Atilla and his huns are coming. They've taken PFC Manning

Notes 75

It is a wisdom that has been overlooked because unneeded. But now it is solidarity for survival or the huns will take over and bag the capital

Thursday 10 March 2011
William Rivers Pitt | Then They Came for the Trade Unionists
William Rivers Pitt, Truthout: "On this day, it behooves us to remember the words of Martin Niemoller. 'First they came for the communists,' he wrote, 'and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.' I am a trade unionist, and yesterday in Wisconsin, they came for me."

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The key to understanding why our regime change wars take so long

Anti-Taliban leader warns Pakistan government

By Chris Brummitt, Associated Press – Thu Mar 10
ISLAMABAD – The leader of a powerful anti-Taliban militia on Thursday threatened to stop cooperating with authorities after a deadly suicide bombing on his men — a warning that highlights the risks Pakistan is taking by using private armies with questionable loyalties in its struggle against the insurgents.
Dilawar Khan and other militia leaders close to Peshawar have long demanded more money and weapons from authorities in northwest Pakistan, accusing the government of encouraging them to rise up against the Taliban but not giving them the support needed to do so.
But authorities, worried about giving them too much power, have been careful not to give them too much.

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But I guess “just” wars are not violent

Pope's new book: Violence never in God's name
By Nicole Winfield, Associated Press – Thu Mar 10
VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI rejects the idea of Jesus as a political revolutionary and insists that violent revolution must never be carried out in God's name in a new book being released Thursday amid great fanfare at the start of Lent.
"Jesus of Nazareth - Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection."
In the book, Benedict exonerates the Jews as a people for Christ's death. He also insists that Jesus never advocated violent revolution, as some liberation theologians have suggested, saying violence was not His way no matter how valid the motivation.
"Violence does not build up the kingdom of God, the kingdom of humanity. On the contrary, it is a favorite instrument of the Antichrist, however idealistic its religious motivation may be," Benedict wrote. "It serves, not humanity, but inhumanity."

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U.S gets away with renditioning. Why not Israel?
UN accuses Israel of kidnapping Palestinian
By Maria Danilova, Associated Press
KIEV, Ukraine – The Palestinian engineer vanished from a Ukrainian train in the middle of the night.
Now, the United Nations refugee agency confirms his wife's fears that he is being held in prison by the Israeli secret service, most likely after being kidnapped nearly three weeks ago.
Maksim Butkevych, spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Ukraine, said Abu Sisi has been in custody in Israel since shortly after his disappearance. The U.N. agency believes he was abducted and illegally transported by Israeli security forces, perhaps with the aid of Ukrainian counterparts.
"We don't know details of his trip from Ukraine to Israel — let's put it this way," said Butkevych. "But unfortunately, what happened looks like a violent abduction and not a legal extradition or any other legal action on the part of authorities."

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Can it be? Chris Christie, the straight shooting governor of New Jersey lying? I’m shocked

Thu Mar 10, 1:29 pm ET
Chris Christie’s tough talk not accurate, newspaper finds
By Rachel Rose Hartman – Thu Mar 10,
New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie is known for his tough-talking, tell-it-like-it-is persona. But the New York Times suggests maybe you shouldn't believe everything you hear from this conservative star.
Richard Perez-Pena reports that Christie has made several large, inaccurate claims to bolster his arguments, including: most government workers pay nothing for health insurance; school employee concessions in New Jersey would have prevented school program cuts; and that Christie balanced the budget without raising taxes.

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Bust unions--The majority has finally made their purpose clear

Robert Reich | Governor Walker's Coup D'Etat
Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog: "Governor Scott Walker and his Wisconsin senate Republicans have laid bare the motives for their coup d'etat. By severing the financial part of the bill (which couldn't be passed without absent Democrats) from the part eliminating the collective bargaining rights of public employees (which could be), and then doing the latter, Wisconsin Republicans have made it crystal clear that their goal has had nothing whatever to do with the state budget. It's been to bust the unions."

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When waterboarding can be justified as perfectly legal and proper by the Justice Department and the Vice President and the President, who should be surprised that the detainment of PFC Manning is not also claimed to be within the rule books of the military?

The New York Times, yesterday:
A lawyer for Pfc. Bradley Manning, the Army intelligence analyst accused of leaking secret government files to WikiLeaks, has complained that his client was stripped and left naked in his cell for seven hours on Wednesday. . . . The soldier's clothing was returned to him Thursday morning, after he was required to stand naked outside his cell during an inspection. . . . First Lt. Brian Villiard, a Marine spokesman, said a brig duty supervisor had ordered Private Manning's clothing taken from him.
New York Times, June 8, 2004:
In the weeks since photographs of naked detainees set off the abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib, military officials have portrayed the sexual humiliation captured in the images as the isolated acts of a rogue night shift. But forced nudity of prisoners was pervasive in the military intelligence unit of Abu Ghraib, so much so that soldiers later said they had not seen "the whole nudity thing," as one captain called it, as abusive or out of the ordinary