something about our commitment to democracy.
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There are indications that the cables WikiLeaks exposed about the dictatorship of Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia had a big influence on the revolt there.
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Itâs questionable. The leaks showed that the U.S. government understood very well that Ben Ali was a harsh, corrupt dictator, that the population was very upset and strongly opposed to him. 16 But that had no effect on support for his regime.
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Do you mean support from Washington?
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U.S. support. French support, primarily. France was just outlandish. After the uprising had already started, one French cabinet minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie, actually went to Tunisia for a vacation. 17 This is a country thatâs been under the thumb of France for a long time and is surely penetrated by French intelligence. But how much these leaks influenced the protests is an open question. I doubt that Tunisians cared very much about French and U.S. hypocrisy, which is all that WikiLeaks revealedânothing that they didnât know themselves.
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Talk about the connection between Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning.
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Dan is an old friend. I was involved with him in helping release the Pentagon Papers, which I thought was a quite proper thing to do. I testified at his trial. In the case of Bradley Manning, heâs charged with having released material to Julian Assange, who distributed it on WikiLeaks. 18 Heâs been in prison now since May 2010, a large part of that in solitary confinementâwhich is torture. Heâs been treated in rotten ways and been bitterly attacked.
Hereâs someone who is charged with doing something which, in my opinion, is not a crime but a service to the country. But whatever you think about that, heâs charged, not brought to trial. In fact, at the moment thereâs not even any court trial contemplated. Theyâre treating it as a court-martial inside the military system. 19
I think Manning should be applauded and the government should be harshly condemned for throwing out the basic principles of law and human rights.
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Didnât Obama, a constitutional law professor, make a prejudicial comment about Bradley Manning?
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Yes, he immediately said heâs guilty. 20 Thatâs unconscionable. Even if Obama wasnât a constitutional lawyer, heâs the president. He should know that the president shouldnât say that about a person who is facing criminal charges.
There are worse thingsâsay, assassinating Osama bin Laden. He wasnât tried in a court. Heâs innocent until proven guilty. But you assassinate him if you donât like him.
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As they also did to Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, a U.S. citizen. 21
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That case got a little attention because al-Awlaki is a U.S. citizen. Maybe heâs guilty of something, maybe not. But if, say, Iranian terrorists killed somebody tomorrowâsay, Leon Panetta, the defense secretaryâbecause heâs involved in planning attacks against Iran, which he is, would we think thatâs okay?
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It seems that many liberals who criticized war crimes during the presidency of George W. Bush have been relatively muted during the Obama period.
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They have. Some people are talking, but not many. Obama has also made it clear that nobody is going to be punished for war crimes in the Bush period, which is quite understandable. 22 If people were punished for that, then he could be punished for similar crimes today.
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That brings me to a comment that you made years back that every president since 1945 could be tried for war crimes. 23 Do you still hold to that?
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I think I was pretty careful. I said that would be a fair statement by the principles of Nuremberg. Not by the practice of Nuremberg, which departed sharply from the principles.
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The principle being that âplanning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in
Carol Gorman and Ron J. Findley