War on Syria

In an interview with the French TV station LCP, former French minister for Foreign Affairs Roland Dumas said:

‘’ I’m going to tell you something. I was in England two years before the violence in Syria on other business. I met with top British officials, who confessed to me that they were preparing something in Syria.

This was in Britain not in America. Britain was organizing an invasion of rebels into Syria. They even asked me, although I was no longer minister for foreign affairs, if I would like to participate.

Naturally, I refused, I said I’m French, that doesn’t interest me.’’

Dumas went on give the audience a quick lesson on the real reason for the war that has now claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people.

‘’This operation goes way back. It was prepared, preconceived and planned… in the region it is important to know that this Syrian regime has a very anti-Israeli stance.

Consequently, everything that moves in the region- and I have this from the former Israeli prime minister who told me ‘we’ll try to get on with our neighbours but those who don’t agree with us will be destroyed.

It’s a type of politics, a view of history, why not after all. But one should know about it.’’

Dumas is a retired French foreign minister who is obliged to use discretion when revealing secrets which could affect French foreign policy. That is why he made the statement ‘I am French, that doesn’t interest me’.  He could not reveal France’s role in the British plan as he would be exposing himself to prosecution for revealing state secrets.

There have been many disinformation agents in the British and French press, many of them well known ‘leftist’ war correspondents and commentators, who have tried to pretend that Israel secretly supports Assad.  Those who make such arguments are either stupid, ignorant or deliberate disinformation agents of NATO and Israel.

Israel’s support for Al Qaeda militants in Syria has even been admitted by the mainstream press. For example, Germany’s Die Welt newspaper published a report on June 12th on Israel’s medical treatment of the Al Qaeda fighters.

Israel planned this war of annihilation years ago in accordance with the Yinon Plan, which advocates balkanization of all states that pose a threat to Israel. The Zionist entity is using Britain and France to goad the reluctant Obama administration into sending more American troops to their death in Syria on behalf of Tel Aviv.

Of all the aggressor states against Syria, Israel has been the quietest from the start. That is because Laurent Fabius, Francois Holland, William Hague and David Cameron are doing their bidding by attempting to drag Israel’s American Leviathan into another ruinous war so that Israel can get control of the Middle East’s energy reserves, eventually replacing the United States as the ruling state in the world. It has also been necessary for Tel Aviv to remain silent so as not to expose their role in the ‘revolutions’, given the fact that the Jihadist fanatics don’t realize they are fighting for Israel.

This is the ideology of Zionism which cares no more for Jews than it does for its perceived enemies.   The Jewish colony is determined to become a ruling state in the Middle East in the insane delusion that this will enable it to replace the United States as a global hegemon, once the US collapses fighting Israel’s wars.

Israeli Prime Minister once told American talk show host Bill Maher that the reason why Israel always wins short conflicts, while the United States gets bogged down in endless wars. ‘’ The secret is that we have America’’, he said.

But Israel is itself slowly collapsing. If one excludes the enslaved Palestinian population, the Jewish state still has the highest level of poverty in the developed world with more and more Jews choosing to leave the ‘promised’ land, a garrison state led by mad men, an anti-Semitic entity threatening to engulf the world in war and destruction. Israel cares no more about its own working class Jews than any other ethnic community.

In fact, if the Likudnik crooks running the Israeli colony get their way, working class Israelis will be among the first to pay as they are conscripted to fight terrorists created by their own government. With orthodox Jews protesting in the streets of New York against Israel and Haredi Jewish minority opposing Israel’s rampant militarism, Zionism is coming under increased attack from Jewish religious authorities and non-Zionist Jews both inside and outside of the occupied territories.

This is not the first time that Roland Dumas has spoken out against wars of aggression waged by successive French regimes. In 2011 he revealed that he had been asked by the United States when he was foreign minister in the Mitterrand administration to organize the bombing of Libya. On that occasion the French refused to cooperate.  Dumas, a lawyer by profession, offered to defend Colonel Gaddafi, at the International Criminal Court in the event of his arrest by Nato.

Dumas was also vocal in condemning France’s brutal neo-colonial bombing of the Ivory Coast earlier in 2011, were death squads and terrorists similar to those later deployed in Libya and Syria were unleashed upon the Ivoirian population in order to install a IMF puppet dictator Alassane Quattara in power. Gbagbo was described as one of the greatest African leaders of the past 20 years by Jean Ziegler, sociologist and former member of the Advisory Committee of the UN Human Rights Council.

Gbagbo had plans to nationalize banks and wrest control of the country’s currency from the colonial finance institutions in Paris. He also wanted to roll back many of the worst effects of IMF restructuring by nationalizing industries and creating a functioning, universal free health service. All of this threatened the interests of French corporations in the former French colony. So, the Parisian oligarchy went to work to find a suitable replacement as caretaker of their Ivoirian colony.

They sent in armed terrorist gangs, or ‘rebel’s in the doublespeak of imperialism, who murdered all before them while the French media blamed president Gbagbo for the violence that ensued. Gbagbo and Gaddafi had opposed Africom, the Pentagon’s plan to recolonize Africa. That was another reason for the  2011 bombing of their two African countries.

The formula is always the same. Imperialism backs ‘rebels’, whenever its interests are threatened by regimes that love their country more than foreign corporations.  One should not forgot that during the Spanish Civil War of 1936, General Franco and his cronies were also ‘rebels’ and they, like their counterparts in Libya in 2011, were bombed to power by foreign powers, replacing a progressive, republican administration with fascism.

There are pro-Israeli fanatics in France who have used the analogy of the Spanish Civil War as justification for intervention in Libya and Syria. The pseudo-philosopher Henry Bernard Levy is one of them.  Of course, the ignoramus Levy doesn’t realize that the reason France, England and the USA did not officially intervene in the Spanish Civil War is because they were covertly helping the ‘rebels’ from the start. They enabled arms shipments to the Francoist ‘rebels’ while preventing arms deliveries to the Spanish government, who, like Syria today, were helped by Moscow. Anyone who has studied the Spanish Civil War knows that all the imperialist countries wanted Franco as a bulwark against communism.

There is nothing imperialism loves more than a rebel without a cause. What imperialism hates, however, are revolutionaries. That is why the ‘rebels’ which imperialism sends into other countries to colonize them on behalf of foreign banks and corporations, have to be marketed as ‘revolutionaries’ in order to assure the support of the Monty Python brigade of petty-bourgeois, ‘ leftist’ dupes such as Democracy Now! and their ilk.

Dumas is not the only top French official to denounce the New World Order.  Former French ambassador to Syria Michel Raimbaud wrote a book in 2012  entitled ‘Le Soudan dans tous les états’, where he revealed how Israel planned and instigated a civil war in South Sudan in order to balkanize a country led by a pro-Palestinian government. He also exposed the pro-Israeli media groups and ‘human rights’ NGOS who created the ‘humanitarian’ narrative calling for military intervention by the United States in the conflict.

The subject was covered extensively by African investigative journalist Charles Onana in his 2009 book, Al-Bashir & Darfour LA CONTRE ENQUÊTE.

There are many more retired French officials who are speaking out about the ruinous policies of this French government, including the former head of French domestic intelligence Yves Bonnet. There have also been reports of dissent in the French armed forces and intelligence apparatus.

After the assassination of Colonel Gaddafi in October 2011, the former French ambassador to Libya Christian Graeff told French radio station France Culture that it was responsible for the diffusion of lies and war propaganda on behalf of Nato throughout the war.  Graeff also warned the broadcasters that such disinformation could only work on the minds of serfs but not in a country of free minds.

The power of the Israeli lobby in France is a subject rarely discussed in polite circles. In France there is a law against questioning or denial of the holocaust. However, denial of the Korean holocaust, Guatemalan holocaust, Palestinian holocaust, Indonesian holocaust and the dozens of other US/Israeli supported genocides is not only perfectly legal but is the respectable norm.

The same lobby which introduced the Loi Gayssot in 1990, effectively ending freedom of expression in France, would also like to ban any independent investigations of genocides whose narratives they have written, such as the Rwanda genocide, where Israel played a key role in supporting the ‘rebels’ led by Paul Kagame, who invaded Rwanda from Uganda from 1991 to 1994, leading to the genocide of both Tutus and Tutsis. Many serious scholars have written about the Rwandan genocide, which the Israel lobby repeatedly uses as a case study to justify ‘humanitarian’ intervention by Western powers.  The Zionist thought police would like to see such authors prosecuted for ‘negating’ imperialism’s disgusting lies on African conflicts.

Now, the Israeli Lobby is forcing the (their) French government to prosecute twitter messages which the lobby deems ‘anti-Semitic’. This is one further step towards the creation of a totalitarian state where any criticism of imperialism, foreign wars, racism, oppression, perhaps eventually capitalism itself could fall under the rubric of ‘anti-Semitism’.

These people are sick, and those who cow down to them are sicker. Perhaps the etymology of sickness, a word cognate with the German Sicherheit (security) according to dictionary.com, is not a coincidence. For what is particularly sick about our society is the cult of security,  endless surveillance, ubiquitous cameras, the cult of the all seeing eye, the prurient gaze as part of the incessant discourse on terrorism by those who specialize in the training of the very terrorists they claim to be protecting us from.  Whether or not the words security and sickness are linguistically related, they are certainly cognate in a philosophical sense.

Roland Dumas and others like him should be highly commended for having to guts to say what so many others are too morally corrupt, too weak and cowardly to admit.

As the French government and its media agencies drum up hysteria for war on Syria, Roland Dumas, now in the twilight of his years, is warning people of the consequences of not understanding where Israel is leading  the world. Will enough people heed the warning?

Fees should only be charged from gains, not from the portfolio principal

JEFF SOMMER, in the NYTimes article 'For Retirees, a Million-Dollar Illusion,' when discussing our material needs in old age, informs us that 'A MILLION dollars isn’t what it used to be.'




