In the scandal involving the theft and release of classified military information that could cost the lives of U.S. military personnel, the British Telegraph newspaper reported that the American soldier at the center of the scandal was “openly homosexual” and apparently held a grudge against the U.S. because of the military’s anti-gay policy.

In another bizarre twist, reliable reports suggest that Private First Class Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army Intelligence analyst accused of leaking the classified information to the WikiLeaks.org website, was not only a homosexual but was considering a sex change. Manning was arrested at the end of May and is being detained by U.S. authorities.

The Telegraph features photographs of Manning, who could face more than 50 years in prison for treasonous conduct, holding up a sign with rainbow colors demanding “equality on the battlefield” and participating in a gay pride parade.

It is apparent that Manning, based on published reports, was a public homosexual activist for at least over a year. During this time he apparently came up with the idea of downloading and releasing the classified information to WikiLeaks as a way to get back at the United States military over its policy regarding homosexuality.

Telegraph writers Heidi Blake, John Bingham and Gordon Rayner wrote that Manning had “appeared to sink into depression after a relationship break-up” and became increasingly bitter with his treatment by the Army.

The riveting Telegraph account of Manning’s growing rage and anger raises serious questions of how the soldier was able to flaunt his homosexuality despite the fact that the Pentagon still officially has a policy in place of excluding open homosexuals from military service.

Violating the Law

In a clear indication that the law was being ignored by the Obama Administration, the evidence demonstrates that Manning was continuing to serve after openly flaunting his homosexuality, including on Facebook.

Some members of Congress are calling for Manning to be executed if convicted. But who in the Obama Administration—and the Department of Defense—was aware of his conduct and looked the other way? Congress should examine that.

Now, because of the obvious mishandling of this homosexual ticking time bomb, it appears that the United States, its soldiers, and relations with countries in the region will pay the price. Lives—and a war on terrorism in Afghanistan—could be lost.

The revelations of Manning’s openly pro-homosexual conduct suggest that a more liberal Department of Defense policy, in deference to the wishes of the Commander-in-Chief, had already been in effect and has now backfired in a big way. The result could be not only the loss of the lives of U.S. soldiers, as a result of the enemy understanding U.S. intelligence sources and methods, but damaged relations with Afghanistan and Pakistan and a possible U.S. military defeat in the region as a whole.

The obvious intention is to inflict a humiliating defeat on the U.S. military in Afghanistan, forcing a withdrawal of U.S. forces before the country is stabilized and free of terrorist activity.

The result could be the major reemergence of Al Qaeda and its Taliban backers in a position to strike the United States in a 9/11-type terror attack.

Investigations need to determine if Manning part of a secret homosexual network in the military that is currently working with WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, once part of a group called the “International Subversives.” Assange, a native of Australia with an anti-American and anti-military bent, has a criminal record for illegal computer hacking.

Assange released the documentts in coordination with their publication and analysis by the British Guardian, the German Der Spiegel, and The New York Times.

Although in the military service, Manning had his own anti-military bent, based on his opposition to the defense policy of keeping open and active homosexuals out, and advertised his homosexuality on his Facebook page.

Gawker.com reported that “A screen capture of Manning’s Facebook profile shows the pages he liked were almost exclusively LGBT-related, including LGBT America, Gay Marriage, Equality Maryland, Dan Savage, Human Rights Campaign, etc.”

LGBT refers to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered.

The Facebook image also showed that he enjoyed the MSNBC program hosted by Rachel Maddow, the lesbian activist, and that he listed Media Matters and the National Center for Transgender Equality as being among his “likes and interests.” Media Matters is run by gay activist David Brock.

Manning’s favorite personalities included Barack and Michelle Obama and Barney Frank, the openly gay member of Congress from Massachusetts. He even listed Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who supports Obama’s repeal of the homosexual exclusion policy, as being among his favorite personalities.

Gawker cited evidence that Manning contacted well-known trans videoblogger ZJ via AOL Instant Messenger as far back as February 21, 2009, and said that he enjoyed the videos on the site. “He just said he enjoyed my videos,” ZJ said. “He told me that me and him were on the same page.”

ZJ is “Zinnia Jones” and the site is linked to a Facebook entry for “Queer and Queer-Supportive Atheists,” described as “A group for atheists and agnostics who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, intersex, or otherwise queer, as well as straight allies.”

