Shame on you Obama

The treatment of Bradley Manning has been nothing short of disgraceful. The man is about to be tried for leaking secret information to Wikileaks. He has been held in solitary confinement for months. During that time he has had his sleep regularly and routinely interrupted. He has been subjected to degradation and humiliation from a military that clearly believes Law and  Order does not apply to the mightiest military machine on earth. The military’s deeds in this case appear to contradict the wishes of the founding fathers, who worried about their armed forces becoming too powerful. So much so they enshrined the need for the military to be subordinate to Congress in the Constitution. Remember all this has taken place before his trial. He is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.

One of the items allegedly released was disgraceful and shocking video footage of the crew of a helicopter gunship. They casually gunned down several innocent civilians in Iraq including two journalists and children. One of the reporters had a camera. The gung-ho murderers masquerading as highly trained soldiers thought the camera was a rocket launcher. What was worst of all was the casual disregard the killers displayed towards the lives of the people they were slaughtering from their safe place in the sky. The dialogue accompanying the film clips was chilling.

Manning is charged with breaches of secrecy and bringing the good ole U S of A into disrepute around the world.

No. 

Not so. 

It is the actions of ill-trained numbskulls murdering innocent people from gunships. And it is the routine covering-up of such events.

It is the use of similar numbskulls to launch drone attacks on men, women and children in Afghanistan or Pakistan, putting an end to any chance of a  ‘hearts and minds’ approach.

It is the abomination of Guantanamo. 

It is the disgrace of Abu Graibh. 

It is the trillions of dollars spent killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis so that Big Oil can get its greedy mitts on their oil. 

It is spending trillions of dollars on illegal wars when the country back home is broke.

It is the collusion with all of the above by a President who promised to make things so much better after the reign of the Bush Gang. 

Shame on you Obama. Shame on you America.

Even more dismaying is seeing current Republican candidates who are far, far worse.