Occupy Government Oakland
This is what 30 years of Republican economic policy have wrought: lower taxes for corporations and the rich, union-busting, 401k plans instead of pensions, serial bubble-busting markets, capped by the great recession. America used to be a rich country. Now we can't afford to pay the help.

Isn't it time to give the country back to the people?


FSB Iowa
The number of responses to this simple factual article indicates the scope of the problem. Some of the responders never earned much, others saved carefully but lost in the collapse of pensions or the markets, others inherited, others had no families willing or able to help, others are relatively prosperous but even that's not enough under present conditions, others are prosperous but they worry anyway. Their responses reveal the fact that most older people in this country worry quite a bit about money, with cause.

The problem is the SYSTEM. I was fortunate to spend some of my teaching life in Denmark and France. Unlike me, my colleagues never worried about their financial future. They worried about their parents' health, their children's careers, or how they wished to spend their leisure time, but fear of the lack of money never entered their minds. They were free! Their reputedly burdensome tax rate was about 10% higher than ours. 10%! Think about it--full health care, child care, disability, unemployment insurance, excellent public transportation, good retirements, and no need to help your neighbor who can't get food stamps. . . .

This they did with less total income than the US and despite the ravages of two continental wars. This shows what a communal system with the will to provide for human needs can accomplish






RC MN

By transferring trillions of tax dollars to the banking industry, the self-serving Fed has suppressed interest on savings, which in turn has inhibited spending, investment, and growth. This massive transfer of wealth to the 1% is responsible for the current recession (the coincident effect on jobs is shown at http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/03/keeping-up-not-getting-ahead), targets particularly the middle classes and seniors, and is a major factor in the time bomb of failing retirement plans for middle class savers who can't risk the stock market casino, despite the Fed trying to push them into it. Fed policy is also embedded with corollary events designed to transfer wealth to the 1% well into the future (for example fees and long-term interest payments), and has become a long-term structural impediment to middle-class retirement.




ALR NYC
Why all the sour grapes in the comments relating to the retirement income of two civil service retirees? What's the difference in their benefit package and yours? It's likely that the more generous pension plan stemmed from collective bargaining--something that 's dying in this country because younger workers sneer at the concept of unions. Yet, they have a strong sense of entitlement.

Public employees are the most highly unionized segment of the US work force. Maybe that explains the fact that they enjoy superior benefits? Quit your covetous whining and stop forcing this country into a race to the bottom. Demand a defined pension and improved benefits for yourselves instead of carping about the injustice of people who worked hard throughout their careers leading a relatively secure, non-elaborate retirement.

If you want to criticize imbalance and injustice, turn your sights toward the bankers, politicians, and 1%ers who want to render the middle class obsolete by brainwashing you that a civil service pension earned (not bestowed ) after a career if hard work is immoral. Being able to retire at a reasonable age with sufficient assets should not be a luxury.



PH NY
“The bottom line is that people at nearly all levels of the income distribution have undersaved."

I disagree. In order to save one needs to have enough to save. I grew up middle class (one parent was a teacher) yet we saved, went on vacations and had enough to get by.

With the demise of pensions and with the majority of income going more and more to just the uppermost few people have less and less to save - yet need to save even more. Add in a bad economy, harsh times and that's what is seen today. It will only get worse with union bashing and even fewer pensions.

The US is rapidly heading towards a 21st century version of feudalism, with corporate overloards and an ultra-rich oligarchy.




Hipolito Hernanz Portland, OR
The way we compensate investment management firms is totally corrupt. Fees should only be charged from earnings, not from the portfolio principal. They can and do charge fees for the privilege of losing your money.



d. lawton Florida
Most workers do not have "professions", they have jobs. They are not the bosses, they do not make the decisions, they have no say in their hours or working conditions, and the US is a worker abusing country and culture. That's why people in their late seventies and eighties CAN'T continue working, and your ideas are completely unrealistic.



Josey Michigan
So my money was in iras, and group funds, both were wiped out to less than a $3,000. balance. I was downsized, and out of work since 2009, my husband has been on 32 hour weeks at work, and his ira is worth less than $1,000. a year for years worked, as a large chunk of it was lost in 2008.. How can we possibly follow all these saving for retirement suggestions? We are really struggling now to make ends meet. We live simple, no credit. I garden, can food, sew, cook from scratch, very basic life style. The future is bleak and we have no options except to watch it all play out. Trillions of dollars of retirees money was lost in 2008. Yet that is ignored nothing has changed, so how can our kids be sure they won't get ripped off by the banks as well???????



thebigmancat New York, NY
Wow - I never thought of working past 65! Because nobody over the age of 45 can get hired as anything but a greeter at Wal Mart. When will SOMEONE debunk this retire at 70 nonsense?? Unless you are an attorney or a famous writer, you're on the ice floe by 65 at the outside. More like 55. Please NY Times - give me a break already!




Realist New York
I am curious, what planet do these writers live on. I am 59 and even thou all my friends worked hard and did not live it up like myself we don't even come close to having a 1 million in the bank. for us it will be work until we drop dead, no retirement.
So because of 30 years of trickle down wealth we are worse off than our parents even thou we did the right thing. the stock market and banks made sure that we would never make enough off our savings. When i was kid in the 60s i could have a saving account that earned 6% interest and your telling me bonds make 2.2% what a joke. we were robbed.





FunnyAboutMoney Private
Some of us are not crazy about the prospect of working until we drop in the traces.

If you're happy in your job, be our guest!

Oh...btw...baby boomers may be needed, but in the current age-hostile atmosphere in the US, you may be sure we will not be hired. An academic laid off at 64, I tried to land jobs that ranged from "looks like the job description was written with me in mind" to hilariously menial. Finally one dean admitted there was no chance his or any other college would hire someone of may age into a full-time position with a living wage. It would be nice of all us old bats and buzzards could get work, but reality is different from nice. Alas.




Shirley Abbott Tomkievicz New York, NY
I worked ten years past 65.. Had no pension or 410K from my job. Did have IRAs, funded by me. I used Vanguard and Fidelity and followed all the rules for conservative investing, being assured that if I was a good little girl and followed the rules, I could count on 5% safely. Got taken to the cleaners by the bankers in 2008. Pulled out just in time to save a bit. Without social security I would be in real trouble. Now I keep reading ads and getting mailings urging me to trust the same sharks. With what is left. The market is an excuse for picking the pockets of small investors.



GinaB North Carolina
I've been poor my whole life. I am relatively highly educated, having put myself through the University of Michigan for a BA in English and then on with an MFA from Western Michigan University. I am single, childless, and have few family members. Not the most popular gal in the universe or even a room, I might finally be able to buy a house in about three years. That house is all I will have and savings and the 6% that's taken from my pay for a pension and so on. Not a million, nothing close, and alone I will remain (I can tell by now, age 47). The United States isn't my favorite country in the world because I don't come from a normal family or upbringing and therefore I've felt rather unaccepted here my whole life (I've lived in other countries for a try). I've never fit it or felt secure here. More often I have felt judged and alone, still I am educated, hard working, but honest to a fault. And as I write this I realize not one word matters. None of this matters. Slowly we become more invisible until finally we're gone. And like memories this million-not-even-close can't be taken with.



carrobin New York

Having come to New York at age 24 to build a career in the publishing field, I have few savings and a very small pension at age 69. Fortunately, a few years in the editorial side of a financial firm helped to boost my social security in the long run, but only a larger-than-expected inheritance from my father gave me some hope of coping with retirement. I'm now working as a temp at a publishing company and can't afford to stop working without giving up most of the perks of living in Manhattan--but I'm not ready to return to the sultry doldrums of South Carolina, either. I don't know how anybody can afford to "retire" these days.



ed g Warwick, NY
The rule of one is usually the proof that this rule is bogus.

Americans like every other group are moved by the story of the success of one and ignore the fact that many multiples of that one case were failures.

Try to think of it this way: if everyone could be a success at making money, that is we all were millionaires, then the new level of poverty would be having a million.

The answer is not accumulation of wealth beyond any reasonable need but public policy that everyone is deserving, entitled and due a minimum regarding opportunity, resources, housing, employment, jobs, retirement, etc.

And that there is a moral, economic, social and ethical point where those having more than that point (i.e. $5,000,000) must yield it for the common good.

Unrealistic? Unfair? Unchristian?

Of course should you accept the rules of the games defined by sociopaths who are like the mentally directed hoarders seen on TV. Making money, especially excessive amounts of paper with pictures of dead presidents is unethical, undemocratic, poor economics and sinful.

Not sure an alternative is needed? Then justify the condition of the world and most of the six billion or so lost souls crawling around on the surface of this rock called earth.

We don't need royalty via blood or wealth. And we don't need to be forgiven for something called sin. We need equality and respect and a new direction to correct the horrors of powerlessness and poverty.




York ME kittery ME
What a laughable article this is.

Bernanke has utterly destroyed the bond market.....1-3% returns now? "Tapering" is going to destroy the value of bonds out there. Holders will be wiped out.

All done to herd people into stocks....which Bernanke has succeeded in kiting to the moon...great. What happens to these folks when the markets "correct"? Wiped out.

Oh, cash, yeah, great.....the great Bernank has now started a currency war worldwide with the constant printing......what happens when the great Bernank panics and prints more? What happens Ben?

Not to worry tho, right? You and the gang of six big TBTF banks are busy ramming thru floating rates for Money Market funds, and controls on withdrawals when panic sets in.....so you can wipe those folks out as well......

And precious metals.....you guys took care of those with the manipulated smashing of the metals market in early April.....a ton of paper but no metal. Complete farce. But hey, you scared the American public away from this one last safe haven here! And the really wealthy are getting to sock metals away at rock bottom prices.

And that's what counts? Right Ben?

You, Mr. Bernanke, have it absolutely locked for them. So the real interesting article would have been about what you plan to do after you leave the Fed early next year.....back to Princeton, or a lovely corner office somewhere that you have to show up at just once or twice a year.....

NYT....its time to start writing the truth.....

