“If a fellow soldier is punished for taking their oath to defend the Constitution seriously, what does that mean for our military and for our democracy?”
Active duty soldierAnonymous AWOL @Unoccupier, absent without leave from America’s occupation of Afghanistan, will speak publicly for the first time, risking arrest.
THE MASK COMES OFF
IF THERE IS ANY WAY YOU CAN BE PRESENT, PLEASE HELP HIM TO BE ABLE TO SPEAK BEFORE HE IS POSSIBLY ARRESTED.
Active Duty Soldier to Speak Out Publicly Against Afghan War Speech in Washington’s Freedom Plaza will Risk Arrest
***Embargoed Interviews Available Now***
At noon on Saturday, October 6, an active-duty US Army soldier will speak out against the War in Afghanistan at Washington, D.C.’s Freedom Plaza. Although he has been active with Occupy Wall Street and Occupy DC in recent months, this will be the first time he will reveal his identity in public.
At 24 years old, this soldier is a veteran of four combat tours — one in Iraq, and three in Afghanistan. He was on duty in Afghanistan when Osama bin Laden was killed. His announcement — which will also be livestreamed by @OCCUPYCARLISLE — will place him at risk of immediate arrest.
This veteran is available for embargoed interviews in Washington DC, ahead of his speech. More information is available on this Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/152438551564732/
WHO: An anonymous active duty US Army soldier WHAT: “Unoccupy the War” speech against the War in Afghanistan WHERE: Freedom Plaza, 1400 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington DC WHEN: 12:00 PM EDT
I have a long story if you have some time to read it. Back in 1999, my best friend and I had this grand scheme that since we had nothing better to do we were going to join the army. So, we both took the ASVAB at slightly different times but since we were living in the same county, we both had the same recruiters and office we were going out of. This was a long time ago, so my memory is a little foggy. I remember this young recruiter and myself driving to La Crosse, WI and his cell phone ringing every so often. He explained that his wife had mental health issues, which had her calling him almost every hour. I met some of the other recruiters, there was this one I’ll never forget. They called him Fudd and for good reason; he walked, talked, and acted like Elmer Fudd. I looked around the office and thought it would be cool since the people were so mellow. Bear in mind, I grew up in the 90’s. Movies like Tank Girl, In the Army Now, among a dozen others I’m probably forgetting portrayed that tanks, guns, blowing shit up as being cool. At our school, which was in a small town, had recruiters at it all the time. I think they knew because people are in smaller towns and less opportunities, that their situation may even get them to enlist for the benefits and getting away.
So, my best friend takes the ASVAB and gets a score slightly higher than mine. She was going to be in intelligence. I was told I could have been a journalist, if the position had been open for a female (I was kind of irked) due to a near-perfect English language score. But, they wouldn’t give me too many details about what I would be doing. Since my best friend had taken the test first, she was first up. She signed all her papers, packed her stuff, and went to Basic.
My mother and I, before she started drinking again, discussed my joining the army at length and when I see her I’ll owe her a “thank you” for this. She said she didn’t think it was a good idea. I had been diagnosed with clinical depression and PTSD. She said I was too sensitive to violence and my disdain for authority would immediately get me in trouble. I don’t know what would or could have happened but that now brings me again to the subject of Bradley Manning.
What I’m basically trying to say is, the Army doesn’t have an exceptional screening process when it comes to weeding out people that may be unfit. If I could just about be in the Army, who else could be? I know it was a long time ago, but things couldn’t have changed all that much. The various stories that have come out since the war began are the basis for my assertion (like killing rampages against civilians, systemic mistreatment of prisoners).
By the way, Happy belated May Day all. Did you know that May is Mental Health Awareness Month? Rep. Napolitano has more to tell you:
(BTW I started writing this in May)
Like she said, substance abuse and spousal abuse have been a problem. We owe it to our men and women who serve in the military to drop stigmas and petty nonsense to prevent problems. Prevention is far better than a cure and we could prevent tragedies like this one:
And there have been many other controversies that have embarrassed the United States far, far more than Bradley Manning could have managed on his own. And if you think war is a good thing, take a look at these numbers:
And there are many, many videos just like this one on youtube that makes America look bad without Bradley Manning’s help:
Does this make us look like kind, compassionate, helpful people? Is this what YOU voted for?
Listen to the guy about one minute in. You think war doesn’t cause mental problems? The floor is yours, argue any points that you have. I’m sure we’re all eager to hear it.
Here’s another documentary I recently found:
Basically, to sum up my point (you’re probably now wondering if I’ll ever get to it) is that not only does the Armed Forces have a problem in screening people before they enlist, they have a problem now of how they are going to deal with all these people that will undoubtedly have PTSD. Some people internalize their pain and don’t ask for help until it’s too late. What we’ve asked our young men and women to do is to be robots, to not feel. That’s an extremely unreasonable expectation. This is a part of the reason I support Bradley Manning. I encourage others to share their opinion, whether they agree or disagree. There needs to be more discourse about this subject.
What we wrote originally applies equally to the latest atrocity to come to light from U.S. military involvement in Iraq & Afghanistan, the massacre of mostly children and women by Robert Bales.
