Still on the homepage here though with closed comments: The False Darfur ‘Genocide’ Numbers
Confirming my take therein that the numbers in the media are vast exaggerations a WikiLeaks cable:

SUMMARY: On December 7, UNAMID’s Joint Special Representative Rodolphe Adada said that UNAMID continues to work on its plans for a ceasefire monitoring mechanism and asserted that UNAMID, not the UN/AU Chief Mediator, should take the lead with ceasefire plans.
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He was also scathing about wildly inaccurate statements about loss of life in Darfur made by ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo.
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Adada poured scorn on the “wildly inaccurate” recent statements of ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo that “5,000 people were being killed each month in Darfur.” He added that who would be so naive and ill-informed to believe such a thing? He noted that this would be over a hundred people a day being killed, a level of violence not seen in Darfur for several years (Note: probably not since 2005). Even the horrific Kalma camp massacre of August 25, 2008 which killed 33 innocent people was “one crime on one day, this doesn’t happen very often.” He mused that such patently absurd and false information put out by Ocampo doesn’t make him look very credible in the eyes of those who actually know something about the reality of Darfur.

Posted by: b | Dec 19 2010 14:23 utc | 4

….
Bradley Manning’s Life Behind Bars
Bradley Manning, who allegedly leaked hundreds of thousands of secret government documents to Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks, turns 23 in jail Friday. The Daily Beast’s Denver Nicks, in an exclusive interview with Manning’s attorney, reports on his solitary confinement, what he’s reading (from George W. Bush to Howard Zinn), and his legal strategy.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-12-17/bradley-manning-wikileaks-alleged-sources-life-in-prison/?cid=hp:mainpromo5
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Posted by: This Reader Says Welcome Back | Dec 20 2010 2:43 utc | 6

The Chinese and for that matter the world press is keeping awfully quiet about this incident. China has real problems keeping their fisher persons from stirring up trouble.
Link to Youtube

Posted by: YY | Dec 20 2010 11:19 utc | 8

to all who think I am some kind of monster vigorously supporting the status quo, I must beg of you to not write me off just yet. If Manning did what he is accused of out of concern for the future of his country then I will agree that he is a much better person than many others. However, he did break the law and knowingly broke the law. You cannot change that. It is up to a jury of his peers to decide if he should be punished or not.
I do not think that you can choose to follow the laws you agree with. I also do not buy into the excuse that because others are doing it, I can too. and lastly, implying that because certain leaders and government officials are corrupt and dishonest should not lead one to believe that he too can be corrupt and dishonest.
the system is what we have, we cannot easily replace it but it can be fixed. more times than not this fix has to come from the inside….rabble rousers and malcontents might be able to make the problem more obvious to others but it still has to be done from the inside. I am thinking about Sen Frank Church and the work he did after the Nixon fiasco. perhaps the teabaggers will do something similar against Obama….I can dream can’t I?

Posted by: dan of steele | Dec 20 2010 13:27 utc | 10

Dan, I think the problems with the argument, we live in a nation of laws, Bradley Manning should be subject to the law, are twofold.
Firstly even old blind Freddie can see other instances when amerikan secrets have been sold, traded or given to foreign powers, and where the damage done to the US as opposed to amerika, has been both quantifiable and much worse than that Bradley Manning is alleged to have committed, yet not only were the guilty parties acquitted they spent no time at all in the slammer before they got let off.
I refer of course to the case of Franklin, Rosen & Weissman. After pleading guilty to 3 charges; Franklin copped over 12 years, but was released on bail, then the eventual sentence was dropped to a few months house arrest. All without a day in the solitary hell that Manning has endured. Those three were all mature DC policymakers well aware of the impact of their actions and the consequences of being caught. The stuff they traded was contemporaneous policy discussion and intelligence product, restricted to a handful of people in Washington, not the interesting but historical accounts of past incidents, made available to millions of amerikan employees which Manning is accused of passing on.
As well these AIPAC spies were being paid to spy – unlike Manning who acted in what he believed to be the best interests of his compatriots.
The judge, who let Rosen & Weissman off, Judge Ellis, ruled that:

“For a crime to be committed, he said, the accused must have sought both benefit to another nation as well as harm to the United States. Ellis issued legal rulings that set a high bar for the prosecutors, including a requirement to prove that Rosen and Weissman knowingly meant to harm the United States or aid another country”

