Bradley Manning Says US Public Lied to About Iraq War from the Start

[Chef Ramsay]

New York (AFP) - The detained US soldier convicted of leaking a trove of secret documents to WikiLeaks made a rare foray into public life Saturday to warn Americans they were being lied to about Iraq once more.

Chelsea Manning is serving a 35-year prison sentence on espionage charges and other offenses for passing along 700,000 secret documents, including diplomatic cables and military intelligence files, to anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks in the largest-scale leak in US history.

"I understand that my actions violated the law. However, the concerns that motivated me have not been resolved," the soldier formerly known as Bradley Manning wrote in a New York Times editorial.

"As Iraq erupts in civil war and America again contemplates intervention, that unfinished business should give new urgency to the question of how the United States military controlled the media coverage of its long involvement there and in Afghanistan."

President Barack Obama said this week he was "looking at all the options" to halt the offensive that has brought militants within 50 miles (80 kilometers) of Baghdad's city limits, but ruled out any return of US combat troops.

Obama has been under mounting fire from Republican critics over the swift collapse of Iraq's security forces, which Washington spent billions of dollars training and equipping before pulling out its own troops in 2011.

While the US military was upbeat in its public outlook on the 2010 Iraqi parliamentary elections, suggesting it had helped bring stability and democracy to the country, "those of us stationed there were acutely aware of a more complicated reality," Manning wrote.

"Military and diplomatic reports coming across my desk detailed a brutal crackdown against political dissidents by the Iraqi Ministry of Interior and federal police, on behalf of Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki. Detainees were often tortured, or even killed."

Manning, a former US Army intelligence analyst, said he was "shocked by our military's complicity in the corruption of that election. Yet these deeply troubling details flew under the American media's radar."

Criticizing the military's practice of embedding journalists, Manning charged that "the current limits on press freedom and excessive government secrecy make it impossible for Americans to grasp fully what is happening in the wars we finance."

Manning is serving out the prison sentence at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas and had requested a name change after court-martial proceedings revealed the soldier's emotional turmoil over sexual identity.

A US Army general denied clemency to Manning in April, upholding the 35-year sentence.

h/t https://news.yahoo.com/manning-says-us-public-lied-iraq-start-030349079.html
And so many Americans don't understand how censored the US press really is. I'm referring to the corporate press of course. I work at a hospital and I encounter upwards of a 100 different people every day and it really stands out how in the dark most of these drones really are.

[beetcoin]

New York (AFP) - The detained US soldier convicted of leaking a trove of secret documents to WikiLeaks made a rare foray into public life Saturday to warn Americans they were being lied to about Iraq once more.

Chelsea Manning is serving a 35-year prison sentence on espionage charges and other offenses for passing along 700,000 secret documents, including diplomatic cables and military intelligence files, to anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks in the largest-scale leak in US history.

"I understand that my actions violated the law. However, the concerns that motivated me have not been resolved," the soldier formerly known as Bradley Manning wrote in a New York Times editorial.

"As Iraq erupts in civil war and America again contemplates intervention, that unfinished business should give new urgency to the question of how the United States military controlled the media coverage of its long involvement there and in Afghanistan."

President Barack Obama said this week he was "looking at all the options" to halt the offensive that has brought militants within 50 miles (80 kilometers) of Baghdad's city limits, but ruled out any return of US combat troops.

Obama has been under mounting fire from Republican critics over the swift collapse of Iraq's security forces, which Washington spent billions of dollars training and equipping before pulling out its own troops in 2011.

While the US military was upbeat in its public outlook on the 2010 Iraqi parliamentary elections, suggesting it had helped bring stability and democracy to the country, "those of us stationed there were acutely aware of a more complicated reality," Manning wrote.

"Military and diplomatic reports coming across my desk detailed a brutal crackdown against political dissidents by the Iraqi Ministry of Interior and federal police, on behalf of Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki. Detainees were often tortured, or even killed."

Manning, a former US Army intelligence analyst, said he was "shocked by our military's complicity in the corruption of that election. Yet these deeply troubling details flew under the American media's radar."

Criticizing the military's practice of embedding journalists, Manning charged that "the current limits on press freedom and excessive government secrecy make it impossible for Americans to grasp fully what is happening in the wars we finance."

Manning is serving out the prison sentence at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas and had requested a name change after court-martial proceedings revealed the soldier's emotional turmoil over sexual identity.

A US Army general denied clemency to Manning in April, upholding the 35-year sentence.

h/t https://news.yahoo.com/manning-says-us-public-lied-iraq-start-030349079.html
And so many Americans don't understand how censored the US press really is. I'm referring to the corporate press of course. I work at a hospital and I encounter upwards of a 100 different people every day and it really stands out how in the dark most of these drones really are.

the US media is absolutely censored, mainly because media magnates own them and it helps them and their friends make more and more money. i stopped even watching the media a few years ago.. got sick of the CNN bullshit.