De Thatcher nihil nisi bonum

Margaret Thatcher’s first high-profile political job came in 1970 when she was appointed to serve as education and science minister in the cabinet of the liberal Tory Edward Heath.


She imposed a series of brutal budget cuts, the most infamous of which was the abolition of a program left over from the Great Depression, which guaranteed a daily pint of milk to schoolchildren between the ages of seven and eleven.

This was a program which had done much good in the poorer mining, industrial, and farming towns and villages of Wales, Scotland, and the north of England, where vitamin deficiency diseases like rickets and pellagra had been an immense public health problem.

But for Thatcher, that daily pint of milk was the essence of communism, a violation of the free market. The milk distributions were stopped. Since then, Thatcher has been hated by all Britons of goodwill, and since then her nickname has been “Thatcher milk snatcher.” This is the epitaph which should be inscribed on her tomb.





The Romans had a saying, “De mortuis nihil nisi bonum” - say nothing but good things about the dead. It is good advice, but in the face of certain enormous crimes against humanity, it cannot be honored. Such is the case of Margaret Thatcher.

Thatcher offers one of the most egregious cases in recent history of a sociopath in power. She can be seen as the mother, or at least as the grandmother, of the world economic depression which broke out in 2007-2008. Thatcher was a fanatical apostle of the economic theories of the Austrian school ideologue Friedrich von Hayek and especially of Hayek’s 1944 screed, The Road to Serfdom, a raving attack on the highly successful economic methods of the Franklin D. Roosevelt New Deal in the United States. On at least one occasion, Thatcher is known to have brandished a copy of Hayek’s scribblings as her personal holy book.

Hayek had started after World War I as a hack writer in the pay of rent-gouging Viennese landlords who wanted propaganda articles condemning the evils of rent control. He was considered a very marginal academic, almost a crackpot, until he attracted the attention of economic illiterate David Rockefeller, who hired Hayek to help him in cramming for exams at the London School of Economics.

Hayek, like his co-thinker Ludwig von Mises, was an exponent of the backward and primitive Austrian school of economic theory, which had been concocted by feudal-reactionary quackademics in the Habsburg empire to undercut the prestigious German-American school of dirigism and protectionism exemplified by figures like Friedrich List, one of the main inspirations for the recent economic success of places like Japan, Taiwan, and China.

For the Austrian school, any government intervention in or regulation of economic life is automatically classed as totalitarianism. The Austrian school relies on crude slogans of deregulation, privatization, and the free market. The Austrian school is sometimes called the psychological school, since it rejects as collectivist analyses which tried to grasp the broad objectivity of a national economy. The theoretical vantage point of the Austrian school is always the sociopathic urges and desires of the individual predatory speculator.

Austrianism is therefore much inferior to the deeply flawed neo-Keynesian synthesis, which tends to reproduce the outlook of central bankers. The Austrians are even more inferior in comparison to the American System, which has its central focus in the development of the modern labor force.

Before Thatcher, the strange beliefs of figures like von Mises and von Hayek - such as their demand that government must never lift a finger to prevent or mitigate a devastating economic depression - meant that they were not presentable in polite society. If an economist claimed that a pint of milk for school children was the leading edge of Bolshevism, most people concluded that such an economist needed to be committed to a mental institution. If such an economist insisted on this point, he risked being reminded that Hitler and the Nazis had been long since swept into the garbage can of history.

Margaret Thatcher changed all that. The overall impact of her political career has been a radical degradation of the universe of economic discourse of the Western world in the direction of ideas seen in the 1950s and 60s as hopelessly reactionary, or even psychotic. In this sense, Thatcher can be classed as the unifying symbol of a retrograde cultural paradigm shift, not just in Europe and the United States, but worldwide - especially when the influence of her signature monetarist/neoliberal economics on the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and similar institutions is taken into account.

The austerity policies today ravaging Europe under the auspices of the IMF, the European Central Bank, and the European Commission would be simply unthinkable without the massive wave of economic ignorance and barbarism unleashed by Thatcher.





A Creature of Lord Victor Rothschild

The legend of Thatcher portrays her as a self-made woman, a greengrocer’s daughter from Grantham.

In reality, the emergence of Thatcher was the work of a formidable political syndicate. One of Thatcher’s most important handlers was by any measure Lord Victor Rothschild (1910-1990), the third Baron Rothschild. Lord Vic was nominally a Labour peer in the House of Lords, but much of his influence derived from his work between 1963 and 1970 as worldwide head of “research” - meaning intelligence - for Royal Dutch Shell, the policy flagship of the seven sisters oil cartel. During much of this time, Lord Vic was a key security adviser to Thatcher. For a number of years Lord Vic also ran the Central Policy Review Staff, the de facto think tank of the British government. Lord Vic was also closely associated with Sir Keith Joseph, a Tory government minister and Thatcher’s top political brain truster.

Thatcher was for many years elected to parliament from the safe Conservative seat of Finchley. However, intelligence reports from the 1980s sometimes noted that Thatcher’s hold on this rotten borough or pocket borough had been consolidated with decisive help from Lord Vic.

Thatcher’s Gurus: Sir Alfred Sherman and Sir Keith Joseph

Another key Svengali for Thatcher was Sir Alfred Sherman, who had fought as a communist volunteer in the Spanish Civil War, but had been followed the typical neocon pattern of evolution towards reactionary ideas. Sir Alfred had been a close adviser to Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Sherman joined with Sir Keith Joseph and Thatcher in 1974 to found the Center for Policy Studies, and soon went on to play a key role in the Conservative Philosophy Group, which elaborated the ideology later known as Thatcherism. This was basically Austrianism with adjustments for the specific conditions of 1970s Britain.

Sir Alfred facilitated Thatcher’s transformation from an obscure backbencher to shadow Prime Minister for the Tories. Thatcher paid tribute to him in 2005, recalling that “We could never have defeated socialism if it hadn’t been for Sir Alfred.” But Sherman sometimes fail to conceal the true brutality of Thatcherism. On one occasion he told a Soviet journalist, “As for the Lumpenproletariat, colored people and the Irish, let’s face it, the only way to hold them in check is to have enough well armed and properly trained police.”

Sir Alfred also helps us to understand the real relation between Thatcher and her handlers. After Thatcher had lost power, he said of her: “Lady Thatcher is great theater as long as someone else is writing her lines; she hasn’t got a clue.” And indeed, much of Thatcher’s political career can be reduced to the obsessive parroting of not more than half a dozen primitive slogans, but with devastating effect.

Sir Keith Joseph, the son of a rich Tory grandee and Lord Mayor of London, had long held that figures like Heath were not nearly reactionary enough. Indeed, Sir Keith and not Thatcher might have become prime minister for the Tories, had it not been for one fateful outburst. Reading a 1974 speech written for him by Sir Alfred Sherman, Joseph added his observation is that, as a result of teen pregnancies among the lower orders of British society, “our human stock is threatened.”

This sounded very much like Nazi eugenics, and essentially disqualified Sir Keith from ever reaching number 10 Downing Street. Instead, both Joseph and Sherman focused their energies on installing Maggie in that post. Later, Joseph would become a point man in efforts to bust the teachers’ union, levy tuition fees for higher education, and radically cut the salaries of teachers and professors. Thus the note of brutal social Darwinism announced by Sir Keith remained throughout as a constant of Thatcher. Sir Keith also pioneered deindustrialization as an active government policy. When some Tories wanted to rebuild and modernize the shipyards on the Mersey River in Liverpool, Sir Keith argued instead for a “managed rundown.” Industrial demontage was another hallmark of Thatcherism.

Another secret of Thatcher’s success was the shameless use of advertising and marketing. Some of this was copied from American methods going back to Richard Nixon, but Thatcher elevated the demagogy of mass manipulation to an entirely new level. In her 1979 and 1983 campaigns, Thatcher relied on the Saatchi and Saatchi PLC advertising agency, which had been founded by two Iraqi Jewish brothers. The Saatchis were responsible for Conservative party advertising which claimed that “Labour isn’t working.” Based on the reputation this firm acquired through a helping Thatcher to her early victories, Saatchi and Saatchi became for a time the largest advertising agency in the world. Maurice Saatchi, now a member of the House of Lords, was made the chairman of the Conservative party.

However, even with this extensive support network, it is not clear that Thatcher ever received the support of a majority of British voters. Her ceiling seems to have been between 40 and 45%, which translated into a majority in the House of Commons only because of the British “first past the post” or winner-take-all system in each election district.

Before they were willing to accept the degradation of Thatcherism, the British people had to be softened up by many years of crisis. No country suffered more from the fake 1973 oil shock than Britain. There was a period of mass strike captivity in which the British labor movement proved it could paralyze the government, but also proved that it was incapable of seizing power and solving the main problems of society. In 1974, electric current and heating were often interrupted, and conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath put the nation on a three-day week. As I wrote about this phase in Surviving the Cataclysm, “the Sick Man of Europe appeared destined to sink beneath the waters of the North Sea, with journalists asking front-page questions like ‘Is Britain Dying?’”




Thatcher Filled the Post-Keynesian Void with Barbarism

It was good luck for Thatcher and her gang that this crisis then had to be administered by the Labour Party government of James Callaghan. The crisis of British society in the middle 1970s had an ideological as well as a practical impact. As I wrote in Surviving the Cataclysm:

“this crisis is associated with the abandonment of Keynesian economics by the British Labour Party, and by extension by the center-left around the world. At the Labour Party conference of September 1976, Callaghan remarked that ‘we used to think that you could just spend your way out of a recession… I tell you, in all candor, that the option no longer exists and that in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked… by injecting bigger doses of inflation into the economy, followed by higher levels of unemployment.’ According to one British commentator, these were the ‘words which effectively buried Keynes.’ The liquidation of Keynes left the field dominated by the primitive Viennese monetarism of von Hayek and the even more primitive monetarism of Milton Friedman and his Chicago School. Callaghan himself would soon be supplanted by Thatcher.”