Now we know that precedent won’t be applied to Manning don’t we? For a ‘nation of laws’ amerika has a pretty complicated and cunning way of using laws to achieve subjective outcomes. If anyone bothered to ask someone in the legal decision making scam in amerika, someone who actually had some say in the attack on Manning, “why it was that the Rosen, Weissman ruling didn’t apply” that person would be subjected to a supercilious patronising stare, whilst being told that “the Ellis rule is irrelevant here, the cases are completely different because of blah, blah blah’ gouts of twisted & arcane & stunningly mendacious ‘legal theory’ aka convenient bullshit would accompany the response.
We discussed all of this a long time back during the case against Karl Rove and co where that federal judge was brought in to ‘investigate’ Rove and his office’s role in leaking secrets to the media. Some were foolish enough to think the ‘investigation’ would amount to something, when others of us pointed out that instances where the judiciary goes head to head against the executive are as ‘rare as rocking horse shit’.
No matter how good the grounds for prosecution may be, judges always find an out. Similarly when the executive really wants things done, someone prosecuted, no matter how thin the evidence, the courts nearly always find a way to convict.
I seem to remember that Billmon dug out a Harvard law study of a range of high/supreme courts throughout the ‘democratic nations’ on exactly that issue. The study found, what I had always suspected after years of seeing shonky decisions favouring those in power across all sorts of matters, in a heap of different countries; namely courts favour the government in their final rulings close to 90% of the time.
But the main reason why most people who like what WikiLeaks has done, are opposed to Bradley Manning being prosecuted, nation of laws or not, is much simpler and easier to accept at a gut level.
We all know that if convicted, the life of Bradley Manning, a naive 22 year old kid, who acted according to his conscience rather than ‘what would be best for him’, will essentially be over. He will go down for a very, very, long time.
If it were just a case of him copping a discharge and time served, most of us wouldn’t feel too good about it but it would be bearable. That won’t be what happens however.
The cruel and ugly old men who pull the levers on the juggernaut known as ‘the amerikan empire’ want to ‘make an example of Manning’, so they can go straight back to their twisted and barbarous attacks upon humans all over this planet, without fear of further exposure. He will be unjustly punished for trying to be a human in a room full of sociopaths.
Back when “The London Times” as amerikans refer to it, was a decent fishwrap, unsullied by Murdoch’s dreams of global domination, it ran a fairly over the top editorial on the arrest and imprisonment of M Jagger, and K Richard, on minor drugs possession charges. The charges were made chiefly, the Times argued, because the establishment decided to make an example of the Rolling Stones, in the hope that this would drive the youth of that day back to endless pints of warm, flat horsepiss, & away from acid & grass inspired dreams of world peace and happiness.
The editor of the Times took a quotation from Alexander Pope’s “Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot” as a headline for the opinion:
“Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?” Nowadays that quotation appears farcical in relation to either Richard’s wrinkled and toothless visage or Jagger, ‘the skeletor with lips’ –both appear far removed from a butterfly, but these were young men in 1968 perhaps not as innocent or well intentioned as Bradley Manning, but nevertheless, they still emanated a sense of idealism, unfortunately lost in the years after once reality collided with their best intentions.
Of course Bradley Manning will probably suffer the same fate, most of us do, but everything I have been able to discern about Manning thus far portrays a young human being, unsure of himself maybe, but damned sure that being a party to the needless killing of humanity was not what he signed on for, and certainly wasn’t what he was told he had signed on for.
In a just world where the people of amerika assessed the Manning incident objectively without the tsunamis of irrational fear and hatred being tipped over the subject to divert them from the reality, I have no doubt that a jury of 12 of Manning’s peers would come up with a verdict that would equitably & justly decide Manning’s guilt or innocence. Then if he had been judged guilty of some crime, a fair-minded judge who wasn’t being subjected to the bribery, threats, and blandishments of those who held more power than he/she, could pass a sentence that even Manning could agree was fair.
But none of that is going to happen. I understand more now than before Dan, the extraordinary pressure you must be under; living in the world those at the sharp edge of empire also inhabit. You manage to resist their perverse take on reality well and I salute you for that, but I know from my own experiences of life in such environments, that no one can live in that world and remain completely free of the subjective views of the people around them.
I remember watching the commencement of Gulf War 1 on TV surrounded by retired airforce & army types from england, australia, amerika and south africa. I had tears streaming down the old face and they all looked at me like I came from another planet. Up until that point we had sort of managed to achieve a shared reality where I accepted some of their contentions and they had gone along with mine. This was on general discussions about the world and ‘the west’s role in it, but once the rubber met the road and their assumptions about whitefella’s right to take what they wanted when they wanted (although these blokes would never have said it like that themselves), became reality; it was obvious our shared reality, that little zone where we attempted to accept each other’s world view, could not exist.
The’ old US of A’ may well have been founded on a nation of laws, but even if that were the case once Dan, it is certainly no longer true. This is amerika. Manning’s fate won’t really be decided in a courtroom, no matter how hard those who do decide his fate try to convey that lie.
It will be decided by those cruel & ugly old men, who will then, and only then, select a relevant law to support that decision from a veritable cornucopia of always contradictory, frequently unconstitutional, and mainly unjust laws that have been made by many generations of ugly & cruel old men.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Dec 20 2010 22:06 utc | 12

