Solidarity with Millitary Resisters - glenton Released, Manning Imprisoned!
international |
anti-war / imperialism |
news report 
Sunday August 01, 2010 23:27
by Ciaron O'Reilly - Catholic Worker/ Ploughshares
They're in There For Us, We're on the Loose for Them!
Last Monday I went to Conway Hall in downtown London to welcome Joe glenton out of 4 months in a military prison in Colchester.
By the end of his 7 month tour with the British military in Afghanistan, Joe was traumatised and was opposed to the war. When he was being redeployed to Afghanistan he went AWOL and moved to Australia to avoid the British authorities. He was not in good shape when he landed in Australia. He then met a woman, who he was to marry, who helped him process what he had been through in Afghanistan. After two years in Australia they resolved to return to England to publicly denounce the war on Afghanistan. Joe surfaced at an anti-war demonstration in London last year. He was arrested and sentenced to 9 months in March 2010.
Report on Joe glenton's Conway Hall speech July 2010
http://www.connection-ev.de/z.php?ID=1117
Youtube of Joe glenton Speech before Court Martial July 2009 (3 mins)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1X9HsotKag
Last Monday was also the day Wikileaks released 90,000 secret military reports from U..S. forces in Afghanistan. The other 6 anti-war speakers at Conway Hall mentioned and celebrated this significant event. I was pretty distressed that none of the speakers mentioned the 22 year old soldier who was at that moment in a Kuwaiti jail cell accused with the leak to Wikileaks. Brad Manning had been fingered by a U.S. hacker working with the Feds.
Brad Manning has been charged with 7 military violations in relation to the earlier release of footage of U.S. helicopter gunship slaughtering unarmed Iraqis. See footage here...
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/61771,life,video,video-us...leaks
Brad Manning will probably face further charges in relation to the Wikileakes expose. He may face up to 52 years in jail. Last week he was transfered from Kuwait to military prison in Maryland, U.S.A.
The "Courage to Resist" folks are helping to organise a legal team for Brad and are calling for solidarity Check their website for tips on how you can show solidarity with Brad Manning and oppose the war on Afghanistan
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/blogcategory/6.../122/
The present reality is that more serious resistance to the war on Afghanistan is coming out of the U.S. and British military than the U.S. and British civilian peace movements. We have to be ready with proactive solidarity whereever nonviolent resistance to this war surfaces. Without nonviolent resistance the wikileak revelations become merely words.
**GUARDIAN FILM - 15 MINUTES
Endgame in Afghanistan: 'It's taken a year to move 20km'
As the war in Afghanistan enters its final chapter, Sean Smith's brutal, uncompromising film from the Helmand frontline shows the horrific chaos of a stalemate that is taking its toll in blood. Warning: contains distressing scenes and strong language
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2010/jul/29/afgha...itary
Comments (2 of 2)
Jump To Comment: 1 290,000 candles have been lit to show the actual depravity and unjust violence going on by the U.S. Imperial Officials. The anti-war movement needs to protect the whisleblower soldiers so as to bring certain victory to the peoples liberation globally and an end to all aggressive terror wherever its destruction ruins the environment we need to live in.
".........................Investigators are fanning out across Boston, interviewing students and associates of Bradley Manning, the intelligence analyst accused of leaking a video of a US helicopter attack in Baghdad which was posted by WikiLeaks.
Manning has not been charged with any offences connected with the Afghan war logs, but he continues to be held at the Quantico marine base in Virginia.
A computer expert in the Boston area told The Boston Globe today that he had been approached by US military officials. Several other computer experts and hackers have also been interviewed anonymously, according to the New York Times and Washington Post.
A further extension of the inquiry into the leak came when Jacob Appelbaum, a specialist in internet privacy protection based in Seattle, was detained at Newark airport in New Jersey having returned to the US from Amsterdam.
Appelbaum, who has connections with WikiLeaks and has stood in for its founder, Julian Assange, at hacker conferences, had his laptop and three mobile phones seized.
According to Cnet, he was questioned for three hours about WikiLeaks and the whereabouts of Assange, as well as about his views on the Iraq and Afghan wars. Appelbaum declined to answer any of the questions without a lawyer present.
The aggressive inquiry is considered partly designed to discourage any further leaking from the military."
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