.''

Indeed, not only was Mr. Zardari requesting ''U.S. blessing for his leadership,'' but, at the time of his meeting with the U.S. Congressional delegation, Mr. Zardari was also ''struggling'' with how to explain to ''rank and file'' of the Pakistan People's Party the ''idea of continuing to work with a superpower which supported Musharraf.''

Whereas the ''official'' narrative of the U.S. State Department was that the U.S. had ''remained neutral in the contest to succeed Mr. Musharraf,'' in reality, the fingerprints of the U.S. government were all over Ms. Bhutto's return to Pakistan -- and on the meetings Mr. Zardari had, in an effort to build support for his campaign.

The ''official'' U.S. State Department narrative was a sham.

Scenesetter For The Rest Of The World

One day after Ms. Bhutto was killed, Ambassador Patterson filed a cable in which the U.S. was assessing the qualifications of Chaudhry Pervais Elahi, the Pakistan Muslim League's presumed candidate for Prime Minister. About one month later, on January 25, 2008, Mr. Zardari, Ms. Bhutto's widower, met with Ambassador Patterson. During the meeting, Mr. Zardari described the US as Pakistan's ''our safety blanket.''

But this meeting of 25 January 2008, and the intelligence and requests that were being gleamed from it, were coming too late, if one were to believe that the U.S. would be taking action to support democracy and a stable government in Pakistan. Otherwise, this meeting was coming right on time, if one were to believe that the U.S. would remain ''neutral,'' meaning that the U.S. would be taking no action to support democracy and a stable government in Pakistan.

Little more than one week later, Ambassador Patterson dispatched a cable to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen. In the cable, Ambassador Patterson expressed a need for Adm. Mullen's help with setting the scene for ''necessary reforms'' in Pakistan's military. She added :

''A year ago, Musharraf's popularity was high; we were working together to support a smooth transition to a civilian government. Beginning with his decision to fire the Chief Justice in March 2007, Musharraf has made repeated political blunders culminating in a state of emergency (SOE) and temporary suspension of the constitution. He is increasingly isolated after firing long-time advisors who disagreed with some of these decisions.''

After all of the hemming and hawing, we find out from Ambassador Patterson that, ''We can work with any of the likely candidates for Prime Minister. But it may take weeks or even months after the election before a new Prime Minister is chosen and Pakistan again has a functional government that can focus on tackling extremism and necessary economic reform.'' Too bad that Ms. Bhutto and Mr. Zardari believed, during the time that it mattered to Ms. Bhutto's safety and to the integrity of the Pakistan national elections, that Ms. Bhutto had returned to Pakistan with any real '' 'clearance' from the U.S.''

In his meeting with the Congressional Delegation, Mr. Zardari expressed the motivating fear of the Pakistani people : '' Zardari described the general distrust of the U.S. by the public and in political circles, 'fearing you will leave us again.' '' To the detriment of the democratic elections of our partners in the war on terror, the U.S. was playing both sides of the involvement coin. And this would not have been known, either officially or unofficially, by U.S. taxpayers, some of whom are paying the ultimate price for the war on terror, until Mr. Assange published the State Department cables.

#CableGate, #LeakSpin, #10ISLAMABAD416, #07ISLAMABAD5388, #08ISLAMABAD405, #08ISLAMABAD525, #08ISLAMABAD1998, #09ISLAMABAD236, #09ISLAMABAD1438

Author's Notes

This analysis is the first edition of research, based on a review of cables released as of 17 December 2010, which originated from Islamabad. A future edition may be published, provided that further releases of related cables are made. Please check here for a link to the publication of any subsequent editions : (placeholder intentionally left blank ; no updated edition is yet available). If no updates are yet available, you will not yet see a hyperlink in the immediately-preceeding placeholder. Not all of the listed cables are referred to in this analysis, but they were considered in the composition of this analysis.

This analysis and research is published under the constitutional right of freedom of the press, which allows for communication and expression of ideas and thoughts. As a blog that operates as a form of social media journalism, this blog posting is made under the rights and freedoms afforded under the First Amendment.