The intellectual cowardice of Bradley Manning’s critics

After imprisoning Private First Class Bradley Manning for eighteen months, the U.S. Army last week finally began the preliminary stage of his court-martial proceeding, and that initial process ended on Thursday. Manning faces over 30 charges; the most serious — “aiding the enemy” — carries a death sentence (though prosecutors are requesting “only” life in prison for the 24-year-old soldier). The technical purpose of this week’s hearing was to determine if there is sufficient evidence to warrant a full court-martial proceeding; the finding (that there is such evidence) is a virtual inevitability. Manning’s counsel, Lt. Col. David Coombs, spent the week challenging the Army’s evidence, suggesting that his client may have suffered “diminished capacity” by virtue of his gender struggles and emotional instability, and finally, forcefully arguing that the leaks were an act of political conscience and that the Army has severely “overcharged” Manning in an attempt to coerce incriminating statements against WikiLeaks (Kevin Gosztola and The Guardian were at the hearing and have recaps of what happened over the last week; my general view of Manning was set forth in an Op-Ed in The Guardian last week, and my specific view of the gender defense is here).

For the moment, I want to make one narrow point about Bradley Manning. I’ve made it before but it was really underscored for me by a debate I had on an Al Jazeera program Thursday night regarding Manning with Daniel Ellsberg and the neocon activist Cliff May, who vigorously defended the Obama administration’s treatment of Manning (the video of our segment is embedded below; it was preceded by a short interview of P.J. Crowley):

Ever since Manning was accused of being the source for the WikiLeaks disclosures, those condemning these leaks have sought to distinguishthem from Ellsberg’s leak of the Pentagon Papers. With virtual unanimity, Manning’s harshest critics have contended that while Ellsberg’s leak was justifiable and noble, Manning’s alleged leaks were not; that’s because, they claim, Ellsberg’s leak was narrowly focused and devoted to exposing specific government lies, while Manning’s was indiscriminate and a far more serious breach of secrecy. When President Obama declared Manning guilty, he made the same claim: “No it wasn’t the same thing. Ellsberg’s material wasn’t classified in the same way.”

One problem for those wishing to make this claim is that Ellsberg himself has been one of Manning’s most vocal defenders, repeatedly insisting that the two leaks are largely indistinguishable. But the bigger problem for this claim is how blatantly irrational it is. As Ellsberg clearly details in this Al Jazeera debate, he — Ellsberg — dumped 7,000 pages of Top Secretdocuments: the highest known level of classification; by contrast, not a single page of what Manning is alleged to have leaked was Top Secret, but rather all bore a much lower-level secrecy designation. In that sense, Obama was right: “Ellsberg’s material wasn’t classified in the same way” — the secrets Ellsberg leaked were classified as being far more sensitive.

To the extent one wants to distinguish the two leaks, Ellsberg’s was the far more serious breach of secrecy. The U.S. Government’s own pre-leak assessment of the sensitivities of these documents proves that. How can someone — in the name of government secrecy and national security — praise the release of thousands of pages of Top Secret documents while vehemently condemning the release of documents bearing a much lower secrecy classification?

Nor is there any way to distinguish the substance of the two leaks. While the Pentagon Papers exposed the lies from American leaders regarding the Vietnam War, the WikiLeaks disclosures have done exactly the same with regard to the Iraq War, the war in Afghanistan, and a whole litany of other critical events. Here is what Ellen Knickmeyer, the Baghdad Bureau Chief for The Washington Post during the Iraq War, documented about the Iraq War logs Manning is accused of releasing:

Thanks to WikiLeaks, though, I now know the extent to which top American leaders lied, knowingly, to the American public, to American troops, and to the world, as the Iraq mission exploded.

Is that not exactly what makes so many people view the Pentagon Papers leak as noble and just? Even some of Manning’s fellow soldiers in Iraq have hailed the WikiLeaks leaker as a hero. Beyond that, the diplomatic cables and war logs released by WikiLeaks revealed falsehoods and improprieties from the U.S. government (and other governments around the world) in a wide range of areas: its involvement in the covert war in Yemen; lies told by the U.S. Government regarding horrific, civilian-slaughtering incidents in Iraq; and, in general, numerous acts of abuses, deceit and illegality regarding much of what was done under the War on Terror rubric: exactly as the Pentagon Papers did.

