The Crime Of Truth

Obama's Persecution Of The Peacemaker 

THURSDAY, 08 MARCH 2012 00:50 
Courtesy Of "Chris Floyd"

If any one person can be said to have ended the direct involvement of the United States military in Iraq, it is not the man whose champions claim this deed as one of his glorious accomplishments: Barack Obama. As we all know (and 99 percent of us have forgotten), Obama fought doggedly to extend the murderous occupation of Iraq into the indefinite future.

No, if you had to choose one person whose actions were the most instrumental in ending the overt phase of the war, it would not the commander-in-chief of the most powerful war machine in world history, but a lowly foot-soldier -- mocked, shackled, tortured, defenseless: Bradley Manning

William Blum points this out in his latest "Anti-Empire Report," as he recaps the impact of the revelations made by Manning and Wikileaks. He begins by noting a painful irony: Manning's own defense team is playing down the heroic nature of this act and instead insisting that such a "sexually troubled" young man should never have been sent to the homophobic environment of the American occupation force in the first place. He was under too much stress, acting irrationally, they say, and thus should not be held accountable for his actions. As Blum notes, this defense -- though doubtless well-intentioned, a desperate bid to keep Obama's massive war machine from crushing Manning completely under its wheels -- partakes of the same deceitful twisting of reality that has characterized the entire war crime from the beginning. Blum:

It's unfortunate and disturbing that Bradley Manning's attorneys have chosen to consistently base his legal defense upon the premise that personal problems and shortcomings are what motivated the young man to turn over hundreds of thousands of classified government files to Wikileaks. They should not be presenting him that way any more than Bradley should be tried as a criminal or traitor. He should be hailed as a national hero. Yes, even when the lawyers are talking to the military mind. May as well try to penetrate that mind and find the freest and best person living there. Bradley also wears a military uniform.

Here are Manning's own words from an online chat: "If you had free reign over classified networks ... and you saw incredible things, awful things ... things that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC ... what would you do? ... God knows what happens now. Hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms. ... I want people to see the truth ... because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public."

Is the world to believe that these are the words of a disturbed and irrational person? Do not the Nuremberg Tribunal and the Geneva Conventions speak of a higher duty than blind loyalty to one's government, a duty to report the war crimes of that government?

Every scrap of evidence presented about Manning's alleged crimes makes it clear that he was acting from rational, well-considered motives, based on the highest ideals. Indeed, wasn't Manning simply following the words of Jesus Christ -- words carved in stone, with the most bitter irony, in the entranceway of the original headquarters of the CIA: "And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free."

In any case, as Blum points out, the effects of Manning's actions were far-reaching:

It was after seeing American war crimes such as those depicted in the video "Collateral Murder" and documented in the "Iraq War Logs," made public by Manning and Wikileaks, that the Iraqis refused to exempt US forces from prosecution for future crimes. The video depicts an American helicopter indiscriminately murdering several non-combatants in addition to two Reuters journalists, and the wounding of two little children, while the helicopter pilots cheer the attacks in a Baghdad suburb like it was the Army-Navy game in Philadelphia.

The insistence of the Iraqi government on legal jurisdiction over American soldiers for violations of Iraqi law — something the United States rarely, if ever, accepts in any of the many countries where its military is stationed — forced the Obama administration to pull the remaining American troops from the country.

If Manning had committed war crimes in Iraq instead of exposing them, he would be a free man today ...

But he is not a free man, of course. It is very likely that he will never be free again. He will spend the rest of his life in a federal prison for the unforgiveable crime of telling the truth to people who don't want to hear it.

NOTE: A tribute to Bradley and his fellow truth-tellers can be found here: The Good Corporal: To the Exposers of Power and the Troublers of Dreams.

Truth and Courage

Heretic Productions presents: Time advert.. Death!