The dramatic revelations about Manning’s circle of friends and associates suggest that, rather than repeal the homosexual exclusion policy, as Obama is demanding, the prohibition on homosexuals should have been more strictly enforced and that it should be strengthened today. What’s more, it is clear that Manning should have been expelled from the Armed Forces long before he allegedly did his damage to U.S. national security.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, has supported repeal of the prohibition on open homosexuals serving in the military. Such a change would bring more people with sexual identity problems like Bradley Manning into the Armed Forces.

The Manning scandal provides ammunition to those who want to maintain the exclusion of homosexuals from the military. It proves in dramatic terms that homosexuals with gender identity disorders are potentially unstable and that their strange sexual preferences can subvert the military mission and cost lives.

More Revelations

Another British publication, the Daily Mail, reports that a friend said Manning, who was born in the United States but raised in Britain, had been gay since the age of 13. The friend wondered why the U.S. Army “didn’t ask more questions when they recruited him.”

While the WikiLeaks scandal is the subject of numerous and continuing press reports, the Telegraph account of his “openly homosexual” conduct is the first to provide absolute proof that he was a gay activist who wanted to strike back against the U.S. military.

However, several weeks ago, on July 6, the Associated Press ran a story that hinted at the controversy. It reported that Manning’s Facebook page had included numerous gay references and quoted a friend of Manning as saying that in recent months he “seemed to have grown more aware of social issues, including the gay-rights movement.” Manning reportedly described himself as “nonreligious” and had custom-made military dog tags reading “humanist.”

Before this, on June 8, Shane Harris of the Washingtonian had quoted a friend as saying that Manning was going to be discharged from the Army because of “an adjustment disorder.” The publication said that questions were raised by some observers “about whether Manning could have been dismissed under the military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy, which forbids homosexuals from serving openly.”

This adds to the evidence that Manning’s actions were motivated by hatred of the U.S. military over its anti-gay policy.

Adding further intrigue, the website known as “Boing Boing” suggested that Manning was a transsexual undergoing a transition from male to female and notes that his friend, Adrian Lamo, was an active member of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender community. It cites evidence that Lamo had been appointed as a member of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Questioning Youth Task Force in San Francisco.

Commenting on transcripts of chats between Manning and Lamo, the website known as “QueerTV” said that Manning “might be one of us” and that the conversations “reveal the soldier might identify as transgender.”

Manning’s affinity on his Facebook page for “Repeal the Ban” is also significant. It is a project of a group called Servicemembers United, which describes itself as “the nation’s largest organization of gay and lesbian troops and veterans, their allies and supporters.” The group receives financial support from the Open Society Institute of billionaire George Soros.

Editor’s Message

The push for ratification of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), which requires 67 votes for passage, was complicated by the arrests—and quick release—of 10 Russian agents acting on behalf of the SVR, the Russian foreign intelligence service which serves as the successor to the old Soviet KGB. The Hill newspaper noted that court documents in the case demonstrated that agents “were asked by Moscow to collect information about the treaty” in advance of a 2009 trip by Obama to Russia, during which the new President “called on Moscow to stop viewing America as an adversary,” as the British publication the Guardian put it.

One document in the spy case reveals that Moscow had “requested information on the U.S. position with respect to a new Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, Afghanistan, and Iran’s nuclear weapons program.” It said Russian agents were directed to obtain information on “[Russia] policy team members,” but the names of four Obama Administration officials who were targeted in this effort were deleted. Who were these officials? Why don’t our media demand answers?

The documents suggest that the Russian or U.S. position on New START could have been affected by the activities of the Russian intelligence agents.

The treaty, signed on April 8 by Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, would obligate both nations to cap their strategic nuclear weapons at 1,550 warheads, a one-third reduction, but it would not inhibit the development or deployment of tactical or shorter range nuclear weapons.

But in statements in the preamble to the pact, the two sides recognize “the interrelationship between strategic offensive arms and strategic defense arms” and how “this interrelationship will become more important as strategic arms are reduced.” This linkage is seen as a major concession to the Russians that could limit U.S. missile defenses.

Was Russian influence exercised over the president to obtain this concession? Why did the Russians examine Obama’s passport when they detained him on a trip to Russia in 2005?