Nor, if the U.S. Government’s evidence is to be believed, can there be any doubt about the similarity in motives between the two leakers. Just as Ellsberg repeatedly explained that he could not in good conscience stand by and have the world remain ignorant of the government lies he discovered about the Vietnam War (a war he once supported and helped plan), so, too, did Manning repeatedly state that these leaks were vital for informing the world about the depths of brutality, corruption and deceit driving these wars (including one war to which he was deployed as a soldier) — all with the goal of triggering what he called “worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms.” In the purported chats he had, Manning described how the intense worldwide reaction to the video of an Apache helicopter shooting unarmed civilians and a Reuters journalist in Baghdad “gave me immense hope”; that’s because: “i want people to see the truth… regardless of who they are… because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public.” That is as pure an expression as possible of exactly what motivated Ellsberg as well.

Just as Ellsberg came to realize the evil of the war of which he was a part and felt compelled to act to expose it even at the risk of his own liberty, so, too, did Manning (in the chat logs Manning purportedly said: “im not so much scared of getting caught and facing consequences at this point… as i am of being misunderstood”). The Army Private also explained in the chat logs that he began to realize how heinous the Iraq War was when he discovered that “insurgents” being rounded up and imprisoned by the U.S. Army were doing nothing more than issuing “scholarly critiques” of the Malaki government’s corruption — only to find that his Army superiors ignored his discovery when he brought it to their attention. Both Ellsberg and (allegedly) Manning then did the same thing: turned over the information they discovered to a third party to select the parts that should be published to the world (The New York Times for Ellsberg and WikiLeaks for Manning).

What’s really going on here in this Manning v. Ellsberg comparison is pure intellectual cowardice. At this point — four decades after it happened — most people are unwilling to stand up and publicly condemn the Pentagon Papers leak. In progressive circles, it has long been entrenched dogma that Ellsberg’s leak was just and noble and that the Nixon administration’s efforts to prosecute Ellsberg were ignoble. Ellsberg has hero status, and deservedly so: he risked his life, literally, to expose to the world just how systematic and deliberate was the U.S. Government’s deceit about the Vietnam War and how heinous was the war itself.

As a result, very few people are willing to condemn what he did (even the neocon May, in this Al Jazeera debate, was afraid to say that what Ellsberg did was wrong). So in order to condemn Manning — and, as importantly, if not more so, to defend the Obama administration — it’s necessary for Manning’s critics to contrive distinctions between the Pentagon Papers leak and the WikiLeaks disclosure: of course I approve of what Ellsberg did — all Decent People do — but what Manning is accused of doing is radically different and just awful: he must be punished.

The clear reality, though, is that those who condemn Manning now and want to see him imprisoned for decades are the direct heirs of those who, in the early 1970s, wanted to see Dan Ellsberg imprisoned for life. Those who now condemn both Ellsberg and Manning — like those who support the executive power abuses and secrecy of both the Bush and Obama administrations — are authoritarians to be sure, but at least they’re sincere and consistent in their views; it’s those who support one but condemn the other who are incoherent at best.

As Ellsberg himself makes clear, everything that is being said now to condemn Manning — everything – was widely said about Ellsberg at the time of his leak. Back then, Ellsberg was repeatedly accused of being a traitor, of violating his oath, of endangering America’s national security, of aiding its enemies, of taking the law into his own hands; he was smeared and had his sanity continuously called into question. Had it not been for the Nixon administration’s overzealous attempts to destroy him by breaking into the office of his psychiatrist — the primary act that caused the charges against Ellsberg to be dismissed on the grounds of government misconduct — there is a real possibility that Ellsberg would still be in a federal prison today. He’s viewed as a hero now only because the passage of time has proven the nobility of his act: it’s much easier to defend those who challenge and subvert political power retrospectively than it is to do so at the time.

As the Walkely Foundation recognized last month when awarding WikiLeaks and Julian Assange Australia’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize: “the secret cables [] create[d] more scoops in a year than most journalists could imagine in a lifetime.” Those who want to see Manning punished and imprisoned for decades are driven by exactly the same mentality as those who wanted to see Ellsberg in prison back then: a belief that the U.S. Government has the right to use secrecy to hide its acts of deceit and illegality, and that those who expose such acts to the world are the real criminals. Just as the Obama administration’s obsessive persecution of whistleblowers has its roots in the secrecy-worshipping mentality of the Nixon administration — in her New Yorker article on the war on whistleblowers, Jane Mayer quotes Gabriel Schoenfeld as saying: “Obama has presided over the most draconian crackdown on leaks in our history—even more so than Nixon” — those demanding Manning’s punishment are, in every sense, the Nixonians of today. Manning’s critics are made from the same authoritarian cloth as those demanding Dan Ellsberg’s scalp in 1971. They should at least be honest enough to admit that, and stop contriving blatantly false distinctions between the two cases.