In this new atmosphere, Thatcher’s governing team was full of monetarists or neoliberal ideologues who could pretend to be professing a new economic theory, rather than simply repackaging a set of cruel and stupid doctrines which had been discredited in the 1930s. This applied to figures like Norman Tebbitt, Nigel Lawson, and Norman Fowler.

Keynes had recommended a mild inflation as a cure for depression. Thatcher demanded the opposite: she wanted to bring on a depression in order to cure inflation. Inflation is a complaint of the rich, who feel that the purchasing power of their cash horde is being diminished. Deflationary depression means unemployment, and this is the scourge of people who need to work for a living. Thatcher proceeded to apply the monetarist recipe with a vengeance, following Milton Friedman’s dumbed-down version of Austrianism. Since Friedman had taught that inflation is a purely monetary phenomenon, Thatcher collapsed the British money supply in a massive exercise of deflation. The value of the British pound soared, and anyone who had any debt was crushed.

Thatcher Caused the British Deflationary Depression of 1979-81

Under Callaghan, unemployment had stood at one million. Thatcher managed to double this to over 2 million in short order. It is estimated that in the early years of Thatcherism no fewer than 2 million manufacturing jobs were permanently destroyed in Britain, and the overall level of industrial production and manufacturing output was reduced by one third. The destruction of domestic export industry was helped by the grotesquely overvalued pound. But the City of London banks were able to use the overvalued pound to buy up assets all around the world at a discount. Unfortunately for Great Britain is a nation, a massive balance of payments crisis ensued.

A constant feature of Thatcherism was the desire to shift the burden of taxation from the wealthy to the middle class, working people, and the poor. This was done through the use of regressive taxation. One such regressive tax was the value-added tax or VAT, which Thatcher raised to 15%. Real unemployment is thought to have reached as many as 5 million persons during this phase.

By 1981, there were riots in Brixton near Lambeth in south London which were widely attributed to unemployment and despair. Contemporary observers had the impression that the entire social fabric of the British Isles was being destroyed. People who might feel attracted to the rhetoric of Ron Paul and Rand Paul need to be reminded that the essential program of Austro-libertarians of this ilk is precisely to induce a massive deflationary depression along the lines of Thatcher’s infamous handiwork. The goal is to shift more wealth to those who already have it.

Traditional politicians have promised to raise the standard of living like putting a chicken in every pot. Thatcher, by contrast, was able to have a homeless person living in almost every doorway in the British Isles. Recipients of social welfare payments (“the dole”) saw their benefits gouged and were put under a slave labor or workfare regime, based on earlier US models.

Some of the less radical members of the British ruling elite now began to have second thoughts about Thatcher’s ideological fanaticism. Thatcher called these figures “The Wets,” and always suggested their main issue was the resentment of leaders who had been prominent under Heath. Lord Carrington and Lord Thorneycroft went to Thatcher in 1981 and demanded that she resign, since her economic policies were manifestly a failure. Thatcher’s response was her trademark demagogy about the need to “stay the course” and her lunatic cry that “the lady’s not for turning.”

Thatcher Saved By 1982 War with Argentina

In spite of her bluster, Thatcher would not have survived much longer in office without the Falklands or Malvinas war with Argentina in the spring of 1982. There are indications that Thatcher lured the inept ruling junta in Buenos Aires into grabbing these islands in the South Atlantic. With different tactics, Argentina could probably have administered the British fleet a crushing defeat, but incompetent counsels prevailed. The British could never have taken back the islands without comprehensive logistical and other support from the United States. This was a moment of great shame for Washington, since according to John Quincy Adam’s Monroe Doctrine, these islands were an integral part of Argentina and the United States was duty bound to oppose the British aggression.

The US had also pledged to defend Argentina under the Rio Pact. But this meant nothing to General Al Haig and the somnambulist Ronald Reagan, who did everything possible to help Thatcher. Thatcher proclaimed that she had overcome the “Suez syndrome” of 1956, meaning that Britain was back as an aggressive imperialist power. Based on chauvinist hysteria around the Malvinas, Thatcher was able to win the 1983 general election, even though she got only 42.4% of the votes.

Thatcher’s foreign policy as carried out by Lord Geoffrey Howe was worthy of the mythical reactionary Colonel Blimp. Thatcher was a great admirer of the Chilean fascist Augusto Pinochet, whose Friedmanite economic policies were essentially identical to her own. She considered Nelson Mandela as a dangerous communist, and did everything possible to prevent economic sanctions from being imposed on apartheid South Africa by the British Commonwealth. This brought her into bitter conflict with Commonwealth leaders like Rajiv Gandhi of India and Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia. But Thatcher took the lead in promoting USSR leader Mikhail Gorbachev as a man she could do business. Later, Thatcher would gloat over the destruction of Soviet power to which she had contributed.

Thatcher’s racist and jingoistic Little England foreign policy also earned her the enmity of Queen Elizabeth II, who had her vast empire to look after. When Thatcher was denied an honorary degree by Oxford, and when she was criticized by the Church of England, it is safe to assume that those two pillars of the establishment were acting according to the wishes of Buckingham Palace. A political cartoon dating back to one of Thatcher’s elections showed Queen Elizabeth as a Labour Party agitator in the streets screaming “Tories out!”

But Thatcher’s electoral fortunes were also helped by extensive bombing campaigns by the Irish Republican Army, and organization now known to have been thoroughly penetrated and decisively influenced by British intelligence. When the IRA bombed Thatcher’s hotel in Brighton in October 1984, the Iron Lady launched a new campaign of antiterrorist posturing.

But a great event of Thatcher’s second term in office was her systematic destruction of the miners’ union during the course of a one-year strike in 1984-85. By crushing the militant miners of the National Union of Mineworkers under Arthur Scargill, Thatcher was able to put the entire British labor movement permanently onto the defensive. Thatcher destroyed not only the miners’ union, but put the entire British re-privatized coal mining industry (previously nationalized between 1946 and 1987 as the National Coal Board) on the path to extinction.

Great Britain has been described as an island of coal surrounded by a sea of fish, but Thatcher’s monetarism in service to the financial parasites of the city of London basically wiped out both mining and commercial fisheries. The conclusion is that Thatcher wanted to destroy the unions as a possible platform of mass resistance against the rule of financial oligarchs, and also welcomed the end of industrial capitalists as another group who might oppose the City of London. Britain today is a postindustrial rubble field and junkyard, largely thanks to Thatcher.

Deindustrialization through Deregulation and Privatization

Throughout her time in office, Thatcher mercilessly sought to privatize British government assets, generally selling them off to wealthy Tory clients at bargain basement prices. In addition to the National Coal Board, she also returned British Telecom to the private sector, and set into motion the process which has led to the disastrous re-privatization of British Rail.

By the end of Thatcher’s term in office, when the Chunnel or tunnel under the English Channel was nearing completion, British industrial capabilities were so weak that the London government experienced tremendous difficulty in providing a short Channel Tunnel Rail Link between London and Folkstone-Dover. Observers on the continent joked that Britain from an industrial point of view had become impotent, isolated, and irrelevant.

Thatcher was unable to privatize or abolish the British National Health Service, but she did everything possible to cripple it by drastic spending cuts which cost many lives. Labour MP Glenda Jackson has commented on the tragic state of British hospitals during the Thatcher regime.

In line with her crackpot ideology, Thatcher also fomented a reckless and irresponsible process of deregulation. One of the centerpieces of this was the 1986 “Big Bang” or complete deregulation of the London financial markets. This involved a transition from open outcry trading pits to screen-based trading, but it made London the wild West for derivatives swindles. From this point on, the British regulatory regime was even weaker than the US one. But, precisely because of this lax oversight, predatory bankers, hedge fund hyenas, and other shady enterprises crowded into London, making a success of real estate developments like Canary Wharf.

Mad Cow Disease Courtesy of Thatcher

Thatcher’s deregulation push also had very sinister consequences in the intermediate run. Thatcher was convinced that British farmers were being needlessly harassed by nosy agricultural inspectors, so she slashed that form of oversight as well. In the opinion of some informed observers, the worldwide epidemic of so-called Mad Cow disease (or BSE) can be traced back to abuses which flourished under Thatcher’s practically nonexistent regulatory regime in the British beef industry. Once again, producers paid the price: exports of British beef to the European Union were banned from March 1996 to May 2006.

Like Beppe Grillo today, Thatcher also waged war against local governments she did not like because they were controlled by the Labour Party and opposed her policies. Thatcher’s campaign to destroy the Labour-dominated Greater London Council was a case in point. Thatcher alleged that these local governments were expensive playgrounds for the “loony left.” She also targeted the local governments of Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Birmingham/Coventry, Leeds, and other working-class cities.

Thatcher also cultivated an atmosphere of hatred against continental Europe. She claimed that socialism had been defeated in Britain, but could always make a comeback through the machinations of the European super-state emerging in Brussels. In reality, Thatcher was able to cripple the European project by thoroughly infecting it with her primitive and barbaric economic methods, which came to dominate the European Commission and the European Central Bank, supplanting earlier and more effective approaches based on Catholic social thought and social democratic pro-worker thinking. One of Thatcher’s ministers was the infamous Nicholas Ridley, who responded to the collapse of the East German communist regime with chauvinist-inflammatory propaganda warning of the reemergence of a “Fourth Reich.” Today’s US-UK attack on the euro is built on this foundation.

Thatcher’s Downfall: The Regressive Poll Tax

Thatcher set herself up to be ousted through her fanatical ideological commitment to regressive taxation, meaning in practice the redistribution of wealth from the middle class, working people, and the poor to the rich and super rich who were the beneficiaries of her system. The experience of human society shows that regressive taxes, where everyone pays the same amount, cut heavily into the necessities of the poor and the amenities of the middle class, while hardly touching the sybaritic luxuries of the rich. Proportional taxes do the same thing: this applies especially to sales taxes and to Thatcher’s value-added tax (VAT). The only acceptable tax is a progressive tax, which increases its percentage bite as income rises from affluent to rich to super-rich. Those with the greatest ability to pay should contribute most.

