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Remember Don
Siegelman
By Paul Craig
Roberts
January 18,
2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- I hope that President Obama commuted Manning’s unjust
sentence not as a sop to transgenders, but as a sign
that a bit of humanity still remains in the outgoing war
criminal president. Manning did his duty and reported US
war crimes by releasing the astounding video of US
troops murdering innocent people and journalists walking
along a street and then murdering a father and his two
young children who stopped to help the wounded left on
the street by the US helicopter gunship or drone or
whatever the murder device was. The video reveals US
troops playing video kill games with real people.
Manning’s
reward was to be held for two years in solidary
confinement in torture-like conditions, which little
doubt left Manning fundamentally impaired. This illegal
and unconstitutional treatment was followed by a
kangeroo trial in which Manning was convicted and
sentenced to 35 years in prison for doing his duty.
Julian Assange,
also falsely accused and mistreated, must not turn
himself over in exchange for the commutation of
Manning’s sentence, or he will suffere the same fate.
Any truth-teller who falls into the hands of the US
government is doomed. The US government hates nothing
worse than it hates the truth.
Obama’s
failures as president would fill an encyclopedia. Obama
might have destroyed the Democratic Party by his failure
to commute the sentence of falsely charged and falsely
convicted Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. Indeed, Obama
could have ordered a US Justice Department investigation
that almost certainly would have resulted in prison
sentences for the Republican Alabama politicians,
Republican US attorneys, Republican federal judges and
Republican operative Karl Rove who participated in one
of the most obvious frameups in human history.
More than 100
Democratic and Republican former attorneys general and
officials condemned the prosecution of Siegelman as
politically-inspired prosecutorial misconduct. Yet Obama
did
nothing.
By doing
nothing for Siegelman, Obama demonstrated to every
Democrat that they were on their own if they won
elections in Republican political strongholds.
Don Siegelman
is the only person in the history of Alabama to have
been elected to serve in all of the top four statewide
elected offices. He was very popular and did
extraordinary good for the people and state of Alabama.
That the Republicans were able to remove from office and
imprison the most decent man in Alabama public life
despite eight years of a Democratic President and
Department of Justice is a surefire indication that no
Democratic politician can trust the Democratic Party to
come to his aid when he comes under attack from the Karl
Rove Gang.
Dr. Paul
Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the
Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the
Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week,
Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He
has had many university appointments. His internet
columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts'
latest books are
The Failure of
Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the
West,
How America Was
Lost,
and
The
Neoconservative Threat to World Order. |