What Is Truth? According To Jesus, Bible and Quran

By: Irshaad Hussain
June 29, 2011
Courtesy Of "IslamiCity"

Jesus said, "To this end was I born, and for this came I into the world, to bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth hears my voice. Pilate then said unto him, What is truth?" (John 18:37-38)

Pilate's response is a fascinating one. "What is truth?", he says, but he does not voice the question as a genuine query - it is a rhetorical question, a statement describing reality as Pilate observes it - there is no truth, there are only constructed ideologies and practical necessities and people act based upon these and function within the social/economic/political realms generated by these constructs. Right and wrong, truth and justice exist only within the relativistic confines and context of these constructs.

Pilate's response is a quintessential modern response - in a world of relativity, "what is truth?" In a world dominated by pragmatic realities, ideological loyalties, and political manipulation what, indeed, is truth?

Jesus answers Pilate's question with silence. And so perhaps it is presumptuous for us to seek an answer, or to listen for elucidation from within his quiescence. Yet this is a question which is a very human one - and one that every age has struggled with and sought to answer in different ways - some from the vantage of faith, some from philosophical logic, some from the rationalism of science, some from postmodern relativism, some from an individualistic mix of different avenues - it is a question which has been approached from every conceivable direction. Pilate asks the question cynically, rhetorically - seemingly not truly seeking an answer - and he receives only silence. But perhaps, in the case of Jesus, even his silence can become a potential exegesis, a speech of subtle elucidation - a pointer, not to a single answer, but to a direction which may take us to a mode of understanding.

Pilate's world is governed by ideological fealty to the empire and a path governed by pragmatic decision making. His choices hinge, not on any particular concern with distinguishing between truth and untruth (he perhaps is unconcerned to even contemplate what these might mean), but on the weighing of threats and inconveniences to the empire, on the politics of dealing with the constituents of the empire, and on his own personal ambitions within this milieu. Pilate acts and reacts, as we all tend to do, within the limits and parameters of the surrounding society and his own ideological loyalties - juggling personal ambitions and personal compunctions with the realities of his time, and his place within the Roman hierarchy. There, pragmatism and political and economic realism, not some "abstract" truth, carries weight. For Pilate, as perhaps for many of us, existing worldly "realities" overwhelm truth rendering it irrelevant to immediate events. 

Jesus' taciturn silence in response to Pilate's "What is truth?" is indicative of the vast gulf that stretches between someone like Jesus and someone like Pontius Pilate - a sign of the chasm between two modes of understanding, one mode being rooted in the mundane and the other rooted in deeper modalities - one mode bespeaking the cynicism inherent in Pilate who the world had bent to its connivance (and who in turn sought to further the empire's influence by his own exercise of authority), the other indicating the certainty of one who sees the world as only a passing shimmer rippling across the surface of Reality. Between these two viewpoints there is an unbounded void.

Pilate's independence is no independence - it is action tightly bound within the confines of a limited and worldly set of controls and inputs - the rules of the empire he serves, the relationship with Herod and Tiberius, the local politics of the province he governed - Pilate no doubt weighed all these inputs and made decisions that best suited the current situation according to his own internal ranking of the hierarchy of importance of these inputs. This is human nature shaped and governed by worldly circumstance, unmoored from higher realities.

But Jesus speaks from an entirely different realm of inputs - between his world and Pilate's the gulf is so vast that Jesus' answer to "what is truth", can be nothing other than silence.

If truth is that which corresponds most fully to reality, then the truth Jesus acts upon stems from the realities that extend from the throne of God down to the earth of this world. These constitute the foundational metaphysical verities which encompass, penetrate, and underlie the worlds of the heavens and the worlds of matter - not the fabricated constructs of human power structures. Truth, in the sense that Jesus speaks of it, is found along the vertical dimension of reality - that dimension which cuts through a hierarchy of existence that stretches from this world to God. 

So Jesus acts upon a truth that goes so deep and that has such a powerful grounding in the foundations of reality itself, that every word he speaks and action he performs has a solidity and deep resonance and spiritual potency arising from its integral connection to the throne from which the reality of the world emerges and from which it draws its subsistence.

"For man does not live by bread alone but from every word that proceeds from God." (Matthew 4:4) God's words are the engendering, shaping, and sustaining commands which hold the world in existence, from instant to instant. These words are truth - they are the essential substance that shapes reality.