[Chef Ramsay]

^If you really want a good dose of propaganda turn on MSNBC at any time and watch the panel of pimps selling you down the river. They're just so outlandish that it'd be funny if it wasn't so sad. Progs eat that stuff up as much or more than the righties do on Fox.

[beetcoin]

^If you really want a good dose of propaganda turn on MSNBC at any time and watch the panel of pimps selling you down the river. They're just so outlandish that it'd be funny if it wasn't so sad. Progs eat that stuff up as much or more than the righties do on Fox.

are you serious? all that fud that goes on fox? climate change deniers. wall street apologists. i mean, for fuck's sakes, sarah palin was a regular contributor for a few years. there seems to be a lot of republicans or conservatives on bitcointalk.

we are talking about a party that uses the word "professor" and "intellectual" with airquotes, as if it were some dirty word.

i don't watch MSNBC because they are boring.. not because they say more crazy shit than fox. hell, i think fox gets some viewers just because of the crazy shit they say. i even had a girl tell me she watched it just for that sake.

[commandrix]

Not too surprised. They never did find those Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. Right now what we should do is step back and tell Whatzisname who leads Iraq, "This is your chance to prove that you've got a viable state. If you can't, we're coming in and replacing you." And stick to it.

[Chef Ramsay]

Imo what we should be doing is staying out internal conflicts in other nations and certainly don't start them to begin with. Let the different regions of Iraq go their separate ways and be done with it. That massive embassy we built there should never have been erected to begin with, including all the random outposts.

[beetcoin]

^ the only people that disagree with you are the politicians (and their constituents) who deepen their pockets from war. i'd think typical americans don't care about going to war in the middle or anywhere else.

i don't mean to shit on war veterans, but i don't like it when you see NBA players talking about how they make our country so safe.. how, since WW2, has our military made us safer?

[leezay]

The rest of the world already know the real reason for going to war before the war began.

Most American probably don't even care about those issues.

[taipo]

are you serious? all that fud that goes on fox? climate change deniers. wall street apologists. i mean, for fuck's sakes, sarah palin was a regular contributor for a few years. there seems to be a lot of republicans or conservatives on bitcointalk.

Such is the level of disingenuousness at FoxNews, that if it comes to telling the truth to hurt the democratic party, they will do so.

[Spendulus]

^If you really want a good dose of propaganda turn on MSNBC at any time and watch the panel of pimps selling you down the river. They're just so outlandish that it'd be funny if it wasn't so sad. Progs eat that stuff up as much or more than the righties do on Fox.

are you serious? all that fud that goes on fox? climate change deniers. wall street apologists. i mean, for fuck's sakes, sarah palin was a regular contributor for a few years. there seems to be a lot of republicans or conservatives on bitcointalk.

we are talking about a party that uses the word "professor" and "intellectual" with airquotes, as if it were some dirty word.

i don't watch MSNBC because they are boring.. not because they say more crazy shit than fox. hell, i think fox gets some viewers just because of the crazy shit they say. i even had a girl tell me she watched it just for that sake.

Are YOU serious?

What if fuck's name is anyone smart enough to be posting on bitcointalk.org doing watch outdated broadcast and cable "news" of any sort?  I cut off directv three years ago, and man that was the smartest thing I ever did.

Now we have this cool home theater rig that does youtube, and movies.  No bullshit.  I read Instapundit and Drudge to find out what's going on.

Turning that hypnobox off best thing we ever did.

[practicaldreamer]

Imo what we should be doing is staying out internal conflicts in other nations and certainly don't start them to begin with.

Amen to that.

I see Tony Blair has been talking tough again - if you keep saying it enough Tony you might start believing it - but you're gonna have to do a lot better when it comes to explaining yourself to the big man upstairs. Maybe your friends in Israel might be able to pull a few strings.

  Tough talking Tony - he really is a hard fucker - especially when it comes to sending other peoples sons off to die. He's the heavyweight champion of the world in that.

  How in Christs name I ever came to vote for that man in '97 I will never know.

   The top man of the BBC at the time, Greg Dyke, was forced out of his job for allowing BBC journalists to question the validity of the call to arms over Iraq, when the whole "weapons of mass destruction" line proved to be fabricated and unmitigated bullshit.

[beetcoin]

^If you really want a good dose of propaganda turn on MSNBC at any time and watch the panel of pimps selling you down the river. They're just so outlandish that it'd be funny if it wasn't so sad. Progs eat that stuff up as much or more than the righties do on Fox.

are you serious? all that fud that goes on fox? climate change deniers. wall street apologists. i mean, for fuck's sakes, sarah palin was a regular contributor for a few years. there seems to be a lot of republicans or conservatives on bitcointalk.

we are talking about a party that uses the word "professor" and "intellectual" with airquotes, as if it were some dirty word.

i don't watch MSNBC because they are boring.. not because they say more crazy shit than fox. hell, i think fox gets some viewers just because of the crazy shit they say. i even had a girl tell me she watched it just for that sake.

Are YOU serious?