One of the worst imaginable taxes is a lump-sum poll tax, formerly used in the American South as a subterfuge to prevent poor black people from voting. In 1990, Thatcher wanted to favor her wealthy backers by switching from local property taxes based on the value of real estate owned to a lump-sum property tax that would fall equally on rich and poor. Thatcher’s poll tax was designed to hit 35 million people, rather than the 18 million who had been paying the property tax. This openly regressive and reactionary tax was tremendously unpopular, and it hit many households which had been supporting Thatcher and the Tories. Soon public opinion surveys showed Thatcher almost 19 points behind the Labour Party.

Thatcher Pushed Bush into War with Iraq

Thatcher may have seen the handwriting on the wall, and may have tried to save herself with yet another war. When the regime of Bush the Elder in the United States had lured Saddam Hussein into occupying Kuwait, the Thatcher regime was the first to demand a military counterattack against the Iraqis based on Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter. Thatcher’s admirers claim that her desire for war with Iraq was far greater than that of the outwardly wimpy President George Herbert Walker Bush. After a key Anglo-American summit at the beginning of this crisis, press leaks inspired by Thatcher suggested that Bush - perhaps still frightened by the fate of LBJ in Vietnam - had begun to “go wobbly” on the military mobilization, and that Thatcher had been forced to carry out an emergency backbone transplant on the president.

What followed was Operation Desert Shield, the deployment of immense NATO military resources into Saudi Arabia. But since the bombing did not start until the middle of January, Thatcher’s hopes for a quick new Malvinas were in vain. Instead, in early November 1990, Lord Geoffrey Howe - a loyalist who had now gone over to the Wets - resigned from her government. Soon, Thatcher faced a challenge from Tory leader Michael “Tarzan” Heseltine. When this challenge revealed the extent of hatred against Thatcher, the Iron Lady finally quit.

Thatcher Claimed “There Is No Such Thing as Society”

One of Thatcher’s most infamous slogans was in that “there is no such thing as society.” This is because, under Austrian school doctrine, economics does not involve an objective worldwide productive process based on a worldwide division of labor, but rather studies the subjective individual psychological choices of predatory speculators. This is also what Ron Paul and Rand Paul believe. There is no society, since there are only discrete alienated individuals competing with each other. Thatcher was also convinced that money, not skilled labor, modern factories, or state-of-the-art infrastructure was the metaphysical representation of wealth. With Thatcherism, market fetishism, money fetishism and general alienation were more intense than hitherto observed.

Thatcher was, despite her chauvinist bluster, a determined enemy of the modern nation state. She was especially hated in Scotland, the site of so many industrial bankruptcies caused by her. Because of this pervasive hatred, the British Conservative Party was fatally weakened in Scotland, with the Scottish National Party and others filling the void. The ability of the British establishment to foment a separatist movement of dupes in Scotland at the present time is the direct consequence of the economic devastation wrought under Thatcher.

The general line of the Anglo-American intelligence establishment, as seen in Iraq, Sudan, and Serbia and planned for many other countries, is the creation of micro-states, mini-states, rump states, failed states, and warlords through the actions of secessionist movements and other vehicles. None of these impotent and squabbling petty entities will have any hope of resisting the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the leading multinational corporations. Thatcherite economics has thus prepared a new round of anti-national subversion a quarter-century after she left government.

As we can see in this case of Scottish secessionism, the British establishment habitually uses the British Isles as a kind of show window for the policies which it wants to inflict on the rest of the world, with special regard for the United States. That was also true of Thatcher herself, who was used as a prototype for the Reagan regime in the United States. Thatcher’s mantra of deregulation, privatization, market fetishism, union busting, colonial aggression, and general sociopathic outlook was wholly taken over by the reactionary actor in the White House.

Thatcher’s Key Role in the Decline of the West

For almost half a century after 1933, the Franklin D. Roosevelt New Deal provided the model for public institutions and policy in the United States, Western Europe, Japan, and in much of the world. The New Deal state was highly successful, withstanding challenges from economic depression, fascism and communism, while unlocking the secrets of the atom, and inaugurating the era of manned space travel. But the oligarchical elites of the Western world always resented the New Deal because it placed limits on their boundless greed and lust for arbitrary power and status. As the Soviet challenge receded, these oligarchical elites began using the methods of deregulation and privatization to dismantle the New Deal institutions.

After Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger had in 1971 wantonly deregulated the highly successful Bretton Woods economic system set up in 1944, the time was ripe for a demagogic ideologue of oligarchical privilege to emerge. That demagogue was Thatcher. Her career has unquestionably marked the beginning of a new phase of the decline of the West. Whether Thatcher’s sociopathic handiwork can be rolled back and her damage undone is the question which remains to be answered.

Webster Griffin Tarpley

What's the end game of this empire? We'll figure something out on our way, while 'controlled' chaos reigns...

WimR Netherlands
You cannot ask for a negotiated settlement and at the same time insist that Assad should go first. That is the same as saying that you only want to talk about surrender. It is aggression within a nice wrapping.

Obama seems ignorant about how revolutions work. Once you have eliminated one side out of the equation the other side has a free hand. People asking for moderation risk being accused of being supporters of the old regime. It is no coincidence that many revolutions (France, Russia, Iran) have been taken over by radicals who initially were a minority. And with the Islamic radicals in the Arab world being supported with lots of money from the Gulf the chances for a radical takeover are even larger in the Arab world.

It would be much wiser to have real negotiations. By allowing the US to tip the balance on many issues this would allow the US considerable influence. As can be seen in historic examples (South Africa, El Salvador, Spain) it would also offer good prospects for stable democracy.

Unfortunately in the end US policy towards Syria seems to be made by State Department veterans who are committed to regime change. They may talk about casualties and human rights in Syria when it furthers their cause but in the end they don't care at all how many people have to die as long as they can reach their goal.


C.O. Germany
Pondering on the general Western strategy towards Syria The New York Times Editorial a couple of days ago said:"Mr. Obama and Europe should keep trying to persuade Russia to abandon its unconscionable support for Mr. Assad and to work cooperatively to stabilize the region." I think the opposite is true. The United States should pressure Qatar and Saudi Arabia to stop financing, inflaming and arming the jihad in Syria and elsewhere in the world. This may be difficult for certain people because the theocratic dwarf of Qatar with its 50.000 inhabitants has gigantic investments in western economies and harbors the military center of the US in the Middle East. But Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the West's allies, are religious family-dictatorships with a segregation of men and women, have a religious police and no political parties at all. What a striking difference to pre-war Syria with its multiethnic society, religious tolerance etc. Unfortunately the new and old goal of the West and its "friends" is still regime change, for Qatar the elimination of a heretic secular neighbor, for the US the end of a leftist crony of Iran. No matter how high the human cost. At this stage I think that the foreign policy of Russia in respect to Syria is on the right side and I hope that Kerry would start a new initiative with Lavrov and Brahimi for a political solution in Syria.




Bob Walton Severn, MD
Unless our goal is to support the Islamists, we ARE on the wrong side. Neither side in this conflict are our friends but Assad has not harmed us. The body armor and night vision scopes the administration will provide to the Islamists will be seen again ... in our cities and towns as police side arms become less effect against terrorist criminals and terrorist intelligence collection becomes more effective.



Toddintr USA
Those people fighting against the legitimate government of Syria are soldiers of fortune, contract killers, collected from various countries in the region. The US, and Turkey as well, are on the wrong side.



Thinker Northern California
Who can forget that our Secretary of State, John Kerry, tends to be “for” wars before he’s “against” them?

So far, of course, Kerry has been strongly “for” the war in Syria, hoping thereby to establish his non-wimp credentials lest any critic suggest that his belated opposition to the Iraq war was anything more than a forgivable departure from his steely hawkish resolve. And if history is any guide, we need not worry that Kerry will switch to “against” until it’s far too late, until after we’ve jumped in with both feet with his strong encouragement during his “for” phase.

On the other hand, Kerry has never been burdened by any felt moral or intellectual need to maintain consistency in his positions. Maybe he’ll soon figure out two things that will cause an earlier shift to “against” in Syria:

1. Many of the Syrian rebels – aka those that actually do most of the fighting – are not secular young men just taking a term off from college; they’re hardened jihadists who predictably will turn on the secular rebels (and us) the moment the fighting is over.

2. Whatever we supply to the “good” rebels will end up in the hands of the “bad” rebels, paid for by all the money being funneled to the “bad” rebels by our friends in places like Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

"And we are fools to believe that this will not come to our shores and we can't pretend to be blameless victims in all of this when it does happen."

Can't pretend? Of course we can.

When skeptics point out that Osama bin Laden turned our own support against us years later, many Americans suggest those skeptics are engaging in an absurd "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" connecting-of-the-dots. And when our Libyan ambassador is shot dead, or the French Embassy is bombed, by the same Libyan rebels to whom we supplied those guns and bombs a year or so earlier, many Americans sincerely consider that to be unpredictable, aberrational behavior that does not reflect the warm and fuzzy feelings of most Libyans toward Americans.

So of course we can pretend. We're doing it right now in Syria, and many people are urging that we do more of it.

Bernie NYC
A very true statement is that Syria does remain that last remaining secular state in the Arab/Islamic world - if it falls, Jordan will no doubt easily fall next and the Muslim Brotherhood and other extremist will be galvanized internationally. And we are fools to believe that this will not come to our shores and we can't pretend to be blameless victims in all of this when it does happen.



Karen Maine
We Americans have a very short memory. The Assads have kept what peace there has been in the Middle East ever since the end of colonial control and the establishment of Israel. Can we not even remember Lebanon's civil war, 1975 to the early 1990s, and the role Syria played in finally ending it? And the part Israel played in prolonging it?