The punditocracy is all atwitter about what to think and do about the “urination incident” involving four USMC enlisted guys. To its credit the MSM has at least mentioned that one reason Hillary is more shrilly hypocritical than usual is that it compromises ongoing U.S. negotiations with the Taliban (that terrorist group that the U.S. helped put together to fight the Ruskies oh so long ago). That is, in addition to just looking bad, the timing is bad. What few in the official media or government have had the courage to breach is that humans, especially younger ones, conform very readily to an almost infinite variety of surroundings and expectations. It’s an adaptive trait common to many higher mammals, in particular the social ones like apes and canines.
Barbaric conditions create barbaric behavior – see previous post Not just following orders. This is offered not as an excuse for them individually or for our military as an institution or our country vis-a-vis the world community, but as an explanation of facts, an interpretation of human behavior in inhumane conditions. The military turns normal people into killers, or perhaps more accurately it “liberates the inner killer” or some such thing. That’s their job, and they do it pretty efficiently. Having studied human social behavior for some time, it seems very likely to me that most of the people squawking indignantly about this incident might at least on some occasion behave substantially similarly, given the same circumstances. To deny this is akin to denying any other set of factual data and their logically derivable conclusions (such as evolution, climate change, the holocaust, the causes of the financial collapse, etc) and to move the discussion to the realm of magical thinking in which teenage males trained to defend themselves and their comrades kill bad guys (dehumanized, a necessary prerequisite) and then quickly review a field manual for proper procedure in handling the lifeless corpses of people who were no doubt trying diligently to kill them only moments before.
Maybe what we should be questioning is why we collectively prefer fantastical “stories” in which our one remaining large industry, Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex, is inflicted globally on people inconveniently placed on top of strategic resources, under the pretext of “liberating” “fighting terrorism” “drug wars” “containing communists” etc. But that won’t happen because the conclusions (such as, we need to ride bicycles instead of driving Hummers, support community agriculture instead of Monsanto and building ever more superhighways, etc.) are equally inconvenient. Not to mention, it clashes irreconcilably with our unspoken faith in an infinitely resourceful planet, in “science” now transformed to a religious faith (stripped of logical conclusions but ever beneficent of technical marvels to save us from the inevitable dwindling of critical resources) and in our self-ordained Manifest Destiny.
This is what Bradley Manning and Julian Assange allegedly gave us, a precious rare glimpse into the id of the beast that we, collectively, have become. And woe to s/he who holds up a mirror to the Medusa. We have seen the enemy, and s/he is us.
Bless you Italian admins, smart enough not to waste a lovely Sunday removing this spectacular redesign.
#FreeBradleyManning — OpBradley — @the_infecti0n
Hello World,
This is a friendly reminder from your friends here at #Anonymous that we have not and will not, ever, forget Bradley Manning. Starting on the first of December to the thirty-first, we encourage everyone to do the following:
Hacktivists: Deface numerous sites and replace the page with a tribute to Bradley Manning.
Activists: Create chants/signs/posters/any materials related to Bradley Manning.
Journalists/Musicians/Artists/Writers: Use your talents to spread the message concerning the unethical treatment of Bradley Manning.
We know that we don’t all agree about much of anything and we represent the entire political spectrum of beliefs as well as just about every country and whatever designation can be placed on us. One thing that most of us agree on is *transparency* and the right for most, if not all information to be free from limitations on its use by any minority of people.
If anyone personifies the best ideals of Anonymous, it’s Bradley Manning. Many people the world over have been awakened by the information he allegedly provided to Wikileaks. Many excellent activist groups are working tirelessly and effectively on his behalf. There are good reasons why he should be released, and many have signed petitions to the White House, the Department of the Army, and others requesting that his alleged acts be viewed for what they were, revealing criminal and immoral acts by the United States government.
#OpManning has evolved over time like many other Anonymous activities. We are committed to the core concepts of Anon as we see them, freedom of information, opposing censorship, and of course, the indispensable lulz. Many of our comrades have been arrested and otherwise subject to attacks, and we do not wish to bring any further difficulties to anyone by promoting things that will give reason for such actions by law enforcement agents.
The right to oppose a governmental position is well recognised in the U.S. Constitution and most other national constitutions. How one chooses to exercise civil rights is open for creative thought. As many groups are doing all the logical normal interventions, we have struggled with what we can do publicly as an Anonymous action, finding our place among the other Manning support groups, so, as the #Occupy movement strengthens and self-organizes we want to be able to bring a broader awareness to the citizens of the world that they can change whatever they set their mind to, even to the ability to influence governments to “do the right thing” when it comes to Bradley Manning.
We’re asking what YOU would like to do, or like to see US do to help Brad. For anonymity voting, you can use Tor or a vpn on this site, wordpress.com only logs ips if you make an entry in the Comments section, but Polldaddy.com polling company likely does also log your ip, like almost all companies do (see also our IRC/Security page for more information).
You can choose MULTIPLE OPTIONS and also write in your own suggestion << PLEASE DO! Also, please spread this poll. The more input, the more likely the action(s) can make a difference. THANK YOU
#Op Manning 