Friday, March 18, 2011

Dear Mr. President,

While your CIA assassins kill Pakistani citizens by remote control using armed drones, WikiLeaks strikes another blow for democracy by exposing the truth behind the diplomatic lies and hypocrisy of governments. The latest release of U.S. diplomatic cables shows the blatant corruption of India’s ruling party, the Congress Party, handing out bribes in cash and jet airplanes(!) in return for favorable votes on a nuclear bill. Who’s the criminal here, the nameless CIA assassins who kill innocent civilians or the whistle-blowers who believe that people are entitled to know the truth? Who deserves to be locked up for 9 months in solitary confinement in a Marine brig under the harshest conditions, the CIA assassins or the truth-tellers? It’s clear to me that Bradley Manning – if he actually leaked all that classified information to WikiLeaks – is a patriot and hero of democracy and should be recognized as such. Instead, he’s locked up for 11 months without a trial, without a hearing, without any recourse, for 9 months  under maximum security conditions that are nothing short of torture. Under your watch, Mr. President. He is your responsibility and you do nothing to rectify this terrible injustice. But that’s part of your pattern: you do nothing to promote democratic revolutions in the Middle East; you do nothing to stop the assault on democracy by right-wing conservatives here at home; and you do nothing to turn your slogan of Hope, Change and Transformation from an empty promise into reality. You are failing on every level, Mr. President. You are not defending freedom, democracy and truth, but rather, enabling tyrants and dictators, furthering oppression and injustice. You do nothing to stop the Saudis from sending troops and tanks into Bahrain where they brutally murder protesters and crush the nascent movement for democracy, do nothing in Libya but utter empty threats to Qaddafi to stop the slaughter of his own people, do nothing in Yemen, in Jordan, in Syria... We need more Bradley Mannings and fewer CIA assassins. We need more truth and less lies, more honesty and less hypocrisy, more compassion and involvement and less careless disregard for the “democratic aspirations” (your phrase) of the oppressed. Your callousness toward Bradley Manning’s plight is yet another moral failure in an ongoing string of moral failures.

Free Bradley Manning!