What if fuck's name is anyone smart enough to be posting on bitcointalk.org doing watch outdated broadcast and cable "news" of any sort?  I cut off directv three years ago, and man that was the smartest thing I ever did.

Now we have this cool home theater rig that does youtube, and movies.  No bullshit.  I read Instapundit and Drudge to find out what's going on.

Turning that hypnobox off best thing we ever did.

um, are we talking about the same thing? maybe you should read what i wrote.. i didn't defend any cable news network, i'm just saying fox says way crazier shit than any of the other networks.

[Chef Ramsay]

^If you really want a good dose of propaganda turn on MSNBC at any time and watch the panel of pimps selling you down the river. They're just so outlandish that it'd be funny if it wasn't so sad. Progs eat that stuff up as much or more than the righties do on Fox.

are you serious? all that fud that goes on fox? climate change deniers. wall street apologists. i mean, for fuck's sakes, sarah palin was a regular contributor for a few years. there seems to be a lot of republicans or conservatives on bitcointalk.

we are talking about a party that uses the word "professor" and "intellectual" with airquotes, as if it were some dirty word.

i don't watch MSNBC because they are boring.. not because they say more crazy shit than fox. hell, i think fox gets some viewers just because of the crazy shit they say. i even had a girl tell me she watched it just for that sake.

Are YOU serious?

What if fuck's name is anyone smart enough to be posting on bitcointalk.org doing watch outdated broadcast and cable "news" of any sort?  I cut off directv three years ago, and man that was the smartest thing I ever did.

Now we have this cool home theater rig that does youtube, and movies.  No bullshit.  I read Instapundit and Drudge to find out what's going on.

Turning that hypnobox off best thing we ever did.

um, are we talking about the same thing? maybe you should read what i wrote.. i didn't defend any cable news network, i'm just saying fox says way crazier shit than any of the other networks.

At least Fox has Sen. Paul and some other libertarian guests on here and there which gives some better commentary than the rest of them. The only person on MSNBC that is worth a crap is Dylan Ratigan. And when you're talking about climate change, there's usually an agenda at work in terms of more regulations that curtail freedom even further.

[beetcoin]

^If you really want a good dose of propaganda turn on MSNBC at any time and watch the panel of pimps selling you down the river. They're just so outlandish that it'd be funny if it wasn't so sad. Progs eat that stuff up as much or more than the righties do on Fox.

are you serious? all that fud that goes on fox? climate change deniers. wall street apologists. i mean, for fuck's sakes, sarah palin was a regular contributor for a few years. there seems to be a lot of republicans or conservatives on bitcointalk.

we are talking about a party that uses the word "professor" and "intellectual" with airquotes, as if it were some dirty word.

i don't watch MSNBC because they are boring.. not because they say more crazy shit than fox. hell, i think fox gets some viewers just because of the crazy shit they say. i even had a girl tell me she watched it just for that sake.

Are YOU serious?

What if fuck's name is anyone smart enough to be posting on bitcointalk.org doing watch outdated broadcast and cable "news" of any sort?  I cut off directv three years ago, and man that was the smartest thing I ever did.

Now we have this cool home theater rig that does youtube, and movies.  No bullshit.  I read Instapundit and Drudge to find out what's going on.

Turning that hypnobox off best thing we ever did.

um, are we talking about the same thing? maybe you should read what i wrote.. i didn't defend any cable news network, i'm just saying fox says way crazier shit than any of the other networks.

At least Fox has Sen. Paul and some other libertarian guests on here and there which gives some better commentary than the rest of them. The only person on MSNBC that is worth a crap is Dylan Ratigan. And when you're talking about climate change, there's usually an agenda at work in terms of more regulations that curtail freedom even further.

that's mainly because we do need more regulations on emissions.. i don't see how you are justifying fox's stance on pollution because "it's just more reason for regulation." more likely, it's because the big oil guys are buddies with fox and conservatives.. there's no other reason why they could outright deny the effects of climate change.

[bryant.coleman]

the US media is absolutely censored, mainly because media magnates own them and it helps them and their friends make more and more money. i stopped even watching the media a few years ago.. got sick of the CNN bullshit.

Why depend upon the government controlled channels such as CNN, BBC, MSNBC, Faux News.etc? Watch foreign news channels such as Russia Today or Deutsche Welle. Even France 24, NHK World, and Press TV are better than the CNN. 

[niothor]

the US media is absolutely censored, mainly because media magnates own them and it helps them and their friends make more and more money. i stopped even watching the media a few years ago.. got sick of the CNN bullshit.

Why depend upon the government controlled channels such as CNN, BBC, MSNBC, Faux News.etc? Watch foreign news channels such as Russia Today or Deutsche Welle. Even France 24, NHK World, and Press TV are better than the CNN.  

Indeed , why watch US government controlled channels , please watch Russian government controlled channels . Or German controlled ones .

[beetcoin]

i gets my news mainly from reddit/the daily show.. reddit, because it's mainly crowdsourced, and the daily show because their job is not only to inform you (and do a better job at it than other real news networks), but also to make fun of the stupidity in washington.