Letter to the Editor

Anonymous Operation Syria - Press Release

Thursday - November 29, 2012 7:00 PM ET USA

Greetings World --

Today, at precisely 10:30 AM ET all Internet traffic into and out of Syria ceased. Within a half hour of this sudden shut down, the PBX land-lines were degraded by 90% and Mobile connectivity was degraded by 75%. The nation of Syria has gone dark. And Anonymous knows all to well what happens in the dark places.

http://localleaks.me/plf/images/SyriaInternet.png

Authored by data venia

To this day, supporting WikiLeaks remains unreasonably controversial. Depending on a person’s country of residence, job position, and so forth, the opposition to this support varies greatly. But there is one area where being pro-WikiLeaks is criminalized like none other: the United States Military.

As an American citizen I never expected to have my freedom of speech challenged so heavily. But I have realized that the U.S. Military is practically a separate entity from the country it represents. This is most easily expressed by the fact that it operates under its own set of laws, the Uniformed Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). As goes the saying reiterated by many soldiers, “We are not a democracy; we just protect it.”

The story of how and why I joined the military is unimportant. At the time I was ignorant of world events. I was basically like a typical American, who knew nothing of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan besides the fact that they existed. It wasn’t until December of 2010 that I finally became educated on the matter, and that was almost solely thanks to WikiLeaks. Surprisingly, I hadn’t even heard of WikiLeaks until that point, which goes to show that, as much as the U.S. Military loves to hate it, it would rather pretend WikiLeaks never existed.

I knew from the beginning that I could never voice my support without consequence. This fact was concreted quickly by my supervisor’s calls for Julian Assange’s assassination, as well as my friend’s belief that Bradley Manning deserved a life sentence in prison. I did tell a close and trusted friend of my support, hoping he would understand, but instead he turned on me and threatened to report me to the special investigations unit on base. At this point, even more so, I knew those I deemed as trustworthy must be carefully chosen.

Dear Editor:

People of Bahrain are asking individuals to spread the news of the massacre that happened in Bahrain last Tuesday and Wednesday 15 and 16 of March, 2011 by the Saudi army. (Everybody is suspicious of the US blessing on this!) Nobody understands this move !!! and the double standard by the Western governments!!! We house the US 5th fleet and forever it's been a British base too.

The people of Bahrain started a peaceful demonstration on 14th Feb as it was the anniversary of the Constitution of the Monarchy in Bahrain. The King promised people greater democracy on that day, and the nation had voted for him. So to symbolise this event, the demands were simple, greater democracy, stop corruption and unemployment, stop nationalising the mercenary army.

On Sunday, 13 of March 2011 - student at the University of Barharin were attacked by some minority thugs holding swords, followed by the Riot police, many were hurt including the medics who tried to help the students, hence few severely wounded by swords cut!!!! pictures speak better than words.

On Tuesday, 15th of March - They stormed over the village of Sitra, below is some evidence of this butchery, the young man in this photo is Ahmad Farhan from Al Mahizaa area in Sitra and the second photo shows him from the back for those (including the Bahrain TV ) who claimed this is an old Palestinian picture....

No words can describe this butchery........

See the following links for WL Central coverage and documentation of Bahraini protests and crimes against humanity, in both March and February 2011.

Dear Mr. President and Honorable Representatives of the United States Congress,

We, the people of Bahrain, are in deep pain and have great concern for our situation.

We are attempting to deliver our voices.

We have long supported you, and have appreciated the help that you have given our nation in the past.

However, now, in this time of great crisis, it grieves us to realize that you have abandoned the Bahraini people.

King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa and the royal family are acting violently against unarmed and peaceful demonstrators in an unprecedented way.

Bahrain's government has mercenaries and thugs attacking and killing civilians in the streets and destroying people’s property.

At first, they exploited the Sunni and Shia issue. Now they are using violent thugs. They are everywhere. The situation is especially dangerous when they discover that a person is Shia.

The Bahraini security forces and Saudi army are attacking unarmed people with armed helicopters and tanks.

They are killing and injuring people. They have used nerve gas and live bullets to disperse demonstrators.

Bahraini forces and the Saudi army have seized villages and are attacking people in the streets. There are arbitrary arrests, killings, kidnappings, and beatings of protesters. More than 20 people are dead, 63 are missing, and unknown numbers have been arrested.

This campaign of violence has injured thousands, many of whom are critical and will die for lack of medical care.

Security forces have even attacked and taken over hospitals and medical centers in order to prevent wounded demonstrators from receiving needed medical attention. They have also beaten medical personnel.

The army is moving patients to unknown destinations, and seizing and deleting patient medical records. They have warned doctors and nurses to refuse admission to the wounded and to conceal what they have witnessed.

We are calling on the world and human rights organizations to PLEASE SAVE US FROM ANNIHILATION.

We put out a distress call to all the countries of the world: Our weapons are only roses and the Bahraini flag. We are up against foreign troops and GCC armies with real weapons.

Where is everyone? Won’t you help us? Will you just watch us die? Where are the democracies of the world?

These are crimes against humanity. We beseech you to protect the peaceful citizens of Bahrain.

We also request a commission to discover the facts of this campaign of violence and killing committed by Bahraini authorities against unarmed citizens.

We beg you. Help us.

Sincerely,

The People of Bahrain

The People of Bahrain have ask us to send this letter to the U.S. government. When unable to send the entire text, please send a link to this page. See below.

Submitted by Bella Magnani

Oh dear, Nick Davies, what went wrong?

Back in 2008 you wrote a book called Flat Earth News, a meticulously researched and scathing analysis of journalistic corruption and murky practices in British newspapers. You told us: “the modern newsroom is a place of bungs and bribes, whose occupants forage illicitly for scoops in databases and dustbins. Newspapers hold others to account while hushing up their own unsavoury methods. Self-regulation does not always offer fair (or any) redress to citizens who have had lies written about them. Stories are often pompous, biased or plain wrong. Some close scrutiny is not only legitimate: it is overdue.” Ed: The quote in this paragraph is quoting a review of Nick Davies book printed in the Guardian (see link), not Nick Davies book as is erroneously implied.

Ugh! Sounds nasty. So glad you took the moral high ground there and called so passionately for journalistic standards to be above reproach, lest readers end up “soaked in disinformation”. Warming to your theme, in another Guardian article - Our media have become mass producers of distortion - you let rip:

“Where once journalists were active gatherers of news, now they have gene rally become mere passive processors of unchecked, second-hand material, much of it contrived by PR to serve some political or commercial interest. Not journalists, but churnalists. An industry whose primary task is to filter out falsehood has become so vulnerable to manipulation that it is now involved in the mass production of falsehood, distortion and propaganda.”