We should also remember what happened in 1861 when a coalition of once-sovereign states that had by choice entered into a coalition government decided to withdraw: the bloodiest war in history was waged to prevent them. The world's most powerful empire at the time came to the aid of those state governments wishing to end the coalition that they had chosen to enter only two score and fourteen years before. When we speak of the force Assad is using against the rebels, we would do well to remember Sherman's March to the Sea.

And, for the record, I am a Yankee from Belfast, Maine, where we put some pride in getting things straight.




Michael Central Florida
Every once in a while the Syrian situation reminds me of an early rebellion that took place in the 1860s, with Abraham Lincoln in the role of Bashar al-Assad. If world sentiment had favored the rebels back then, we might be living in a different world today. Good book about that.

americans about bradley manning

Jeff EbySanta Cruz, CA
The person who helped expose the criminal idiocy of the Iraq war: 20+ years in prison.

The people who caused the criminal idiocy of the Iraq war: never even charged.

If you ever needed proof of the two-tiered justice system in this country, look no further.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 3:49 p.m.RECOMMENDED127

sipa111NY
Give the man a medal and let him go!!!
Feb. 28, 2013 at 3:05 p.m.RECOMMENDED99

CowboyWichita
Didn't the Vice President of the United State Dick Cheney reveal classified information about the identity of a CIA official and get away with it?
So why wasn't Cheney prosecuted like this little guy?
We have law for the little people and another set of policies for the big guys.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 4:26 p.m.RECOMMENDED98

JWJMTNYT Pick
The comments that cast Manning's actions as a betrayal assume that Manning's duty, first and foremost, is to the U.S. Military. And, while this may be the mindset within the armed services, the duty to the nation as a whole, I would think, should trump the duty and allegiance to some institution subsumed within it. Additionally, they assume that the keeping secret of these particular documents was in the best interest of the country. The comments that refer to Manning's actions as selfish, or alternatively, naive, assume that whenever anyone attempts to act in a manner not in step with institutional prerogatives, then that person is automatically at fault. Whereas, it may be the case that those conditioned to assume the status quo within the U.S. military to be the best of all possible worlds are at fault. In that they were the persons who allowed the country to be drawn into two protracted conflicts with no discernible benefits for the average American, and for various and sundry criminal acts to be committed by our service men/women and abetted by the civilian administration(s). Our military is staffed and run by human beings, not angels. To assume that they are always and at all times acting justly and in a manner requiring no oversight is to make, quite literally, a fatal error. The military should be, and is constitutionally, subsumed under the civilian government. Too much secrecy on the part of the military is a hinderance to it's proper function within society.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 4:11 p.m.RECOMMENDED84

raymond m. lanewashington, d.c.
if the nuremburg trials taught humanity anything, it's that authority does not require soldiers to obey the wicked, the unlawful, the wrong. Manning and the wiki crew have done humanity a great service, and one could imagine manning being given the nobel peace prize, not stripped nake and kept in solitary confinement for months.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 3:47 p.m.RECOMMENDED79

banzaiUSA
If only they went after the fat cat bankers and the Washington lobbyists with the same vigor as they are Manning and Schwartz!

Those bankers and lobbyists are gutting our country at the core, and Schwartz and Manning had the greater good in mind.

What a tragedy of errors!
Feb. 28, 2013 at 4:12 p.m.RECOMMENDED76

Scott DravesNew York City
Manning's whistle-blowing revealed massive and ongoing crimes by the US government and military (eg knowing collaboration with torturers in iraq, coverup of child abuse in afghanistan, spying by the state dept). It's true he broke an oath, but in service of a greater cause.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 3:25 p.m.RECOMMENDED70

RW MarxWest Granby, CT
He's a hero in my book, another Daniel Ellsberg. And so are the students who protested the Iraq War. War itself is madness, but starting a war on false pretenses is criminal. Manning may serve some time, but his couragous actions are applauded by people who believe in justice and transparency. A harsh penalty will turn him into an even bigger hero.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 3:38 p.m.RECOMMENDED56

sidecrossOakland CA
I would agree that Manning should be rewarded and not punished for his actions.

Read any material on fighting insurgencies and you will understand that our nation and its Commander in Chief have failed to understand what is needed.

Do not blame the messenger for the message.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 3:15 p.m.RECOMMENDED55

PQuincyCalifornia
How true. He should get the same severe penalty as Mr. Cheney!
In reply to JohnFeb. 28, 2013 at 3:42 p.m.RECOMMENDED52

JohnMilwaukee
Manning wanted “to make the world a better place.” Isn't that what Dick Cheney said when he exposed Valerie Plame?

I mean, Manning should have known not to do something like that when he witnessed the punishment Cheney received for his traitorous ways.

Right?
Feb. 28, 2013 at 3:39 p.m.RECOMMENDED51

Kevin CahillAlbuquerque
Bradlley Manning is a hero. He should get an immediate and honorable discharge.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 4:44 p.m.RECOMMENDED48

PatrickBoulder CO
He chose to place his humanity above nationalism. His courage is to be lauded.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 4:28 p.m.RECOMMENDED47

jbok
Well GW Bush gave the medal of freedom to George Tenet, the fellow who assured him that Iraq was a "slam-dunk" and to General Franks of the army (formerly an Enron executive), who led the invasions of Afghanistan (where Bin Laden "escaped") and Iraq (another fiasco).

And the damage they did was so far beyond anything this young idealistic foolish man did or intended--well, you're right. Manning should get a medal, too. It's only fair.
In reply to sipa111Feb. 28, 2013 at 3:32 p.m.RECOMMENDED46

richCO
So, let's see, when you are granted a security clearance you sign a statement to the effect that you will not divulge classified information to any unauthorized entity under pain of criminal prosecution. I'm not very smart, and I didn't have any trouble understanding this. Then you divulge classified information to an unauthorized entity "to make the world a better place." OK. Now you take the punishment you knew was coming your way. Pretty simple.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 3:16 p.m.RECOMMENDED43

MikeSeattle
It continually offends me that the story told by the press is about Manning and Assange, even to the absurd detail about how Manning pronounces Assange's name, rather than the better and more appropriate story. That is, why are these documents considered secrets? The vast majority of them are harmless. Some are embarrassing. Some reveal the cold hard truth of war. But dangerous to the point of secrecy? And why is an administration that ran for election promising openness fighting to keep things closed? Why is this not the real story here?

Every sentence you spend on the pronunciation of Assange's name is a sentence wasted on the real scandal.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 4:44 p.m.RECOMMENDED42

Jay KutenWanganui, New Zealand
to jb
you forget cowboy botted Paul Bremer, who also got that medal. He's the one who discharged the Iraqi army, making 300,000 well-armed men jobless at once, assuring an economic and military basis for the insurgency.. Plus Bremer presided over the further destruction of their infrastructure so that there was 4 hrs of electricity (no airconditioning in 130 degree heat).

I wonder about Mannings confession. Could 1000 days of isolation have anything to do with it. Guess Geneva Convention Article 3 and 4 theoretically applies only to foreign troops. Your own you can torture.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 3:44 p.m.RECOMMENDED42

Name WitheldUsa
No matter what Manning's crime, he should have been brought to trial sooner and his pre-trial detention conditions were not just. He was arrested in May 2010 and now it's 2013!

Manning was in Prevention of Injury Status from July 29, 2010 to April 20, 2011. This was designed as essentially punishment for Manning, and he was not allowed to have sheets, a window to the outside, or see other prisoners. He was not allowed to sleep during the day. Manning was allowed 1 hr per 24hrs to walk in circles around a room,without any other prisoners present. At times he was required to sleep naked at night due to being a "suicide risk".

PJ Crowley, former United States Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, spoke out against Manning's treatment in pre-trial detention and mroe than 200 legal scholars signed a statement opposing the injust conditions of Manning's detention.

The US military's treatment of Manning is a perversion of justice in the USA...and a clear sign that the military doesn't care about justice and fair trial.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 5:17 p.m.RECOMMENDED38

jjames at replicountsPhiladelphia, PA
Manning may have done more than anyone else to end the Iraq war.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 4:03 p.m.RECOMMENDED38

Simon TaylorSanta Barbara, CA
Bradley Manning should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and released immediately.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 5:09 p.m.RECOMMENDED37

RMarcAlbany NY
Manning is a politic prisoner being held and brutalized by the military/industrial complex because he wanted Americans to realize just how depraved our culture has become with regard to the killing of innocents and civilians!
Feb. 28, 2013 at 5:24 p.m.RECOMMENDED36

Karen Osmanelkins park, pa
I see no difference between the actions of Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. The difference is the action of the government and the press, in the inhuman conditions in jail and the indifference of the press reporting. This is so sad.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 5:11 p.m.RECOMMENDED36

COregonNYT Pick
I don't know all the content of what was shared, but I do know that the American people should know the truth. If we are killing civilians and other acts in violation of the Geneva Convention and International Law, then we are committing criminal acts. As a citizen, I don't condone, that and I want to see government officials prosecuted. Why shouldn't all this information be public? You have to convince me that Bradley Manning wasn't doing his duty to his country.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 5:04 p.m.RECOMMENDED35





brmidwest
Let's see if we've got this right.

An Army private--a private--is given access to allegedly top secret stuff that will cause the sky to fall if it ever sees the light of day. The stuff becomes public. The sky does not fall.

For my money, they oughta give this guy a medal. Unwittingly or no, he has exposed the foolishness, and overzealous penchant for secrecy, in the way our government handles classified documents. Sheesh, how long did it take for the feds to release stuff on John Lennon and MLK, and only after they were long dead and only after being sued and sued again and sued yet again? Does anyone remember the Pentagon Papers?