The first truth and the foundation of all truth is God - "God is the Truth (the Real)" (Qur'an 22:6). His right over His creation is above all other rights.

And He has created in accordance with His nature "We created not the heavens and the earth and what is between them but through the Truth (the Real - Haqq); and the hour will most surely come, so turn away (from the ignorant and heedless) with kindly forgiveness." (Qur'an 15:85)

And He has placed within each creature's essence a truth and a nature which can connect it with other truths. "Our Lord is He who gave each thing its creation, then guided it...." (Qur'an 20:50)

Through this nature, truth can connect with truth - "Every one that is of the truth hears my voice." (John 18:37)

By this connection and attraction, He (God) makes possible the connection between the ones who bring the truth (the Prophets) and the ones who accept the truth - "And he who brings the truth and (he who) accepts it as the truth...." (Qur'an 39:33) Those whose hearts are on the paths of the prophets, whose beings have a resonant identity with them, whose spirits are seeking congruence with theirs - they are the ones who accept the truth.

And He sends truth in the form of revelation, as guidance - "And with truth have We revealed it, and with truth did it come...." (Qur'an 17:105) This is why there is the potential for revelation to enact an alchemical transformation in the one who approaches its truth with their own intelligent and honest sincerity.

And the truth overturns falsehood, revealing falsehood's self-seeking and ephemeral nature - "We cast the truth against the falsehood, so that it demolishes it, and lo! it vanishes away...." (Qur'an 21:18)

In the Qur'an, truth is repeatedly connected with reality at its deepest and most profound levels. So Jesus' being is integrally connected to the realities which permeate and suffuse all aspects of creation from the heavens to the earth and all that is in-between. Jesus draws upon and manifests that truth in each glance, in each word, and in each silence. He manifests the truth in the most appropriate manner in each individual action, in each separate time and place, to each person and group - he gives to each aspect of creation he encounters, that which is most appropriate to it. Sometimes he gives healing, sometimes an awakening, sometimes harsh words (to the hypocrites) and reprimands, sometimes specific guidance, sometimes silence, but always, it is truth - conveyed in the most effective manner since its root is firmly established in the full depth of reality. He is a Word from God - cast into Mary's womb. "...O Marium (Mary), surely Allah gives you good news of a Word from Him, who is the Messiah (Christ), Isa (Jesus) son of Marium, worthy of high honor in this world and the hereafter and is of those who are in near proximity (to Allah)." (Qur'an 3:45)

God's word is the truth - so when Pilate asks, "what is truth", the answer is manifest before him. At that juncture, the silence of Jesus' presence was the most potent response.

The totality of absolute Truth is only possible within the unique singularity and unknowable hidden essence of God - there all contradictions and oppositions find their termination and reconciliation. But here, in the world in which we presently dwell, the Prophets drew upon their profound connection with the unseen, they recognized the true nature of things, they understood the vast substance of the ocean of reality upon whose surface the ephemeral world floats unaware ("You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes...." (James 4:14)) They gave to each thing they encountered its rightful due, drawing out from each its unique truth - the nature with which it was created - since it is by standing on truth, by being true to one's profound metaphysical nature that one acquires substance, and gains a firm foothold in reality. And it is from this acting on truth, from "...bearing witness to the truth." (John, 18:37) that the felicitous bond with the ultimate Truth, Al-Haqq, emerges. "God is the Truth (the Real - Al-Haqq)" (Qur'an 22:6)

Irshaad Hussain is a contemporary Islamic thinker and author of Islam from Inside.

A Truth More Powerful Than An Army

The power of domination depends on our essential isolation from one another - our cynical separateness, our underdeveloped or perhaps completely decommissioned capacity for empathy. Alone with ourselves, we have no choice but to fear the power of a brutal and strutting sociopath.

By Robert C. Koehler
February 11, 2011
Courtesy Of "IslamiCity's iViews"


It was just a routine murder.

Last June, police accosted a young man at an Internet cafŽ in the city of Alexandria. He had just filmed their drug deal, or he simply refused to show them his ID. Whatever the provocation - accounts vary - they slammed his head against the table, dragged him outside as he screamed, beat him viciously for 20 minutes. That was that. You can pick up the body later.