* * * * *

One unanswered question surrounding the charges against Manning has long been this: who, exactly, is “the enemy” Manning is accused of aiding? On Thursday, military prosecutors supplied the answer: Al Qaeda. Apparently, by disclosing to the world the U.S. Government’s bad acts undertaken in secrecy, one is legally “aiding Al Qaeda.” Gosztola, in hisrecap of the proceedings, details how dangerous that theory is to basic journalism, as did Law Professor Kevin Jon Heller back in March.

* * * * *

The New Yorker‘s George Packer emailed an objection to an item I wrote on Thursday, and I posted Packer’s objection as an update along with my own response; there is now additional information about the objection voiced by Packer, and this morning I posted it as a final update to that column.

* * * * *

UPDATE: There is one other glaring irony that should be noted here. If Manning is indeed the WikiLeaks leaker, then he did not only reveal critical truths to the world, but also achieved enormous good: exactly the results the purported chat logs reflect that Manning sought. Even the harshly anti-WikiLeaks former NYT Executive Editor, Bill Keller, creditsthe release of the diplomatic cables with helping to spark the Arab Spring by exposing the true depths of the region’s dictators, including in Tunisia. By highlighting atrocities committed by U.S. troops in Iraq, the diplomatic cables prevented the Malaki government from granting the legal immunity Obama officials were demanding in exchange for keeping troops in Iraq beyond the 2011 deadline and thus helped end the Iraq War. Ironically, it’s often the very same people who most vocally celebrate the Arab Spring and the end of the Iraq War who simultaneously support the imprisonment of an individual who helped bring those events about (the WikiLeaks leaker), while cheering for a government (the Obama administration) that propped up many of those Arab dictators and tried desperately to extend the Iraq war.

If he is the WikiLeaks leaker, history will judge Manning as kindly as it has Ellsberg — and will view his persecutors just as unkindly as Nixon officials are viewed today for what they tried to do in the face of the Pentagon Papers leak.

UPDATE II: In deciding which problem is larger — excessive secrecy or excessive disclosure — consider this year-end list from Electronic Frontier Foundation entitled: “2011: The Year Secrecy Jumped the Shark,” which details just some of the most extreme secrecy abuses of The Most Transparent Administration Ever™. Jay Rosen once said: “The watchdog press died; we have [WikiLeaks] instead”; one could just as accurately say: meaningful transparency died; we have Bradley Manning instead.

UPDATE III: Here is a good report from Al Jazeera’s Listening Postfrom this week on U.S. media coverage of the Manning story, featuring interviews with Amy Goodman, FAIR’s Peter Hart, former CIA agent Roy McGovern and myself:

Can the U.S. Government close social media accounts? ALSHABAB USES TWITTER AS MEDIA CAMPAING

The Obama administration and The New York Times are teaming up to expose and combat the grave threat posed by a Twitter account, purportedly operated by the Somali group Shabab, and in doing so, are highlighting the simultaneous absurdity and perniciousness of the War on Terror. This latest tale of Dark Terrorist Evil began on December 14 when the NYT‘s Jeffrey Gettleman directed intrepid journalistic light on the Twitter account maintained under the name “HSMPress,” which claims to be the press office of Harakat al-Shabab al-Mujahedeen, the Shabab’s full name. Gettleman’s article included this passage early on in its account:

President Barack Obama. Right: A Somali al-Shabab fighter stands guard (Credit: AP/Reuters)

But terrorism experts say that Twitter terrorism is part of an emerging trend and that several other Qaeda franchises — a few years ago the Shabab pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda — are increasingly using social media like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter.

That has to be the single most amusing phrase ever to appear unironically in the Paper of Record: Twitter terrorism. And, of course, the authority cited for this menacing trend is that ubiquitous sham community calling itself “terrorism experts,” which exists to provide the imprimatur of scholarly Seriousness on every last bit of inane fear-mongering hysteria. That cottage industry (like the government’s demands for greater power and Endless War) remains vibrant only if Terrorism does (that is, Terrorism by Muslims: a propagandistic redundancy). Thus, with Osama bin Laden dead, a full decade elapsed since the last successful Terrorist attack on U.S. soil, and the original Al Qaeda group rendered inoperable, these experts are now warning the nation about lurking sleeper tweets.