This case shows that the government either keeps stuff secret that shouldn't be secret or that it allows folks to see secret stuff who shouldn't be allowed to see secret stuff, or both. Manning isn't the one who looks bad here. It's our government. I still recall Obama's first executive order as president, when he told agencies to start fulfilling FOIA requests instead of finding ways around the law. Ha! This has proven one of the most secretive administrations in modern history. When it comes to the public's right to know, Obama is as bad as Nixon, or perhaps worse.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 6:00 p.m.RECOMMENDED32

jimflorida
The President should pardon this man when he finishes his presidential term in 4 years. Manning had the guts to act as opposed to the yes men generals who have facilitated these fiascos. He is not a hero, but an ordinary person who did the right thing & is paying a high price.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 5:32 p.m.RECOMMENDED30

LetFreedom RingTexas
[NY Times, please excuse me, this keyboard is stiff and I didn't proof read, there were a coupld of dropped letters, please accept this revision.]

I agree with the others. He should get a medal.

Mr. Manning, if you or your support staff are reading this - please accept my heart felt gratitude for your patriotic actions. Few men find within themselves the bravery to act on what they know is right. But such action is by so many is why America is a great country. You have earned the right to know in your heart you are a true American.

It is embarrsing for me when in mixed company that a confession from an American held in such conditions *by Americans* for so long would ever even have a chance to be proffered in the first place. The tribunal should release him immediately - and thank him for his patriotism and integrity.

And for readers of my comment, just so you can put my words in context, I am a conservative and many of my family who I love deeply have proudly served - and I support them.

Bravery, Hontest, and Integrity these are qualities of Bradley Manning, may God Bless him, and may Americans rally to support him.

Long Live American Freedom
Feb. 28, 2013 at 6:49 p.m.RECOMMENDED48

zolisan francisco
The real crime here is how the US repeatedly violates international law, killing civilians with its horrendous drones, its unending militarism and interventions, kill lists. Shame on Obama. Hero? No. But a courageous citizen.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 5:56 p.m.RECOMMENDED47

Scientellapalo alto
HERO!!!!

absolute brave hero.

If he to be a martyr, I hope you Bradley realize that the world things it was for a truly just cause. You can know you did the right thing.

And the US government if they put this brave man in jail for life, will have it known to the whole wide world that not only do they punish the whistle blower, not the blood crazed gunners, but they have locked up a moral hero.

They would be wise to lessen his sentence or this will go down in history.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 5:50 p.m.RECOMMENDED42

CharlenuIh nj
too few newspapers therefor we need more Mannings
Feb. 28, 2013 at 3:21 p.m.RECOMMENDED42

RalphSF
This young man is a courageous hero and deserves honor, not persecution. We desperately need a more open and transparent society, especially in the government. I am appalled at Obama's attitude toward this whole affair.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 6:46 p.m.RECOMMENDED41

bluewombatlos angeles
Bradley Manning is a whistleblower, a hero and an American patriot of the highest order.

Barack Obama, who I'm embarrassed to admit I supported in the 2008 California primary, is the hired hand of the military-industrial complex that wants to crush Manning for having revealed the truth about what goes on behind the curtain of our military empire.

Obama also had the temerity to pre-judge Manning as guilty. I suppose that if he had had the opportunity to study Constitutional law, he would never have committed such a noxious and boneheaded act of command influence.

It will be a miracle if Manning ever gets out of prison. He may get a life sentence for the crime of allowing the American public to learn about things like the notorious collateral murder video, in which the crew of an American military helicopter in Baghdad shoots up some people on the ground for sport, and then shoots up the people coming to rescue the first set of victims.

God bless Bradley Manning, his courage and his patriotism.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 6:46 p.m.RECOMMENDED41

crankyactivistDorchester, MA
You are not informed on this case. When Manning realized that the Iraqis he was gathering evidence on had legitimate concerns about their government, he did bring his concerns to his superiors. He was told to do his job and get more evidence against them. Yes he could have kept his head down and let these people perish in our war on Iraq like most of us would have done in his situation. But his conscience didn't let him do this. Without him we would not know about some of the war crimes committed in our names.

Former Sect. of Defense Robert Gates said that little damage had been done by the information he released.

Bradley Manning is a hero and a soldier who took seriously the values of our country and his oath to uphold the Constitution.
In reply to cmedFeb. 28, 2013 at 4:50 p.m.RECOMMENDED41

Sam DWayne, PA
Has anybody clearly delineated the harm that Manning has done? Many people posting here say that he has caused us harm, but I have yet to see any indication that anything he leaked has hurt the US or our allies. Embarrassment is not the same thing as harm.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 4:26 p.m.RECOMMENDED41

Burn Wall Street Burnnyny
Private Manning should be given the Medal of Freedom or whatever the highest honor of the land is.

He deserves it, the people know it and we're going to get to the bottom of the corruptness that plagues our government.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 6:49 p.m.RECOMMENDED40

jeanbethel ak
Per the legal dictionary," the crime of treason requires a traitorous intent. If a person unwittingly or unintentionally gives aid and comfort to the enemy of the US during wartime, treason has not occurred."
It sounds like he was a lonely, idealistic kid who actually acted on his beliefs, something most of us never do. He may or may not have been misguided, but his intention was for the good of his country. He has already been punished.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 5:05 p.m.RECOMMENDED40

rUS
Manning exposed the FILTH in our military and their sickening crimes against innocent human beings—including children—and the Obama administration puts him in solitary confinement and throws the book at him. Meanwhile, the GI monsters go free. We don't even know their NAMES.

What a disgrace.

What a grotesque disgrace.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 4:57 p.m.RECOMMENDED40

LisaCalifornia
Those of you whose comments can be put into the "he took an oath; he had orders to follow" camp would do well to question your assumptions-and perhaps get a better understanding of our wars in the Middle East. I am not calling you Nazis and I am not calling the US Nazi Germany so please don't pull out that red herring but think about this: remember that "just following orders; have an oath to keep" was the refuge of the German soldier in WWII. Well, maybe what the US is doing in Iraq (and elsewhere in the ME) is actually very evil. And if that is so, then Bradley Manning is a very brave young man and a hero. I for one, am making a donation to support his defense.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 4:26 p.m.RECOMMENDED40

DougPWest Coast
I don't know what's more disturbing, the public indifference to the horrors he uncovered for us or the fact that such atrocities happened in the first place.

At the least for a democracy to work we need an informed electorate and far too often the governments veil of secrecy means people are voting in the dark. I studied history in school and what struck me over and over was how the contemporary masses would have an appreciation of events that would be flipped on it's head if they had immediate access to the guarded materials that only become available to historians years later. But by then people have moved on, no longer care, the deceptions and crimes have been accomplished.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 5:22 p.m.RECOMMENDED39

jimarizona
This soldier had much to lose, and still did what he did for selfless reasons. How many of us would have the courage to stand with our convictions and do the right thing?

This soldier deserves honors, and he will receive them.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 4:34 p.m.RECOMMENDED39

Johndrake07NYC
What he revealed through Wikileaks is nothing more than a great embarassment to the Obama Administration - and reveals the hypocrasy of the "great openness and transparency" that Obama promised the American people - before he unleashed the Stasi-like Security State upon the country. Viddy the decision of the Supremes to uphold the Obama admins right to spy, listen and record our conversations and perform unconstitutional surveillance on everyone, everywhere at anytime and any place. Or his God-Given Right to kill Americans by drone assassination based on his decision alone - and that of some unnamed bureaucrat behind a computer screen in DC.

And so many of the America-Right-or-Wrong posters think that the government can do no wrong and if they do, it shouldn't be revealed? Remember the lies surrounding Vietnam and the Gulf of Tonkien, or the Watergate Papers on Nixon's criminal conspiracy? Apologists for Obama would decry the revelation of deceptions for these events, no doubt.

Orwell wrote: "Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labor, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral color when it is committed by “our” side."

Obviously, the "Our Siders" would have Manning executed for "crimes" that shine the light on our moral terpitude.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 5:55 p.m.RECOMMENDED38

Ben CompaineCambridge, MA
I’m rather stunned at the volume of comments sympathetic to Manning. Good intentions do not exonerate illegal activity. Do we forgive muggers or embezzlers because they say it was only to get the money to feed their family?

Nor can we allow every private or low level intelligence analyst to decide on their own what is or is not harmful to national interests. Manning certainly did not review each of the thousands of documents to check their content. And even if he did we cannot condone his own arbitrary standard to be the basis for dissemination. Sure there are probably too many documents that are classified. But there would be a very dangerous message sent if a court did little more than a slap him on the wrist.

The question of how Manning may have been treated while in confinement is a separate issue.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 5:40 p.m.RECOMMENDED38

c37725Wichita, KS
I hope they let the kid off light, but I don't think our vindictive government will do that. The biggest mistake that Manning made was to believe that the publication of those documents would spark a foreign policy debate in this country. He don't know us too well, do he?
Feb. 28, 2013 at 5:55 p.m.RECOMMENDED37

PogoWasRightMelbourne Florida
They should give him a slap on the wrist. Just as they did to punish those six Navy SEALS who revealed classified information for monetary benefit. A strange world the military lives in. And I was part of it for more than 20 years.........
Feb. 28, 2013 at 5:16 p.m.RECOMMENDED37

tj breenmaine
The real crime here is the detention of PFC Manning.
No U.S. citizen - no human being - should be held in iso the way this individual has been.
For shame.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 4:52 p.m.RECOMMENDED37

Blue StaterHeath, Massachusetts
It was Georges Clemenceau, I think, who wrote that "military justice is to justice as military music is to music." If Bradley Manning really was instrumental in stopping the Iraq War, he deserves the Medal of Honor.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 4:21 p.m.RECOMMENDED36

Jason ShapiroSanta Fe
Manning has already spent enough time in prison, and under humiliating and deplorable conditions. If this country is ever going move on from the debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan (a questionable proposition given that we have yet to move on from Vietnam), then Pvt. Manning should be freed.
In reply to Captain MandrakeFeb. 28, 2013 at 5:16 p.m.RECOMMENDED35

PatrickBoulder CO
He chose humanity over nationalism. His courage is to be lauded.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 4:26 p.m.RECOMMENDED35

Casual ObserverLos AngelesNYT Pick
This guy acted according to his conscience but his judgement was definitely flawed, and he will be convicted and punished for it. He violated an oath but I think calling him a traitor and simply claiming that all secrets should be held equally deserving of confidentiality is also a flawed notion.