In a thug society, power is as power does. And in Egypt, power flowed from the top - from, indeed, beyond the top. It flowed from the superpower that had been a cornucopia of military aid, nearly $2 billion a year, to President Hosni Mubarak for the last 30 years. In return, Mubarak had to be a useful friend to that superpower: open his prisons for secret torture operations, acquiesce to Israel's blockade of Gaza and, of course, keep the oil flowing from Saudi Arabia. Otherwise, his only obligation was to stay in power, and he did so with a simple and basic brutality. Do what we say or we'll kill you.

This is the game of geopolitics. It's played by governments, by the enormously powerful. It's a game of strategies and "interests," which are seldom spoken of explicitly because they're raw and generally smell bad. We - the bulk of ordinary humanity, preoccupied with our own lives, doing the best we can - have, or are supposed to have, only a limited role to play in this game.

We're soldiers and low-level order followers or, in the privileged and relatively secure West, mostly spectators. We get to read with awe about the great decisions of the powerful, who are busy making history while we pay our taxes, agree, disagree, vote, refrain from voting, distract ourselves and shake our heads occasionally with wonder and tepid sympathy as the bombs fall in distant places.

"Ooh, that's gotta hurt!" a colleague said to me, for instance, on the morning of March 20, 2003, as we gaped at an overhead television set in our office as the shock-and-awe bombing of Baghdad begin.

Yeah, imagine how that must feel . . .

This is the thing. The power of domination depends on our essential isolation from one another - our cynical separateness, our underdeveloped or perhaps completely decommissioned capacity for empathy. Alone with ourselves, we have no choice but to fear the power of a brutal and strutting sociopath. We have no choice but to learn a lesson with each routine murder committed in the name of order, and be careful, stay hidden.

But something happened in the wake of the murder last June of Khaled Said that has rocked the whole planet and caused the powerful to drop their jaws (John McCain called it a virus). An uninvited player - the ordinary person, you, me, or at least our Egyptian and Tunisian counterpart - has interrupted the game of geopolitics and started changing the rules.


It began, as the world now knows, with a Facebook page called "We Are All Khaled Said." Let me say that a little louder: WE ARE ALL KHALED SAID. This is not the same as saying, "Ooh, that's gotta hurt." This isn't an observation. It's a truth more powerful than an army.

Eventually some 400,000 people joined the Facebook page, which included not only a picture of the smiling young man but also a picture of his shattered face after the beating. Suddenly this routine murder lay open before the nation, a wound and shocking symbol of the Mubarak regime. No one should ever be treated this way.

The outrage festered for half a year. Then in December, a Tunisian street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi committed suicide by self-immolation after being humiliated by a police officer. This tragic act not only sparked a people's revolt in Tunisia, which drove President Ben Ali from power, but also reignited the outrage in neighboring Egypt. Hundreds of thousands of people marched in Cairo and other Egyptian cities, demanding an end to the Mubarak regime and making his American benefactors squirm.

"Even if a government has a monopoly of military force and even if a government has the support of the world's one remaining superpower," Steven Zunes wrote this week on Huffington Post, "it is still ultimately powerless if the people refuse to recognize its authority."

This is the truth we kept forgetting. It's the foundation of democracy, but it's far too inconvenient to be taken seriously. Among the myriad interests of the powerful, circumventing or suppressing it is usually near the top. And this truth doesn't summon itself easily. As Tom Engelhardt recently pointed out, it happened 20 years ago in Eastern Europe and brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union; what's happening today in the Middle East may signal that a similar fate awaits the American empire.

I mourn the death of a young man, and the millions more - damaged, uprooted, murdered - he has come to represent. I don't know how far the flame will spread in the Middle East, or what will follow. I only know this: I am Khaled Said.

© 2011 TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, contributor to One World, Many Peaces and nationally syndicated writer. His new book, Courage Grows Strong at the Wound (Xenos Press) is now available. Contact him at koehlercw [AT] gmail.com or visit his website at commonwonders.com. 

© 2011 TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.