In that original article, Gettleman detailed the taunting Twitter messages directed by this account at the Kenyan Army, which has responded in kind. The exchanges sound exactly like every other petty, schoolyard Internet spat that has ceaselessly sprouted up in every cyber crevice for the last two decades. After quoting a Terrorism expert from Rand on the menace of social media Terrorism, Gettleman provided just a small taste of the frightening threat posed by this innovative vehicle for jihadism:

For the Shabab, this often translates into pithy postings, like “Europe was in darkness when Islam made advances in physics, Maths, astronomy, architecture, etc. before passing on the torch,” and sarcastic jabs at the Kenyan Army. Kenya’s military spokesman, Maj. Emmanuel Chirchir, is also a loquacious writer of posts, and the result is nothing short of a full-on Twitter war.

After Major Chirchir wrote that the Shabab might be transporting weapons on donkeys and that “any large concentration and movement of loaded donkeys will be considered as Al Shabaab activity,” the Shabab responded: “Like bombing donkeys, you mean! Your eccentric battle strategy has got animal rights groups quite concerned, Major.”

Major Chirchir fired back, “Life has better to offer than stonning [sic] innocent girl,” a reference to the Shabab’s penchant for harsh Islamic punishments like stoning.

The Shabab have teased Major Chirchir for his spelling mistakes and have tossed around some SAT-quality words.

“Stop prevaricating & say what you really think, Major!” the Shabab wrote. “Sure your comments will invite derision but try to muster (or feign) courage at least.”

Other messages disseminated by the dastardly masterminds behind this Twitter account include things like this:

As CNET‘s Declan McCullagh noted: “For scary Somali militants, the folks behind @HSMPress have a fine appreciation of Starbucks’ caramel macchiatos” (undoubtedly, Terrorism experts would quickly admonish McCullagh that this is no laughing matter, as tweets of this sort — innocuous though they may appear to the untrained, non-expert eye — could contain coded directives to activate plots against the West).

Toward the end of the article, Gettleman tacked on what he and his editors apparently considered to be an unimportant afterthought: “Of course, it is impossible to know who exactly is operating the Twitter account.” Of course: but there’s no reason to let that small fact deter anyone.

All of this would be worth nothing more than a few moments of entertaining ridicule if not for the reaction it has spawned. Gettleman is back today with a new article detailing the response of the U.S. Government to his exposé. Headlined “U.S. Considers Combating Somali Militants’ Twitter Use,” the article reports:

The United States government is increasingly concerned about the Twitter account of the Shabab militant group of Somalia, with American officials saying Monday that they were “looking closely” at the militants’ use of Twitter and the possible measures to take in response. . . .

[S]ome American officials said the government was exploring legal options to shut down the Shabab’s new Twitter account, potentially opening a debate over the line between free speech and support for terrorism. . . .

American officials say they may have the legal authority to demand that Twitter close the Shabab’s account, @HSMPress, which had more than 4,600 followers as of Monday night.

So the U.S. Government believes it may have “legal authority” to compel Twitter to close accounts. From where does that authority derive? Presumably, the Obama administration could consider Twitter’s providing of a forum to a designated Terrorist organization to constitute the crime of “material support of Terrorism.” That raises a variety of questions: is the NYT guilty of that crime by quoting some of those tweets and promoting the account (since the first NYT article was published, the number of people following @HSMPress has significantly increased and is almost certain to increase more as a result of today’s article). Can one be guilty of that crime if one re-tweets any of their messages? How about if one defends their right to have a Twitter account?

What is more likely than compulsory action is thuggish extra-legal intimidation aimed at Twitter to “voluntarily” close the account. That path is less overt but just as insidious, if not more so. That is how government officials such as Joe Lieberman succeeded in cutting off all of WikiLeaks’ funding sources and web hosting options without the bother of charging that group with a crime: by demanding that Amazon, Master Card, Visa, Paypal and others “on their own accord” terminate WikiLeaks’ accounts and refuse to provide the group with any services. As EFF’s Trevor Timm asked today: “How fast does Joe Lieberman release a statement today saying we should censor the Net in the name of national security? I bet before noon.”

