After explaining that Manning, if convicted, “should spend a long, long time in prison,” and then claiming that the overall narrative of the State Department cables shows a story of “rightdoing,” P. J. Crowley describes how Manning’s treatment undermines our own strategic narrative.

Wisconsin law requires that public meetings are announced with 24 hours notice, 2 hours if there’s some extenuating circumstance which prevents advanced planning. The meeting in question, the conference committee, actually had less than two hours notice. “I have been shown no rule that overrides the statutory requirement,” Judge Sumi said.

As you know by now, State Department spokesman PJ Crowley was effectively given the Shirley Sherrod pull over to the side of the road and resign order by the Obama White House, and the announcement was made public this morning. As Phoenix Woman noted it was reminiscent of the Saturday Night Massacre.

It says something about the desire of the Obama Administration to try to quietly and without consequence destroy anyone who makes any challenges to their shameful mistreatment of an alleged whistleblower that they waited to make their move, not just for the usual news black hole that is a typical part of the American weekend, but for a weekend when a single global event — the ongoing catastrophes in Japan — would consume what media and public attention exists:

P.J. Crowley is abruptly stepping down as State Department spokesman under pressure from the White House, according to senior officials familiar with the matter, because of controversial comments he made about the Bradley Manning case.

Wow. Crowley has spent the last several months condemning the abuse of Middle Eastern dictators against their citizens. And now, in a room of twenty people, Crowley has condemned the abuse our own country commits.

n January, I did a timeline of the key dates revealed in Manning’s July 6, 2010 charging document. I wanted to put the timeline laid out in yesterday’s charging document side-by-side with the earlier one to identify what new details there are, presumably showing us what the government has learned since July, as well as the chronology of when the government alleges Bradley Manning accessed and leaked particular documents.

Here’s what the government appears to believe happened…

Last Thursday, I presented evidence that builds a strong case that one of Raymond Davis’ functions when he is in the US is to recruit intelligence agents. On Tuesday, the Express Tribune in Pakistan presented evidence that suggests that Davis also worked as a recruiter of some sort within Pakistan, as well.

After the Guardian confirmed for the Anglo-American world what the rest of the world had already concluded–that Raymond Davis is some kind of spook–the government gave the American outlets that have been sitting on this knowledge the go-ahead to publish it.

Just as we saw with the vaunted Bush-era color coded terror warning level charts that were overtly manipulated at election time and Obama-era rape-scanners that were turned off on national opt-out day, the increasing frequency of drone attacks in northwest Pakistan has been shown to be just another prop in the ongoing security theater farce directed by the US government and produced by the military industrial complex. Because drone attacks were simply “turned off” when the political pressure arising from the Raymond Davis affair got too high in Pakistan (and then turned back on when word got out), it cannot be concluded that the attacks are anything more than theater. Essential functions in a vital war cannot be turned off due to political pressure, just as essential screening practices cannot be turned off due to political pressure. Props, however, can be used as the situation allows.

For some 30 years, the US has had a Faustian bargain with Hosni Mubarak. “You help us, and we’ll ignore how you treat your people.” But when the devil arrives to demand payment, things can get ugly (see Iran in the 1970s).

To the extent that we’ve been supporting autocrats who are nervous about Egypt spilling into their countries, US diplomats might want to prod them to pay more attention to the rights of their own people. “If a revolution never happens, then you don’t have to worry about how we’ll react to it.”

Face it: getting out of a Faustian bargain is hard, but it’s easier to do before the revolution takes place and the bill comes due.