The United States is running an empire and its goals will generally conflict with many people's aspirations for democracy and national self-determination.

With US courts demanding to see the worldwide accounts of Twitter, Google and Yahoo, the threat to Assange and Bradley Manning extends to any internet user anywhere.

If 775 isn't a huge number to Obama, then 56 is practically a fraction. That's the number of children executed by US drones in the first 20 months of the Obama administration.

When one of Obama's drones kills someone it must be because they are terrorists: if they are dead they must be guilty.

If there was ever a time to own up to the "blood and treasure" - not just American, but much more Iraqi - that was lost on an illegal war that permanently damaged the US' position and respect in the world, this was it.

Obama's "targeted killing" rarely spares the lives of bystanders – over 2,200 persons are estimated to have been killed in the three years of the Obama administration in Pakistan alone.

John Pilger lays bare the reality of perpetual war waged by the United States, led by the war lover Obama, followed by the ever subservient British government and supported blindly by the sycophantic media.

Obama's new law feeds state paranoia, expands America's permanent war across the globe, and erases fundamental constitutional liberties.

The role of Britain and the US in stoking up the flames of resentment against Iran is particularly scandalous. Any war with Iran would have more awful consequences than in Afghanistan or Iraq.

From Korea to Vietnam, from Afghanistan to Iraq, there's little evidence that the American public gives much thought to the people in countries where US military interventions take place.

Obama says the US will maintain military spending greater than the next ten countries put together and spending will be larger than it was under George W. Bush.

Barack Obama's record over the past three years speaks for itself when deciding whether he deserves a second term as president.

Other presidents have presided over wars with far higher casualty counts. But not one has ever relied so extensively on the secret killing of individuals like Barack Obama has.

By what moral authority does US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta have the right to determine what price is worth hundreds of thousands of human lives?

Those who want to see Manning punished are driven by a belief that the US Government has the right to use secrecy to hide its acts of deceit and illegality.

Many believe the US government wants to break Bradley Manning, not just to deter any potential whistle-blower, but to use him in a trial for espionage against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.