J’Accuse

A Letter To Obama On The Manning Show Trial

By Thomas Knaap
Counter Punch
July 31, 2013

Dear President Obama,

I possess neither Emile Zola’s writing talent nor his penchant
for presidential flattery, but I think I may perhaps lay rightful
claim to some semblance of his well-developed sense of moral
outrage.

I address you as, “president” only as a concession to popular
convention.

In truth, your claimed authority is a fraud, and your actual status
is that of defendant in the matter of the persecution of Bradley
Manning.

From the beginnings of this drama, it was clear to all who cared to
notice that Manning is no criminal but rather the worthy nemesis
of a crime syndicate formally headed by yourself.

He was wrongfully arrested, illegally detained without charge for
a period far in excess of the legally prescribed maximums, and
finally and illegally put on trial not for his alleged criminal acts
but for exposing your crimes and the crimes of your gang, “the
government of the United States.”

Neither the verdict nor the sentence are any surprise; the “not
guilty” verdict on the charge of “aiding the enemy” is clearly
intended as a distraction from the irrefutable fact that the entire
trial was a farce and a sham, conducted in open violation of the
law, and that not a single charge is valid.

The purposes of show trials and the punishments which follow are
to procure convictions and make the public quail in terror before
the awesome power of the state, not to render justice, and in this
respect the Manning court martial puts Stalin to shame.

Colonel Denise Lind’s blatantly and irrefutably illegal actions
and rulings as, “judge” would make Vyshinsky blush.

The Manning show trial is the latest evidence that Thomas Paine
erred in claiming that, “society in every state is a blessing, but
Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil.”

While the state is indeed evil, it is far from necessary.

It is wicked through and through.

It is born of coercion, weaned on theft, raised on corruption
and thrives on murder.

In the round it can do not good at all, and any specific good
it may seem to do, must rest on a foundation of evil.

To give me a dollar it picks your pocket for two.

To feed your child lunch it deprives a family of dinner.

If it suffers you and your neighbors to live it murders a village
elsewhere, and if it removes so much as an ounce of weight
from your chest that you might breathe easier, it places a
pound on your shoulders, and orders you to carry.

To willingly tolerate the continued existence of such an evil, or
to purposely delay, impede or oppose that evil’s abolition, is to
become an accessory to that evil.

As an anarchist, it goes without saying that I support the
abolition of the state.

The Manning show trial is one more argument for appending to
that statement the clauses, “as soon as humanly possible” and,
“by any means necessary.”



Thomas L. Knapp is Senior News Analyst at the Center for a
Stateless Society (c4ss.org).

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/07/31/jaccuse