Why is AIM virtually alone in raising these questions?

The Russian Agents and the Cover-up

Our media do not seem to be interested in the curious matter of why the Russian agents accused of trying to acquire sensitive nuclear information from the U.S. Government were so quickly released. Why were they were sent back to Moscow less than two weeks after they were arrested?

A continuing spy scandal threatened to undermine U.S.-Russia business “opportunities” and “cooperation.”

Just before the scandal broke, a $4 billion deal had been announced between Boeing and a Russian firm. During the visit of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to the U.S., Cisco Systems had announced it was going to spend $1 billion in Russia, in part to develop a Moscow version of Silicon Valley. The United States Export-Import Bank had also announced a new deal to underwrite, with U.S. taxpayer dollars, U.S. business exports to Russia.

Plus, Obama had submitted a U.S.-Russian nuclear cooperation agreement, backed by powerful business interests, to the U.S. Congress.

All of this was clearly in jeopardy if the Russian spy scandal led to additional revelations of Russian spying on the American government and businesses. So the scandal had to go away—and quickly.

The exchange was hammered out so quickly and was so advantageous to the Kremlin, however, that it should have become apparent to some journalist somewhere that there was much more to the story. But the issue was just as quickly dropped by the media, liberal and conservative alike.

Senator Richard Lugar, a Republican supporter of New START, was a mentor for then-Senator Barack Obama during a controversial three-day visit they made to Russia and Eastern Europe in 2005. During the visit, Russian authorities detained Obama and Lugar, threatened to search their plane, and examined their passports.

Funny Business

On “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” Vice President Joseph Biden called the exchange a “good deal” and said that he would have preferred keeping the good-looking Russian woman spy and giving Rush Limbaugh to the Kremlin.

Has the possible penetration of the U.S. Government by foreign spies become a laughing matter for the Obama Administration? Are they fearful that a realistic review of what the Russian agents were doing would lead to the conclusion that Obama’s foreign policy plays into the hands of the Russian government and has in fact been manipulated by the Kremlin?

Documents in the scandal demonstrate, as we have reported, that the Russian intelligence service, the SVR, was interested in penetrating “think tanks” with influence over U.S. foreign policy. The SVR, the successor to the KGB, was especially interested in nuclear weapons-related information.

What we do know, based on public reports, is that one Russian agent had a job at Microsoft, another had been trying to cultivate a fundraiser for and friend of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and another had claimed contacts with a Clinton Administration official by the name of Leon Fuerth, who had been Vice President Al Gore’s top national security aide.

So we quickly found out that top Obama and Democratic Party officials had been targeted in this intelligence operation.

The hastily-arranged “spy swap” ended any chance of finding out in detail in a public forum what kind of information the Russian intelligence service had been collecting and who in the U.S. Government had possibly been recruited or used as assets and contacts.

The Strobe Talbott Case

The book, Comrade J, identifies Strobe Talbott, a former high-ranking Clinton State Department official  and the current president of the Brookings Institution, a major liberal think tank, as having been a trusted contact of the Russian intelligence service. Talbott has denied serving as a Russian agent, but when he was up for his State Department job in the Clinton Administration, he admitted a relationship with Soviet “journalist” and KGB agent Victor Louis.

The Talbott case is consistently ignored by the major media because he is respected and trusted by his colleagues in the press. He is also trusted by Senator Richard Lugar, who served as Obama’s mentor when Obama was in the U.S. Senate and traveled to Russia, only to be detained and have his passport examined by Russian authorities. Obama joked about the detention, saying he wasn’t in the Gulag.

So the propaganda and disinformation activities continue. Indeed, that is what the Kremlin-financed global Russia Today television channel is all about. It has a major presence in the U.S.

But wait. Didn’t the Reverend Jeremiah Wright repeat the KGB disinformation that the U.S. was spreading AIDS? Indeed he did. In fact, Wright, who was Barack Obama’s pastor for 20 years, actually claimed at a National Press Club appearance during the 2008 presidential campaign that the U.S. Government had manufactured the AIDS virus to kill black people.

So we have one identified channel of influence whereby Soviet propaganda and disinformation was spewing from the mouth of someone with direct influence over the President of the United States. But few in the major media were interested then—or now—as to whether or not Obama believed any of that nonsense.

