Wednesday, June 05, 2013

Bradley Manning: prisoner of conscience...

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Of course the terrible irony of today’s situation is that over six decades ago at Nuremberg the U.S. government participated in the prosecution, punishment, and execution of Nazi government officials for committing some of the same types of heinous international crimes that these officials of the United States government have inflicted upon people all over the world. To be sure, I personally oppose the imposition of capital punishment upon any human being for any reason no matter how monstrous their crimes.

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One generation ago the peoples of the world asked themselves: Where were the “good” Germans? Well, there were some good Germans. The Lutheran theologian and pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer was the foremost exemplar of someone who led a life of principled opposition to the Nazi-terror state even unto death.

Today the peoples of the world are likewise asking themselves: Where are the “good” Americans? Well, there are some good Americans. They are getting prosecuted for protesting against and resisting illegal U.S. military interventions and war crimes around the world. Private Bradley Manning is America’s equivalent to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Vaclav Havel, Andrei Sakharov, Wei Jingsheng, Aung San Suu Kyi, and others. He is the archetypal American Hero whom we should be bringing into our schools and teaching our children to emulate, not those wholesale purveyors of gratuitous violence and bloodshed adulated by the U.S. government, America’s financial power elite, the mainstream corporate news media, and its interlocked entertainment industry. Full story...

Related posts:
  1. The war against Bradley Manning: a war against all who speak out against injustice...
  2. Truth on Trial: 'Manning did amazing service to people'.
  3. 'Manning shouldn't serve even one day in prison'
  4. International protests mark Bradley Manning’s 1,000 days in prison...
  5. Never forget that Bradley Manning, not gay marriage, is the issue...
  6. Bradley Manning trial a warning for whistleblowers?

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