Are there really people who want the U.S. Government empowered to dictate who can and cannot have social media accounts to communicate ideas? Two weeks ago, the London Police characterized the Occupy movement as a “Terrorist” group alongside Al Qaeda and FARC. The Kenyan Army spokesman engaged in the “Twitter war” with the Shabab account today wrote: “Al Shabaab needs to be engaged positively and twitter is the only avenue.” Having the government shut down social media accounts is laughably ineffective — it would take Shabab about 30 seconds to open a new one — but the theories embraced to justify that power are purely tyrannical.

At this point, there is an almost perfect inverse relationship between the seriousness of the Terrorist threat and the severity of the powers the U.S. Government claims in its name. The Washington Post today has a long and quite good article by Karen DeYoung entitled “Secrecy defines Obama’s drone war.” It describes how the Obama administration claims the right to kill anyone designated by the President as a Terrorist anywhere in the world, in total secrecy and without any checks, and how the administration refuses to account to anyone for what it does, who makes those decisions, and on what basis:

Since September, at least 60 people have died in 14 reported CIA drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal regions. The Obama administration has named only one of the dead, hailing the elimination of Janbaz Zadran, a top official in the Haqqani insurgent network, as a counterterrorism victory.

The identities of the rest remain classified, as does the existence of the drone program itself. Because the names of the dead and the threat they were believed to pose are secret, it is impossible for anyone without access to U.S. intelligence to assess whether the deaths were justified.

In outlining its legal reasoning, the administration has cited broad congressional authorizations and presidential approvals, the international laws of war and the right to self-defense. But it has not offered the American public, uneasy allies or international authorities any specifics that would make it possible to judge how it is applying those laws. . . .

“They’ve based it on the personal legitimacy of [President] Obama — the ‘trust me’ concept,” [American University Professor Kenneth] Anderson said. “That’s not a viable concept for a president going forward.”

That is the heart and soul of the U.S. Government’s framework: we can do what we want, in total secrecy and with no checks, including to U.S. citizens, and you don’t need to know anything about it and we need no checks: you should just trust us. That, of course, was precisely the rationale long offered by the neocon Right to justify the radical, transparency-free powers of detention, surveillance and militarism seized by the Bush administration: maybe these powers could theoretically be abused one day by a Bad Leader, but right now, we have a good, noble, Christian family man in office who only wants to Keep us Safe, so we can trust him. That has now been replaced by: maybe these powers could theoretically be abused one day by a Bad Leader, but right now, we have a good, noble, urbane, progressive Constitutional scholar and family man in office who only wants to Keep us Safe, so we can trust him(see, for instance, CAP’s Ken Gude dismissing concerns about the indefinite detention bill by expressly invoking the Goodness of President Obama: “if the president does not believe it is necessary or appropriate to order military operations in the United States, then there is no military detention authority in the United States”; “President Obama has made clear he does not want military detention in the United States. . . . Yes, a future president may interpret that authority differently, but that is [] a fight for another day . . .”).

The powers with which the U.S. Government has vested itself would be disturbing and odious no matter the magnitude of the highlighted threat. But the fact that they’re now reduced to bottom-of-the-barrel screeching about Twitter Terrorism — while simultaneously claiming the “legal authority” to force the closing of social media accounts — reveals just how wide is the gap between the magnitude of the powers they seek and the magnitude of the threat they cite to justify them. As always, the War on Terror is not a means to an end; it is the end in itself.

UPDATE: That HSMPress Twitter account today tweeted this:

That link goes to this article. Perhaps a zealous U.S. prosecutor could use this as evidence to allege that I have materially supported Terrorism (though the NYT should be first in line to be so accused, given that this Twitter feed has gained another 1,000 followers today as a result of that newspaper’s highlighting of it). On a related note, Mother Jones‘ Adam Serwer looks at a conviction today to document a very ominous trend, one I’ve written about several times: the way the DOJ and courts are jointly converting pure free speech into the crime of “material support for Terrorism.”

Saylicipress News International Post (SNIP) – The Overdue Somaliland Republic Recognition is Already Here

December 22, 2011 By: adal Category: Editorial

The overdue Somaliland Republic recognition is already here: The time to demand or hope to obtain it from illegitimate and illegal 20th century dictators is over

Top stories in Brief:

1. The Overdue Somaliland Republic Recognition is brighterthan ever before Due to the Rapidly Changing International Structures. The oldworld power structure dominated by so-called interest oriented and hegemoniccolonial powers is rapidly declining and its demise has started long time ago. Thefirst sign of their long but gradual decline and economic collapse is the ongoingeconomic collapse in North America and Europe. The second sign is the rapidlyexpanding Arab Spring that is sweeping North Africa and the Middle East. Thepost-colonial tyrants that scoff off with suspicion at any kind of change in Africaare also aging and at the same time on the verge to be swept away by the comingAfrican Spring. The bottom our native model is a unique model in the world andwon’t be in hurry for anybody in the dying old system to recognize. With theadvent of the rapidly changing international political and economic landscape, recognition will be automatic and will come tous instead seeking from a dying world power structure.