thanks Debs for once again stating clearly what I wanted to say. I do have constraints on what I can write about Manning, I admit that. I also understand very well about the unfairness of it all wrt the rich, powerful, and connected. even if I don’t like it, it is reality and we must deal with that. surprisingly a great number of people prefer to not get involved with the daily business of governing and happily delegate that task to someone else. unsurprisingly there are a number of people who are all too happy to assume that role of governance. that is something you cannot change. all I see that is possible is to watch the rulers and bray loudly when they get out of line. that is the thing that is missing in the US and more and more in other countries as well. Until the people get a free and independent press there is little hope for a free society.
manning will be tried in the press as well, he will be found guilty because he has no real support. I am certain I am not alone in my dislike of traitors….if I am then the world has changed more than I realized. Now I said traitor more for effect than personal belief. He may very well have done this out of extreme disgust for the things done in his name or he may have done it to impress someone…only he knows for sure, but the fact remains that it is quite common through history to deal with those who betray very harshly. The Rosenburgs spring to mind and there are others. he will be hard pressed to garner popular support, no matter what we think of him here, so it is with the giant noise machine guided by corporate owned media.
btw, I wish you well in your journey to the dark side. I suspect you will be successful though probably not outrageously so. In order to be really rich and successful in the business world you have to be at least a narcissist and preferably a sociopath incapable of shame or guilt.

Posted by: dan of steele | Dec 21 2010 7:50 utc | 14

I’m wondering when in hell the EU, no, each individual European country is going to realize that Amerika is totally and continually fucking over them and in some way retaliate back instead of sucking up.
It’s probably not news to you r’giap but:
(My bolds)

(C) Summary: Mission Paris recommends that that the USG reinforce
our negotiating position with the EU on agricultural biotechnology by
publishing a retaliation list when the extend “Reasonable Time
Period” expires. In our view, Europe is moving backwards not
forwards on this issue with France playing a leading role, along with
Austria, Italy and even the Commission. In France, the “Grenelle”
environment process is being implemented to circumvent science-based
decisions in favor of an assessment of the “common interest.”
Combined with the precautionary principle, this is a precedent with
implications far beyond MON-810 BT corn cultivation. Moving to
retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to
EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices.
In fact, the pro-biotech side in France — including within the farm
union — have told us retaliation is the only way to begin to begin
to turn this issue in France. End Summary.

and from truthout

The former United States ambassador to France suggested “moving to retaliation” against France and the European Union (EU) in late 2007 to fight a French ban on Monsanto’s genetically modified (GM) corn and changes in European policy toward biotech crops, according to a cable released by WikiLeaks on Sunday.

