Category: Military

Comparisons between WikiLeaks and Pentagon Papers cases raise serious questions about government and judicial discretion.

By David Gespass/Military Law Task Force

Today, Bradley Manning was sentenced to thirty-five years for the “crime” of revealing the seamy underside of US diplomacy and war-making. The sentence is substantially less than sixty years the prosecution asked for, but greater than what the defense requested. It was predicated on alleged damage done to the US, though it remains unclear what actual damage, aside from embarrassment, occurred.

Update on Point Loma national cemetery – Thursday, August 15th, 2013

It is five days short of one year since I wrote my first article about the deplorable conditions at the Ft. Rosecrans national cemetery.

Over the past year, I have made numerous trips to the cemetery – my husband is interred there – and have been depressed, angry, sickened, etc. by what I have seen. Today I decided to go back and look for the improvements everyone has been talking about.

I am sorry to say that there are virtually no improvements in the section that Bob is resting in. (In fact, knowing Bob, he is probably very angry at what he sees when he looks out his door.)

Rather than just tell you about it – as I have done in the past – I have taken some pictures that will give you an idea of how our servicemen and servicewomen are being treated.

by Juan Cole / Informed Consent/ August 6, 2013

In a Reuters Exclusive, John Shiffman and Kristina Cooke reveal that the National Security Agency shares information it gleans from warrantless surveillance of Americans with the Special Operation Division of the Drug Enforcement Agency, which then uses the metadata to develop cases against US citizens. The DEA then routinely lies to the judge and defense attorneys during discovery about how its agents initially came by their suspicions of wrongdoing.

By Julie Tate / Washington Post

An Army judge on Tuesday acquitted Pfc. Bradley Manning of aiding the enemy by disclosing a trove of secret U.S. government documents, a striking rebuke to military prosecutors who argued that the largest leak in U.S. history had assisted al-Qaeda.

The judge, Col. Denise Lind, found Manning guilty of most of the more than 20 crimes he was charged with. She also acquitted him of one count of the espionage act that stemmed from his leak of a video that depicted a fatal U.S. military airstrike in Farah, Afghanistan.

Bradley Manning arrived at court to hear the verdict in his military espionage and aiding the enemy trial at Fort Meade Tuesday. Manning was found not guilty of aiding the enemy.

By Judi Curry

I have written several articles about the deplorable conditions at Ft. Rosecrans. See here, here, and here.

Michael Turko of KUSI News did a story a week or so ago and I sent him the articles that I wrote. One of the real discrepancies in his report and mine was that he was told the problem began occurring in November of 2012. My first article was written in August, 2012 and it was already a problem.

This article has several messages I would like to discuss. Last year I wrote about the deplorable condition of Ft. Rosecrans. Just a few weeks ago I was quoted by the “editordude” in an article regarding the condition of Ft. Rosecrans during the Memorial Day holiday.

To briefly recap that quote, several of the women from my widow support group went up to Ft. Rosecrans to visit our husbands. Even though we know they are not “there” – talking to them is no different than when they were with us – they don’t listen and they didn’t respond. However, whereas we used to be able to sit under a tree on the green grass and have a picnic, the green grass and the trees are gone.

By Kathleen Gilberd / On Watch

The military is once again in crisis over sexual assaults. In recent weeks, it has become more apparent than ever that the military’s sexual assault policy is a failure, and that sexual assault in the services has become epidemic.

In early May, the Department of Defense (DoD) released new figures showing a significant increase in reported and unreported assaults – DoD estimates that over 26,000 servicemembers were assaulted in 2012, with only 3,374 of these cases reported to the military.

Just as the figures were released, the Air Force was rocked by news that the head of its Sexual Assault Prevention and Response program had been arrested for sexual battery. More recently, the Sexual Assault Response Coordinator for Ft. Hood was charged with sexual assault and pandering.

Do you recall the case of the unarmed Marine killed by an Orange County sheriff right in front of his two daughters? We do as we ran articles on the incident.

Marine Sgt Manuel Loggins Jr was shot to death as he sat in his SUV along with his daughters by Deputy Darren Sandberg back on February 7, 2012.

His family just settled a federal lawsuit against Orange County for $4.4 million. Loggins had been stationed at Camp Pendleton.

By Marjorie Cohn / Truth-Out.org

As one of the 1,200-plus signatories to the full-page ad that appeared in The New York Times, calling for the closure of Guantanamo, I was disappointed in President Barack Obama’s speech Thursday on counterterrorism, drones and Guantanamo.

Torture and Indefinite Detention at Guantanamo

In a carefully crafted – at times defensive, discourse, Obama said, “In some cases, I believe we compromised our basic values – by using torture to interrogate our enemies and detaining individuals in a way that ran counter to the rule of law,” adding, “We unequivocally banned torture.” But Obama failed to note that the United Nations Human Rights Commission determined in 2006 that the violent force-feeding of detainees at Guantanamo amounted to torture and that he has continued that policy.

It’s a sad day in America. The US Navy launched the first carrier-based drone off its deck the other day, off the coast of Virginia. It’s an even sadder day for us in San Diego, as the drone was manufactured – in part, at least – by plants and engineers right here in our own city.

The launching of the drone off that deck demonstrates clearly that as drones become more and more integrated into becoming the armament of the nation’s military, they are becoming more and more accepted – here domestically, back in the good ol’ US of A.

The Widder Curry Weighs In

An interesting question appeared today on the Point Loma Democrats website in regards to an article announcing the 80 year celebration of the San Diego ACLU.

To say that I was nonplussed to read the question which can as a comment to the article, would be a minor revelation. At the risk of being censored – do you think that Democrats would do that to their own? – let me tell you something about it.

On June 7th, there will be a 80 year celebration of the San Diego ACLU. As the article read, this function is not a

Editor: The following is a transcript of Amy Goodman’s program on Democracy Now from yesterday, May 8, that aired highlights from Tuesday’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on military sexual assaults . We also include the video – see below. Democracy Now!

NERMEEN SHAIKH: A shocking new report by the Pentagon has found that 70 sexual assaults may be taking place within the U.S. military every day. The report estimated there were 26,000 sex crimes committed in 2012, a jump of 37 percent since 2010. Most of the incidents were never reported.