Glenn Greenwald's Blog, page 69

Even a military judge recognizes what many progressives denied: Bradley Manning was mistreated | Glenn Greenwald

The ruling is but the latest repudiation of claims from Obama supporters that Manning was treated fairly and justly

(updated below)

"With respect to Private Manning, I have actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards. They assure me that they are." - Barack Obama, White House Press Conference, March 10, 2011.

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Few if any articles that I've written produced as much backlash a...

Even a military judge recognizes what many progressives denied: Bradley Manning was mistreated

The ruling is but the latest repudiation of claims from Obama supporters that Manning was treated fairly and justly

"With respect to Private Manning, I have actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards. They assure me that they are." - Barack Obama, White House Press Conference, March 10, 2011.

_________

Few if any articles that I've written produced as much backlash as my 15 Decembe...

Debating Zero Dark Thirty and John Brennan | Glenn Greenwald

Both the critics' favorite film of 2012 as well as Obama's nominee for CIA Director are supporters of torture

Time constraints prevented me from writing today, but here are two items from today where I debated various issues elsewhere:

(1) Earlier today on the NPR affiliate in San Francisco, I debated The Atlantic's Mark Bowden on the appointment of John Brennan as CIA Director as well as (the related topic of) Zero Dark Thirty (I wrote about my criticisms of the film last month). Bowden earlie...

John Brennan's extremism and dishonesty rewarded with CIA Director nomination | Glenn Greenwald

Obama's top terrorism adviser goes from unconfirmable in 2008 to uncontroversial in 2013, reflecting the Obama legacy

(updated below)

Prior to President Obama's first inauguration in 2009, a controversy erupted over reports that he intended to appoint John Brennan as CIA director. That controversy, in which I participated, centered around the fact that Brennan, as a Bush-era CIA official, had expressly endorsed Bush's programs of torture (other than waterboarding) and rendition and also was a v...

Chuck Hagel and liberals: what are the priorities?

As Obama prepares to nominate the controversial former senator, the key question is whether Democrats will help neocons oppose him

Numerous reports from Friday indicate that President Obama, possibly as early as Monday, will name Chuck Hagel as his nominee to replace Leon Panetta as Defense Secretary. Many of the most right-wing GOP Senators have already categorically vowed that they will oppose the nomination of this decorated combat veteran and two-term GOP Senator from Nebraska, claiming he...

The 'war on terror' - by design - can never end | Glenn Greenwald

As the Pentagon's former top lawyer urges that the war be viewed as finite, the US moves in the opposite direction

Last month, outgoing pentagon general counsel Jeh Johnson gave a speech at the Oxford Union and said that the War on Terror must, at some point, come to an end:

"Now that efforts by the US military against al-Qaida are in their 12th year, we must also ask ourselves: How will this conflict end? . . . . 'War' must be regarded as a finite, extraordinary and unnatural state of affairs....

France's censorship demands to Twitter are more dangerous than 'hate speech' | Glenn Greenwald

Few ideas have done as much damage throughout history as empowering the government to criminalize opinions it dislikes

(updated below)

Writing in the Guardian today, Jason Farago praises France's women's rights minister, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, for demanding that Twitter help the French government criminalize ideas it dislikes. Decreeing that "hateful tweets are illegal", Farago excitingly explains how the French minister is going beyond mere prosecution for those who post such tweets and now "...

Who paid for the Log Cabin Republicans' anti-Hagel NYT ad? | Glenn Greenwald

The gay GOP group confirms the ad was funded by outside donors, but refuses to identify them or their cause

Last Thursday, the gay GOP group Log Cabin Republicans (LCR) placed a full-page ad in the New York Times that attacked Chuck Hagel as anti-Israel and anti-gay and urged President Obama not to appoint him as Defense Secretary. This was quite a strange event for multiple reasons.

First, full-page ads in the NYT are notoriously expensive, particularly for a small, poorly-funded group like LC...

GOP and Feinstein join to fulfill Obama's demand for renewed warrantless eavesdropping | Glenn Greenwald

The California Democrat's disgusting rhetoric recalls the worst of Dick Cheney while advancing Obama's agenda

To this day, many people identify mid-2008 as the time they realized what type of politician Barack Obama actually is. Six months before, when seeking the Democratic nomination, then-Sen. Obama unambiguously vowed that he would filibuster "any bill" that retroactively immunized the telecom industry for having participated in the illegal Bush NSA warrantless eavesdropping program.

But i...

Obama's gift to al-Qaida, support for tyranny, and FBI monitoring of dissent | Glenn Greenwald

Numerous individual events from this week alone signify important trends in US government policy

This week will likely entail light posting, but here are several items worthy of note:

(1) I can't recall any one news article that so effectively conveys both the gross immorality and the strategic stupidity of Obama's drone attacks as this one from Monday's Washington Post by Sudarsan Raghavan. It details how the US-supported Yemeni dictatorship lies to its public each time the US kills Yemeni civ...