2. The Ottawa conference held to supportSomaliland’s sovereignty and Independence. Sheikh Omar Abdi emerged as aSomaliland hero of the rally.

3. United States Withdrawal from Iraq

4. Arab Spring

5. IGAD Dictatorships/UN Bureaucrats Ravaging theformer Somalia

6. Keeping U.S. Troops in a mess called Afghanistan even for Ten Moreyears is a waste of blood and Money

7. DPRK leader (North Korea) died on 12/17/2011.

8. A huge rally to support Somaliland independenceand sovereignty was held in Ottawa. Large numbers of patriotic and enthusiastic Somlilanders have taken part in therally.

9. TheGreen Bay Packers have lost to the Kansas City Chiefs but still has a 13-1record which is the best in the NLF.

10. The Saudi king called for the countries ofthe Gulf Council and the newly joined out of the Gulf countries such as Morocco andJordan to join a new union. Saudi Monarchs/Dictators apringre probablymotivated by the raging Arab Spring.

11. The Djibouti dictator dispatched token fewhundred soldiers to the hell on earth called Mogadishu.

12. Dictator Assad is still torching the peacefulopposition to his dictatorial rule. Assad must step down before he met the Gadhafisyndrome of fighting a losing game to the bitter end.

13. IGAD dictators.

14. Struggle in Egypt

15. Foreign military intervention

16. Insulting others because of their political positionor opinion or criticism is an exercise on futility. It should be and must bebased on political philosophy and opinion.

17. Inthe so-called foreign sponsored meeting in Garowi, Faroole put up his own flag everywhere.When Shariff landed at Garowi airport, Puntland flag was decorated everywhere. They behaved time and behaving like a separatecountry for a long time.

Top stories in Dept.

1. Somaliland Republic: The Overdue SomalilandRepublic Recognition is Brighter Due to the Rapidly Changing International;Structures. The Arab Spring is chewing on the most recalcitrant and favoritedespots regarding the former western powers and the Unites States. The ragingpeoples’ revolutions through North Africa, middle east and already makinginroads into sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and beyond is the begging of changingthe world power structure, a lopsided dominated by few former colonial powersand the U.S. For example, in the so-called Security Council, The U.S., France, Britain,and Russia are basically Euro-American nations. They are mostly in sync witheach other regarding international power and governance, Russia differs withthem here and there and from time to time, but rarely criticizes or blocks whenBritain, and the U.S. are doing so big world move when pursuing their interest.Only China is a different state that also went through difficult colonial andneo-colonial times.

2. Ottawa:Ottawa meeting came out as super meeting where so many heroes who were both menand women emerged. Sheikh Omar Abdi emerged as preeminent hero. She showedunprecedented courage and oratory. His speech was a combination of inspirational,advice, historical perspective and advice.

3. Iraq:United States Withdrawal from Iraq is a good thing to do and a step in theright direction and destruction but a very high cost. There about 5,000American troops dead, and about 30, 00 injured. INS and discussions the Iraqiside about 100,000 people is dead. Huge death and destruction to cities, roads,electric grid, water systems, schools, universities and industry. The war wasstarted in the false premise that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction whichfound to be false. That war will be the subject of endless debates anddiscussions for many years to come.

4. ArabSpring: The Arab Spring that started in Tunisia spontaneously has already sweptaway three well-entrenched dictators who are Zhine Al-Abadine of Tunisia,Mubarak of Egypt, and Kaddafi of Libya? Assad of Syria, Salah of Yemen, and theBahraini Sunni minority monarchs arehanging by a cliff hanger and will be topples sooner than later also.

