With Liberty and Justice For All

I don't know where to start: there are so many shames to deplore and complain about. I will take the one which has at least a small element of good in its most recent news.

A small element. Bradley Manning is no longer being held in solitary confinement in Quantico, and no longer being tortured. A year of such was enough? Bush Obama has done away with the Constitutional right of "habeas corpus," so he could keep Mr. Manning for a year without bringing any charges against him. That, of course, is what Bush Obama is doing at Guantanamo Bay, and has been doing there for more than nine years: since he was just plain Bush.

But nobody cares. Most of my former friends condone such. I can't understand them. Or maybe I just pretended, for many years, that they were decent, thoughtful, honorable people, because I wanted us to be friends. No more. I can't do that any more.

Bradley Manning is now being held at Fort Leavenworth. He is actually allowed to wear clothes now. (Are all the U.S. Marines at Quantico sexual perverts? Not gay, but perverted?)

But Obama has announced that "Manning broke the law." Well, I guess I am glad lawyer Obama said that: because as he must know--being lawyer Obama--he has now fatally prejudiced any attempt to bring Mr. Manning to trial on any charges.

Lawyer Obama knows, of course, that Mr. Manning upheld the law. Both U.S. civil law and the Uniform Code of Military Justice make "misprision of a felony"--the hiding of a known felony offense--itself a felony offense.

The war crimes that Mr. Manning exposed, through Wikileaks, were felony offenses. He had a duty--a legal duty--to expose them.

The real criminals in this serious case are (a) George W. Bush; (b) his underlings who actually committed the war crimes--torture, illegal imprisonment; and (c) Obama who has continued the torture and illegal imprisonment at Guantanamo and the year's worth of illegal detention and torture of Mr. Manning.

The chambers at Nuremberg have been completely refurbished. It's time they be used again. This time, the prosecutors can't be Americans--because Americans must be the ones on trial.

And to those of you who might read this--who once were my friends--I hope you can find your way toward honor again. You are welcome to despise me, but please don't be either determinedly stupid or mean.