The anger that some people feel towards a "snitch" reveals a primitive urge to belong to a group and to justify even the egregious acts committed by group members. When soldiers murdered and raped civilians in a village that supported Communist forces in Vietnam under orders, a helicopter crew rescued some of the villagers. It took decades for the DOD to cite those crew members for bravery and many in the military and amongst American civilians vilified them as traitors. The officers in charge of the troops were tried and either acquitted by military courts, never prosecuted, or pardoned by the President. There were soldiers who refused to participate who did not care what were the consequences and this helicopter crew, and nobody else who were capable of doing the right thing and suffering the consequences. Eveyone else was just going along to get along.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 3:59 p.m.RECOMMENDED35

hellboyNew Hampshire
Yep, imagine if none of the American public knew about our policies on torture, or the real reasons that thousands of soldiers died for Bush's lies in Iraq? So many more stress-free days under the sun for all of us!!! Except of course those who died or are being tortured! Soldiers also have a duty to honor their conscience when they see wrong being done in the name of the US Constitution and the law. That they are not supported to do so is where we need to work...not on slamming anyone who whistle-blows!
In reply to SteveFeb. 28, 2013 at 3:55 p.m.RECOMMENDED35

rbolescaliforina
so telling us that the goverment is hiding deaths of people they killed is aiding the enemy i guess we the people are the enemies of the goverment
Feb. 28, 2013 at 4:05 p.m.RECOMMENDED34

ryoung iiCA
Words like treason and traitor come to mind. I'm concerned by his self-important decision to determine the value of information he was allowed access to and the cowardice he shows in trying to justify his action because of "isolation" due to his sexual orientation. If he disagreed with our actions, he could have protested when his tour was over; not betrayed our country and his fellow soldiers.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 3:16 p.m.RECOMMENDED34

WarrenCT
The people who should be doing time are his superiors who set up a system that gave this kid access to that much info with no oversight or checks. What was he, 20? a private? They should have known something like this could happen. Taking this stuff home a disc? That's computer security 101.

Not that what he did was right, but if you look at his motives and his rational for what he released, it is hardly a case of treason. Give him ten years minus time served.

Finally, he did us a service exposing the military and al the dysfunctional ways they operate. Both wars are a joke and the military is perpetuating it with their simplistic black and white assessments and "killing people on a list." That reminds me of Viet Nam with gimmicks such as body counts. I remember seeing an interview with spotter pilot in Viet Nam. He said the Air Force would put together a list of bombing targets based on on the ground field reports. 12-24 hours later they would end up bombing the target when the enemy was long gone. And this guy got in trouble for calling off an attack because it interfered with the AF being able to say, "We had x number of enemy targets and engaged the all." No different now with their lists.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 4:03 p.m.RECOMMENDED33

ZiggleColorado
He took an oath. He violated it, and in a huge way. This was not a case of a whistle-blower highlighting improper or illegal behavior -- it was indiscriminate release of a tremendous amount of classified data.

Just like Jonathan Pollard, Bradley Manning needs to do the time.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 3:12 p.m.RECOMMENDED33

Hal and BelindaHilo, HI
We certainly hope his judges take into account, his youth, the brutality he has suffered thus far and the sheer waste of life, being held in a cell. A sad commentary on many aspects of our civilized lives here.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 5:32 p.m.RECOMMENDED32

jimarizona
Our government is elected by "We The People", and then sends our young men and women off to war under false pretenses, and then withholds information about what is actually going on in combat theater. The actions by our military of bombing Iraqi civilians is information that should have been made public BEFORE it was done. Would We The People still have supported our Senators in their vote?

This soldier deserves a medal for his actions.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 4:26 p.m.RECOMMENDED32

Dr WUhotel calif
We are a warrior culture; whistleblowers get the shaft. We hail Caesar and Sherman and murder King and Jesus.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 4:21 p.m.RECOMMENDED32

BlankWherever
Ellsberg supported Manning's actions. That really convinced me to "get over" my uncertainty about Manning. I support him, even though I wish we didn't have a corrupt situation that obliged Manning to do what he did.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 4:06 p.m.RECOMMENDED31

jbok
Imagine that we had a dictatorship here. One that was carefully hiding its tracks as it went on doing the bidding of a few powerful men. One that was busy around the world, using the people's treasury to get its own profits up, to take resources from others, to kill opponents abroad. Imagine that layers of secrecy kept this from the people while a faux 2-party system simply cycled members of the gang up for votes.

Then a person leaking some of that information could expect the worst, couldn't he? Such bad treatment that no one would ever think of leaking information, no matter what horrors the dictators committed or decreed. That's what he'd expect. We'll see what happens here.
In reply to SteveFeb. 28, 2013 at 3:47 p.m.RECOMMENDED31

Robinwest village nyc
It would be awesome to have Cheney put under the conditions Manning has been subjected to.
The difference being, Manning fights for disclosure, while Cheney brought only shame + criminality.
In reply to CowboyFeb. 28, 2013 at 4:59 p.m.RECOMMENDED30

Jack SchimmelmanEdgartown, MA
He broke the law. Did he compromise national security? Hardly. all he did was publish. Most of the information was already well known and the incidents were long gone. This man is a hero and a true patriot. Nevertheless, he did break the law. Would Daniel Ellsberg go to prison today (the Pentagon Papers)? Probably. Regarding the Iraq war, we have been continuously lied. Blood flowed based on lies and it is a tragedy. Who should pay the price for that crime?
Feb. 28, 2013 at 4:22 p.m.RECOMMENDED29

HTNYC
Let's not lose sight in this debate of what exactly Manning leaked.

The video shows US Air Force gunners blowing away some 5-year old girls, a photographer, the girls' dads who tried to help him as he bled to death, and a bunch of other guys who may or may not have been bad guys (the gunners had no way of knowing because they were far away in an AC-130 gunship - not a helicopter - looking at a grainy telephoto gun camera image). It's clear from the audio that the gunner is eager to get permission to kill some people and takes pleasure in doing so. These atrocities were committed against people who never attacked the US and never asked us to invade their country or overthrow their government.

Is it any surprise that the military classified this video as "secret?" The crime is not Bradley Manning sending a video to wikileaks. The crime is the whole Iraq war and the criminals are the US political leaders who promoted the war and allowed it to proceed. Reporting a crime should not be a crime. Manning deserves praise for bravely helping to show Americans the horrible acts that are being done in their name and with their money.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 11:27 p.m.RECOMMENDED28

crankyactivistDorchester, MA
So the NYT calls Manning a "folk hero" which is someone who is not usually a public historical figure. Of course for those who get all their information from the NYT Manning is probably not a historical figure. The Times has said almost nothing about him in the over 1000 days he has been locked up without a trial, with 9 months in solitary confinement, a practice considered to be torture by many countries.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 6:00 p.m.RECOMMENDED28

Jason MayoBowdoinham Maine
Do those who slaughtered the innocents at My Lai walk with bowed heads? Do those who pursued peace by raining bombs not ask themselves for forgiveness? The swagger of the warrior band dominates our culture and violence pierces our soul. The old lie, "Dulce et Decorum est, Pro Patria Mori" runs rampant. We choose never to learn this simple truth and our country's blood runs cold.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 4:34 p.m.RECOMMENDED28

ChristopherJersey
The kid's a hero. And I hope he turns into a role model.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 4:17 p.m.RECOMMENDED28

zaigum kashmiriclarence ny
Army private Manning is a true patriot. he should be commended for leaking these files about US war mongring.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 6:46 p.m.RECOMMENDED26

crankyactivistDorchester, MANYT Pick
Why do we have the honored tradition of civil disobedience and whistleblowers? Manning's oath is not to the military, it is to the country and the constitution which does not condone war crimes, which he exposed.

Manning is not self-righteous when he explains that he saw, in doing his work as a computer analyst, that the so-called counter insurgency strategy was harming Iraqis and that the military was keeping this a secret from us, the tax payers.

I prefer to know what my government employees in the military, the executive branch, and the Congress are doing with my tax dollars. And clearly we need many more Bradley Mannings since our government is becoming more and more secretive and classifying more and more information that used to be unclassified.
In reply to bdFeb. 28, 2013 at 5:43 p.m.RECOMMENDED26

DavGregMarion, AR
One of the dirty secrets of Obama is that his administration has been brutal on whistleblowers. In Manning's defense, if he would have expressed concerns to his chain of command they would have been ignored.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 6:49 p.m.RECOMMENDED25

nilooteroPacific Palisades
So it's treason to inform a democracy about its actual policies? The original, and far greater, treason was committed by those concealing the lethal actions of our government, actions taken in the name of all U.S. citizens, actions for which we all bear responsibility.
In reply to L. NewmanFeb. 28, 2013 at 6:46 p.m.RECOMMENDED25

dwinstone1SSI, GA
The Senators, Representatives, President, Military Leaders, etc. take an oath that generally starts out swearing to protect and defend the Constitution. When they engage in acts such as lying to the American people to start wars, to violate the 4th Amendment, incarcerate without judicial process, etc., in my opinion they are also traitors. So please add to your list most of the elected and appointed officials of the country.
In reply to ZiggleFeb. 28, 2013 at 3:56 p.m.RECOMMENDED25

adirondaxMid-state NY
I completely sympathize with the accused' perspective. I also share the view that people like W. and Cheney have never been charged for their wilful desception.

Regrettably, the government is likely to throw the book at this kid, and he's going to have to do the time.

I don't see a way out for him. Unless Obama was to pardon him while leaving office.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 5:38 p.m.RECOMMENDED24

AmalaNYC
Your reasoning is very superficial. He is not advocating for anyone to do anything they want with lip service towards making the world a better place. He made a specific act to reveal the truth about what was happening in Iraq and Afghanistan. If anything, he was trying to show how our military is making the world less safe and secure by ignoring the human beings they were harming. He is like a modern day Thomas Paine or Patrick Henry.