Posted by: juannie | Dec 22 2010 1:24 utc | 16

S 510 Fake Food Safety bill passed by Senate in late-night sneak attack on small farmers and food freedom
News for those who like a good rap
Glenn Greenwald: The government’s one-way mirror

[…] That’s the mindset of the U.S. Government: everything it does of any significance can and should be shielded from public view; anyone who shines light on what it does is an Enemy who must be destroyed; but nothing you do should be beyond its monitoring and storing eyes. And what’s most remarkable about this — though, given the full-scale bipartisan consensus over it, not surprising — is how eagerly submissive much of the citizenry is to this imbalance. Many Americans plead with their Government in unison: we demand that you know everything about us but that you keep us ignorant about what you do and punish those who reveal it to us. Often, this kind of oppressive Surveillance State has to be forcibly imposed on a resistant citizenry, but much of the frightened American citizenry — led by most transparency-hating media figures — has been trained with an endless stream of fear-mongering to demand that they be subjected to more and more of it.
Obviously, every state is necessarily authorized to exercise powers that private citizens are barred from exercising themselves (governments can legally put people in cages, but if a private citizen does that, it constitutes felonies: kidnapping and false imprisonment). But the imbalance has become so extreme — the Government now watches much of the citizenry behind a fully opaque one-way mirror — that the dangers should be obvious. And this is all supposed to be the other way around: it’s government officials who are supposed to operate out in the open, while ordinary citizens are entitled to privacy.[…]

Posted by: Juan Moment | Dec 22 2010 11:39 utc | 18

thanks b. that tin story is one i hadn’t seen before, but as you probably recall from my coverage over the years, the main active focus continues to be on oil and the puntland admin’s relationships w/ wildcatters, esp africa oil corp and range resources ltd, both of whom you may recall created a lot of controversy in 2008 when they first created a mercenary army to protect their interests. and africa oil recently farmed out 10% of their interest in the puntland blocks to another aussie firm, red emperor.
galrahn had this to say about events unfolding in the galgala, earlier this month

This is about resources and it has been decided by business interests that Mohamed Said Atom is in the way.
As the head of a clan, this won’t end well for the clans residents in Galgala. Is this the beginning of something positive in Somalia? Time will tell, but history says no.
I have no moral position on this. Everyone is corrupt in Somalia and there are never any good guys, so picking sides is futile. I see this unfolding as an interesting study in globalization, where business interests replace global government inaction on behalf of local leadership inside a failed state – and this indeed is an alternative model to the US/NATO model in Afghanistan in regards to how to deal with failed states. The execution can be expected to be ugly, brutal, and violent – everything one already finds when dealing with insurgencies inside a failed state.

disregarding the cynicism, his prediction is likely spot on.
and the cape times had a followup today on the two journos, allowing them to play dumb
Held at gunpoint in Somalia

Cape Town journalists Chris Everson and Anton van der Merwe, who were arrested by security police in Somaliland as suspected mercenaries and detained for 10 days, arrived back yesterday saying they had simply “been in the wrong place at the wrong time”.
The experienced film crew, who covered violence in the Cape Flats in the 1980s and conflict in the Gulf, Afghanistan and Pakistan, say with hindsight they should have found out more about their filming assignment in Puntland, a semi-autonomous region in northern Somalia.
“We weren’t briefed on the assignment really except that it was about training of security guards. We got to Entebbe and were told ‘jump on this charter’, which had a Russian crew. We didn’t even know what was on board the plane. It was a big learning curve”, sound man Van der Merwe said from his Tokai home yesterday.
The two often work for the American television network CBS’s 60 Minutes. But this assignment was commissioned by a friend and former CBS producer, Shawn Efran, who has his own film company.
They flew Kenyan Airways to Entebbe on December 8 and were due to leave on the Russian Antonov charter the same day, but were told to wait until December 10 for cargo to arrive on an SAA flight.
Everson said: “The only others on board were the six Russian crew, who couldn’t speak English. We didn’t know the flight plan, only that it was a nine-hour flight via Addis Ababa. After about three hours we landed in Hargeisa in Somaliland to refuel.
…
Asked about reports that they were to film counter-piracy operations run by Saracen International, headed by Lafra Luitingh of the defunct South African mercenary company, Executive Outcomes, Everson said: “We have no connection with them at all. We were doing a legitimate story about security training in Puntland. I’m quite sure that the people being trained were in some way connected with the piracy threat, but we don’t know who was training them.”

uh huh

Posted by: b real | Dec 23 2010 7:58 utc | 20

that is very weird b real. ‘independent security’ professionals under guise as filmaker protected by UN monitoring….what a mouthful.

Posted by: annie | Dec 28 2010 21:34 utc | 22