5. Dictators:IGAD Dictatorships/UN Bureaucrats Ravaging the former Somalia

For the last 30 ye tears, the bankrupt, political and economics ridden IGAD dictators has made theformer Somalia their lucrative project they make other money, and every fewyears come with some new trick, magic poor project. They sent this proposalunder the auspices of the so-called war of terrorism to milk money from the westernn colonial powers. The as-called Unisom in Mogadishu and [projects before wereall this game of keeping the former Somalia. Since the start of the Arab Springthe IGAD dictators are looking over their shoulders. These dictators became thepoor, Hungary, and feuding despots riddled with their own political,corruption, and economic problems. The Somali project is not only a moneymaking lucrative project for them, but also a distraction from their horriblecountries where a number of insurgencies and armed opposition is going on.

6. Afghanistan: Keeping U.S. Troops in a Countryin which is messed up, so screwed up, there is no chance of any semblance ofpeace and order. History tells both Afghanistan and Pakistan are two violentstates. Through history Afghanistan has never known to have a real centralgovernment. Keeping American and other western troops over there is nothing butan exercise in futility; it is also just a waste of money and blood. I did notunderstand what the United States troops will do there since 2012. Nobody canbring peace in a place where there was no history of peace. The American peoplemust demand to bring our troops home. There is no reason of keeping our troopsthere. There is no peace top keep there. Afghanistan was never a centrally controlled country. It was an always aplace historical or pre-mordial society if you will. Karzai is also a corruptand multi-faced charlatan who is just milking the international money boringthe hell hole called Afghanistan. These tribes were bitter enemies for the lastmillennium and beyond. The third years of experiment as a nation state failedand worked, and there is no reason that another one of central control can’t work.

7. DPRK: The leader Of DPRK,the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea died on 12/17/2011. The country ismourning. Since the Korean war of 1950-1953, the two Koreas are in a state war.They never signed a peace treaty. There is just an armistice was struck in1953, and demoralized zone patrolled by UN forces was established between thetwo countries. In the Korean war South Korea was backed by forces led by theUnited States who were the banner of the United States, and DPRK was backed by China and the then Soviet Union. According to North Korean television Kim JongIL will be succeeded by his son Kim Jong UN.

8. Somaliland Sovereignty: Ahuge rally to support Somaliland independence and sovereignty was held inOttawa. Large numbers of patriotic and enthusiasticSomalilanders who love their country have participated. Great speeches weredelivered, patriotic songs were sung. The atmosphere was festive and jubilant.

9. Green Bay packers: The Super ball champions,the Green Bay Packers have lost to the Kansas City Chiefs. 13-1. The Super Ball Champions still enjoy thebest NFL record. Many sport experts expect them again to Super contenders thisyear also.

10. Saudi Monarchs/Dictators: TheSaudi king proposed a Union between the Gulf Sheikhdoms. What is that? This maythe result of the Arab Spring. Could It an attempt stall the Arab Spring?

11. Djibouti: The Djibouti dictator has sent few hundred somewhattoken forces to Mogadishu the capital of the former Somalia. Nobody knows whyhe sent few hundred token soldiers to Mogadishu. For him to endanger Djiboutiansoldiers to a futile and fruitless dictators’ mission in Mogadishu ispointless. There is one thing which iscrystal clear dictators is showy, token and they love publicity and praise.They like to be called what they are not.

12. Syrian Tyrant: Finally itis Syria is still smoldering and the immoral world is still le watching aheavily armed and violent genocidal butcher to use heavy weapons includingartillery, tanks, antitank weapons, multiple rocket launchers and what have youagainst unarmed and peaceful demonstrators. If there is conscience left in theworld, the world needs to intervene very quickly because the murder, andcriminal strong man, the so-called Assad is just murdering people at will. Hisfather killed 20, 000 people in the city of Hama in 1982. A huge neighborhoodwas attacked with heavy weapons, and when the dust clear. Settled 20, 000people innocent civilians were dead. What kind of world we live in? AfterRwanda I and Srebrenica I won’t be surprised.

13. IGAD Tyrants: IGAD dictatorships fully involved with the affairs of the former Somalia, and none of them wantany reconciliation or semblance of peace to come back to that war torn place.Moreover, these defective and unstable dictatorships are not equipped, or havethe capacity, the funds and the will to fix any place. All of them have hugedomestic problems including corruption, internal dissent and some cases activeinsurgencies.

