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Col. Morris Davis, former Guantanamo chief prosecutor and expert on military justice system, comments on verdicts in Bradley Manning trial; Lori Wallach, director of TradeWatch, updates us on the secret process of the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal, and efforts to defeat it.Click here for GoDaddy deal that benefits the PBC podcast.
Davis, who resigned his post at Guantanamo when superiors told him “there will be no acquittals”, was a witness at the court martial of Private Manning at Fort Meade. He is “pleasantly surprised” that the judge found Manning not guilty of “aiding the enemy”, especially after Col. Lind declined to drop that charge just a week ago. Davis does not consider Manning to be a traitor, but thinks he should be punished for the charges he plead guilty to and that the prosecution over-reached when it used the Espionage Act–which last produced a conviction during the Civil War. Davis comments on inappropriate command influence by President Obama, and thinks the “not guilty” finding shows some indepence by the judge, Col. Denise Lind. He also remarks on the Snowden case, and the heavy hand of ObamaCo with NSA leakers and in his own case. We discuss the need for a new Church commission on surveillance and related matters, and that it’s time to update the military justice system.
At 34:30, we talk with Lori Wallach of Public Citizen about the secret negotiations underway for a trade pact called the TransPacific Partnership (TPP). She details examples of the likely impact of this deal on food safety and other issues and explains that members of Congress who are expected to vote on this do not have full access to the negotiations or the current language of the agreement. Like NAFTA and the WTO treaty, this deal will erode wages and working conditions for American workers, and disputes are handled by a small group of corporate lawyers who are accountable to no government or people.
Find out more, including the leaked language of part of the agreement, here and here.