WikiLeaks cables and the Iraq War

[dana_b]

Glenn Greenwald
Sunday, Oct 23, 2011 4:44 AM Pacific Daylight Time

From a CNN report on why the Iraqi Government rejected the Obama administration’s conditions for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq beyond the 2011 deadline:

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other top brass have repeatedly said any deal to keep U.S. troops in Iraq beyond the withdrawal deadline would require a guarantee of legal protection for American soldiers. But the Iraqis refused to agree to that, opening up the prospect of Americans being tried in Iraqi courts and subjected to Iraqi punishment.

The negotiations were strained following WikiLeaks’ release of a diplomatic cable that alleged Iraqi civilians, including children, were killed in a 2006 raid by American troops rather than in an airstrike as the U.S. military initially reported.

That description from CNN of the cable’s contents is, unsurprisingly, diluted to the point of obfuscation. That cable was released by WikiLeaks in May, 2011, and, as McClatchy put it at the time, “provides evidence that U.S. troops executed at least 10 Iraqi civilians, including a woman in her 70s and a 5-month-old infant, then called in an airstrike to destroy the evidence, during a controversial 2006 incident in the central Iraqi town of Ishaqi.” The U.S. then lied and claimed the civilians were killed by the airstrike. Although this incident had been previously documented by the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, the high-profile release of the cable by WikiLeaks generated substantial attention (and disgust) in Iraq, which made it politically unpalatable for the Iraqi government to grant the legal immunity the Obama adminstration was seeking. Indeed, it was widely reported at the time the cable was released that it made it much more difficult for Iraq to allow U.S. troops to remain beyond the deadline under any conditions.

http://www.salon.com/2011/10/23/wikileaks_cables_and_the_iraq_war/singleton/

More at the link

[sabrina 1]

1. There should never be immunity for war crimes.

All that does is allow brutal criminals like Blackwater, who also had immunity, to rape and slaughter innocent people with no accountability.

I'm glad to see the Iraqis standing up for their citizens. Here their citizens are viewed as commodities, and as one US General said when asked how many Iraqis had been killed, 'we don't do body counts'. This disrespect for human life by those who are running this world is reprehensible.

And we should never have been in Iraq in the first place. They can never get back their dead citizens, those beautiful children I will never forget the first photos by Dahr Jamail of all those bodies of little babies and children. Those parents, I often wonder how they deal with those horrific memories. And we are still doing it now with those cowardly drones.

[kas125]

2. So, it was Bradley Manning and Wikileaks who ended the war.

I wonder if Brad Manning even knows that the war is ending and that what he did is the reason.

[99th_Monkey]

3. delete - dupe

[99th_Monkey]

4. Unless US Troops can murder with impunity, no deal. Very revealing.

Not that everybody didn't know already what US has been doing there, but still...

[slipslidingaway]

5. knr, another snip ...

"...Assuming the truth of those chat logs, he was motivated precisely by seeing cables of the sort that detailed this civilian slaughter and subsequent cover-up in Iraq, and the extreme levels of theft and oppression by Arab dictators, and the desire to have the world know about it. Meanwhile, those responsible for the Iraq War, and who suppressed freedom and democracy in the Middle East by propping up those tyrants, and who committed a slew of other illegal and deeply corrupt acts, continue to prosper and wield substantial power.

History is filled with examples of those who most bravely challenged and subverted corrupted power and who sought reforms being rewarded with prison or worse, at the hands of those whose bad actions they exposed. If Bradley Manning did leak these cables, his imprisonment is a prime example of that inverted justice..."

[dana_b]

6. amazing, isn't it?

what he and others did worked but has he given up his freedom for good in doing so?

[slipslidingaway]

9. Yes - U.N. torture investigator says access to Manning denied ...

condemns solitary confinement

October 19, 2011

http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/releases/u-n-torture-investigator-confirms-no-unmonitored-access-to-bradley-manning-condemns-solitary-confinement

"NEW YORK — Juan Mendez, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, confirmed yesterday that the Department of Defense has blocked his requests for an unmonitored meeting with PFC Bradley Manning, the accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower. He told reporters gathered at a U.N. General Assembly committee on human rights that he would be issuing a report on Bradley Manning’s case “in the next few weeks.”

Mendez noted that the Obama administration had offered the possibility of a meeting, but only under “conditions in which they could not confirm the confidentiality of my conversations with him.” He said that, according to the rules of his U.N. mandate, “that is a condition that we cannot accept.”

...“The Special Rapporteur’s report on Bradley Manning’s conditions of confinement unfortunately won’t be complete so long as the Obama administration prevents them from having a private conversation,” said Kevin Zeese, a legal adviser with the Bradley Manning Support Network. “The administration owes an explanation to the American people why they won’t let a U.N. official investigate evidence of Eighth Amendment violations committed against a U.S. citizen.”

...Supporters of Bradley Manning recently surpassed a signature threshold on a new White House petition website demanding unmonitored access to Manning for the U.N. investigator. According to the website’s rules, the administration must now issue an official response to the request."

[dana_b]

10. I wonder what there response will be

to the petition. I know that he is in the military but does that mean that ALL of his rights are gone? Why can't he have a private conversation?

[slipslidingaway]

11. Hopefully they'll respond, the ACLU argues that one does not give up...

all their constitutional rights when they join the military.

This is from April 2011 ...

http://keysnews.com/node/31121

"...Since Pfc. Manning was an Army intelligence analyst in Iraq, he does not seem to come under Fifth Amendment protections. But our young men and women do not lose their constitutional protections by signing up for the military. The ACLU has argued that Manning is protected under the Eighth Amendment.

In a March 16 letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, National ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero wrote: "As a pretrial detainee who has been convicted of no crime, Private Manning may not be subjected to punitive treatment. Based on the reports of Private Manning and his counsel, it is clear the gratuitously harsh treatment to which the Department of Defense is subjecting Private Manning violates fundamental constitutional norms."

[leftstreet]

7. K&R

[redqueen]

8. K&R