One possible reason for quickly deporting the spies, from the point of view of the Obama Administration, is that they had explosive information about Russian influence over the U.S. Government that would have been too incriminating to reveal in a public court case.

It is widely assumed, since they were not charged with espionage, that the Russians were agents of influence who were trying to affect or obtain information about U.S. foreign policy. But this doesn’t mean that they did not do significant damage. The documents in the case cite secret money drops and secret messages to “Moscow Center.”

Attorney General Eric Holder had no real answer to CBS “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer’s question of why, after spending so many years following these agents, they were not prosecuted. Holder could only claim that the 10 were somehow not as valuable as the four we got. In terms of math alone, it just doesn’t add up.

Documents in the case demonstrate that the Russian agents were seeking information about the proposed arms treaty with Russia and other nuclear weapons information. That treaty, the New START, has now been signed and submitted to the Senate for ratification. It is being criticized by conservatives for giving Russia a strategic and tactical advantage in nuclear weapons.

One document says four Obama Administration officials were specifically targeted in the intelligence-gathering effort. But their names were omitted from the Justice Department documents about the case. If they actively conspired with the Russians, shouldn’t they be identified and arrested and prosecuted?

However, there is another possible reason for the quick release of the Russian agents. It is that powerful U.S. business interests told the Obama Administration that an unfolding spy scandal—and a public court case—could damage their business dealings with the Russian government.

Bad Timing for Business

There is no question that the timing of the scandal was bad news for these business interests. Before it broke on June 28, a major push had been launched by an entity called the Coalition for a U.S.-Russia Civilian Nuclear Partnership to have Congress approve a Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement with Russia as “a natural next step in deepening the relationship and trade ties between the U.S. and Russia.”

The coalition is supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the U.S.-Russia Business Council, the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC), and Tenex, a Russian company described as the world’s leading exporter of nuclear fuel cycle products and services

General Electric, a key member of the U.S.-Russia Business Council, has worked in Russia since the 1920s “to develop the country’s energy infrastructure,” it boasts. GE owns NBC and MSNBC. In fact, NBC is itself a member of the U.S.-Russia Business Council.

Is this why GE-owned media properties have not seen fit to do any in-depth investigative reporting on the Russian spy scandal?

It is interesting to note that Jeffrey Immelt, CEO and Chairman of General Electric, met with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on April 6 of this year. The topic was business in Russia.

Immelt sits on Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

Spotlight on the Media

“Historian” Zinn Lied About Red Ties

The prominent “progressive” historian Howard Zinn, whose books are force-fed to young people on many college campuses, was not only a member of the Moscow-controlled and Soviet-funded Communist Party USA (CPUSA) but lied about it, according to an FBI file.

The file, consisting of three sections totaling 423 pages, was made available on the FBI’s website and released in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from AIM editdor Cliff Kincaid.

Zinn taught in the political science department of Boston University for 24 years, from 1964 to 1988, and has been a major influence on the modern-day “progressive” movement that backed Barack Obama for president.

Although Zinn denied being a member of the CPUSA, the FBI file discloses that several reliable informants in the party identified Zinn as a member who attended party meetings as many as five times a week.

What’s more, one of the files reveals that a reliable informant provided a photograph of Zinn teaching a class on “Basic Marxism” at party headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, in 1951. A participant in the class said that Zinn taught that “the basic teaching of Marx and Lenin were sound and should be adhered to by those present.”

Zinn was included on the “Security Index” and “Communist Index” maintained by the FBI. The “Security Index” was more ominous and included individuals who could be detained in the event of a national emergency.

The file confirms Zinn’s membership in the party from 1948-1953 and one says he was “believed to be a CP member as of October, 1956.” However, he denied membership in the party when interviewed by the FBI in 1953 and 1954 and claimed to be just a “liberal” or “leftist.” He did admit involvement in several CPUSA front organizations, the documents say.

A 1964 FBI memorandum refers to Zinn as “a professor and writer who has a background of known membership in the Communist Party (CP) and has continued to demonstrate procommunist and anti-United States sympathies.” It says that while Zinn had denied membership in the CPUSA, his denial “was not supported by facts”—a reference to the substantial evidence and eyewitness testimony provided by informants in the CPUSA.

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