14. Egypt: The people of Egypthave toppled long reigning dictators last year, but he was just replaced by theEgyptian military who were ruling Egypt for the last 60 years. Since 1952 coupby the so-called free officer union ( Dubaad Al-Ahraar), Egypt was ruled by themilitary. The military became a rather privileged entity that owns Real Estate,companies and industry. They control at least 10% of the Egyptian economy. What is happening here the cunning Egyptianmilitary were embarked in hijacking the grass roots peoples’ revolution and theEgyptian people refused that? That is the reason came up with a brutal force tocrush and silence the people. Now the people are demanding that the militarymust give up all power, something they will not accept. Then they respondedwith brutal force and the people refused to budge to their violence andoppression. Now, Egypt entered the second phase of the revolution between the remnantsof the old privilege guard, the Egyptian military and the revolutionary forceswho will not be satisfied unless the military completely gives power. Jugglefor freedom and democracy. That is where the Egyptian struggle for freedom anddemocracy, and the ongoing violence in the streets of Cairo will not endanytime soon. There is genuine fear that the current standoff will escalateinto an armed shoot out between the military and the Egyptian revolutionariesand people.

15. African DictatorsIntervention: The intervention of African dictators into former Somalia iscurse. It is a terrible omen to have troops from poor, tribal, corrupt andundisciplined forces into former Somalia a Muslim is not going well and notexpected to go well either. The involved countries are mostly underdevelopedstates that are saddled with social, economic political problems, and in somecases such as Ethiopia, Djibouti, Uganda and Burundi have their own localinsurgencies.

16. Insultingothers because of their political position or opinion is pointless: If you want to criticize others you need tocriticize them on the issues, political philosophy, and on the record. It is illegitimate, unethical, and immoral to write baseless lies about others.

17. When Sharifflanded at Garowi airport, Puntland flag was decorated everywhere. Immoral act to attack the personality of a messenger. You do not need toattack by been e objective. Sayingnonsense and baseless things about the messenger is called a harangue. Criticismshould be objective and should be confined to the issues. Garowi meeting put the seal of approval to the real contestants in the politicalquagmire of the former Somalia: WhenShariff landed at Garowi airport, Puntland fla17. Garowig was decorated everywhere. ClearlyFarool’s Puntland, his crime enterprise infested with pirates and other criminalsyndicate groups looked like a separate government. Puntland or in other a longtime in other wards Farooleland was behaving like a separate country for solong time with any declaration. The man also acts like real gangster byintimidating and bullying his opponents. The sham Garowi is a reflection of feudinggroups in the former Somalia. What isleft of the former Somalia is clearly a contest between the Hawiye and Majiirteen. If you want tounderstand that ,look closely the people congregating in Garowi. They arePunland representing Majiirteen,Galmudug representing Hawiye,Mogadishu figment packaged as a government primarily representing Hawiye. Theother Somalis of Italian Somalia are marginalized and all they mostly have is atoken representation. In conclusion the current political and military stalematein Somalia is between Hawiye and Majiirteen.

SayliciPress.Net

Shirkadda SomCable Oo Soo Bandhigaty Muuqaalo Muujinaya Halka Uu Marayo Mashruuca Isgaadhsiinta Ee Xadhiga Kaybalka Badda Ee Ay Doonayso Inay Somaliland Keento.

Published By Webmaster On Tuesday, December 20th 2011. Under News    

Hargeysa-(Qor)-Shirkadda Isgaadhsiinta SomCable oo qayb ka ah Companiga weyn ee IMCG oo uu Leeyahay ganacsadae Maxamed Aw Siciid ayaa kusoo bandhigtay Carwada ganacsiga Somaliland ee laga furay Hargeysa toddobaadkan hawsheeda dhinaca Isgaadhsiinta Kaybalka badda ee ay doonayso inay keento Somaliland.

Iyadoo SomCable carwadaa kusoo bandhigtay halka ay marayaan hawsha xadhiga mashruuca Kaybalka Badda ee ay doonayaan in Somaliland laga hirgeliyo muddooyinka soo socda, kaas oo hadda shaqadiisu ka socoto dhinaca Xeebta galbeedka Somaliland, isla markaana la doonayo sidii loo soo gaadhsiin lahaa magaalada Berbera. Eng. Yuusuf Xuseen Cabdalle oo ah wakiilka Shirikadda SomCable ee Somaliland ayaa u sheegay  inay mashruucaa soo jiidista Kaybalka xadhiga Isgaadhsiinta hadda kasoo bilaabeen dhinaca dalka Djibouti oo laga soo wado xadhiga Submarine Cable, kaas oo lasoo raacinayo xeebta badda Somaliland, isla markaana la gaadhsiinayo magaalada dekeda ah ee Berbera.

Qorilugud WebNews Chief Editorial