Bahrain Opinion: A Nobel Peace Prize for the AlKhawaja Family? (Weschler)

Maryam & Abdulhadi AlKhawajaFor all its seeming intractability, the situation in Bahrain is not entirely without hope. The regime is hardly monolithic in its hard line, there are reformist elements who could themselves be heartened, their own positions strengthened, by the award of the Peace Prize to a family of nonviolent oppositionist activists. In this context, the situation in Bahrain is not unlike that in Myanmar/Burma a few years back, and the introduction of a Nobel into the Bahraini environment might prove as salutary.

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US War-On-Terror Opinion: A "Liberal" Betrayal? (Davis)

Bradley ManningMore than three years into the presidency of Barack Obama, it’s almost a cliché now to ask: What if George W. Bush did it? From dramatically escalating the war in Afghanistan to institutionalizing the practice of indefinite imprisonment, Obama has dashed hopes he would offer a change from the Bush’s national security policies – but he hasn’t faced a whole lot of resistance from liberals who once decried those policies as an affront to American values.

Like those on the right who now crow about fascism but spent the Bush years gleefully declaring left-wing celebrities “enemies of the state,” many of those on the liberal-left treat issues of war and civil liberties as useful merely for partisan purposes. When a Democrat’s in power those issues become inconvenient. And usually ignored.

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WikiLeaks Latest: US Department of Justice Subpoenas Twitter Records of Volunteers (Greenwald)

Last night, Birgitta Jónsdóttir --- a former WikiLeaks volunteer and current member of the Icelandic Parliament --- announced on Twitter) that she had been notified by Twitter that the DOJ had served a Subpoena demanding information "about all my tweets and more since November 1st 2009.

What hasn't been reported is that the Subpoena served on Twitter -- which is actually an Order from a federal court that the DOJ requested -- seeks the same information for numerous other individuals currently or formerly associated with WikiLeaks, including Jacob Appelbaum, Rop Gonggrijp, and Julian Assange.  It also seeks the same information for Bradley Manning and for WikiLeaks' Twitter account.

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WikiLeaks and "Justice": The Detention of Private Bradley Manning (Greenwald)

Last week Glenn Greenwald wrote this article for Salon. On Tuesday, Bradley Manning's lawyer David Coombs wrote, "The defense has raised the conditions of confinement...on multiple occasions with the Quantico confinement facility and the Army Staff Judge Advocate’s (SJA) Office assigned to handle this case. Our efforts, unfortunately, have not resulted any in positive results."

On Wednesday, the office of the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak, confirmed that the case is being investigated.

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