EDWARD MANNING NEWSLETTER #4

OMNI Newsletter on Bradley Manning #4,  June 16, 2013, Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace and Justice.   (#1  Dec. 6, 2011; #2  June 29, 2012; #3 Feb. 24, 2013).  

For more on Manning see my Newsletters and Blogs on WikiLeaks (Assange, Manning).   My Blog:   It's the War Department   http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/

Newsletters on WikiLeaks, Assange, Manning, and related topics:      http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/

jbennet@uark.edu

 

Contents of #1

Courage to Resist Fund

Deserves Medal of Freedom

Whistleblower and Revolutionary

UN Investigator

Misclassified to Justify Torture

Law Professors Protest

Contents of #2

Manning Support Network

Amy Goodman: World Contexts

Quigley:   Manning, Solitary Confinement, Occupy

Courage to Resist Supporting Manning

Michael Moore: Manning Started Occupy

Judge Challenges Prosecution Secrecy

Contents of #3

1000 Days

Protests for Manning:  We Have Not Forgotten

Protest for Manning in Illinois Oct.  20

Protests for Manning Sept. 6

Nobel Laureates Defend Manning

Manning Denied Fair Trial

Manning’s Detention is Torture

Navy Violated Protocol

Praise for Manning

Madar, The Passion

 

Contents #4

RSN:  Reporting his Trial

Support Journalist Access to Trial

The Nation v. Obama,  Call for Protest

Protest Charge of Aiding the Enemy, Call Gen. Linnington, the Pentagon

Thank Manning

TomDispatch: Madar, Passion of Bradley Manning

Chris Hedges, We Are Bradley Manning

Hedges, Legal Lynching

Drinnan, Human Rights Contexts

Special Coverage: The Trial of Bradley Manning 
Reader Supported News, June 8, 2013
Reader Supported News is at Fort Meade reporting on the Court-Martial Trial of war crimes whistle-blower Bradley Manning. Despite significant opposition from the Army's court administrators, RSN remains on the base gathering facts and pursuing its Media Access action against the Army. Stick with RSN for the latest developments from The Trial of Bradley Manning. 
READ MORE

Contribute to RSN,   Become a Fan of RSN on Facebook,   Follow RSN on Twitter

Demand Media Access to the Bradley Manning Trial

While journalists and citizens alike have been calling for better media access to the Bradley Manning trial, the military has decided to lock the court down even further: media privileges are a right that can be taken away, they asserted. And an appeals court rejected a lawsuit by the Center for Constitutional Rights to make court records in the trial public, arguing it does not have jurisdiction.

Call Major General Linnington and demand he allow journalists to record the proceedings, and demand court records be released. 202-685-2807.

 EDITORS OF THE NATION CONDEMN PERSECUTION OF MANNING

·      SUBSCRIBE

·    DONATE

·  STORE

·PROGRAMS

HOME BLOGS COLUMNISTS CURRENT ISSUE MAGAZINE ARCHIVE MULTIMEDIA

COMMUNITY NATION BUILDERS STUDENTS

Bob Woodward's Tantrum, Bradley Manning's Torment

The Editors 

March 6, 2013   |    This article appeared in the March 25, 2013 edition of The Nation.

·                              

Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, in handcuffs, is escorted out of a courthouse in Fort Meade, Maryland February 23, 2012. Reuters/Jose Luis Magana 
 
Anyone losing sleep over Bob Woodward’s relationship with the White House can finally rest easy. The éminence grise of access journalism has made his peace with the Obama administration. After a spat with economic adviser Gene Sperling over an op-ed he was writing about the sequester, Woodward received an apologetic e-mail from Sperling, who said “as a friend” he thought Woodward would “regret” his comments. Woodward took to the airwaves, casting it as a veiled threat. But by Sunday, order was restored: Sperling called him a “legend” on ABC’sThis Week. “I’m going to invite him over to my house,” Woodward said on Face the Nation, adding magnanimously, “Hopefully, he’ll bring others from the White House, or maybe the president himself.”

If there are indignities to be suffered from running afoul of the White House, Woodward’s perceived injury is the least among them. His tantrum, skewered by The Daily Show, might simply be funny were it not for the actual targeting of journalists by the Obama administration. 

In particularly stark contrast is the ongoing imprisonment of Abdulelah Haider Shaye, a Yemeni journalist who in 2009 revealed a US airstrike that killed fourteen women and twenty-one children. In 2011, President Obama personally intervened to keep Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, from pardoning Shaye (see “Free Abdulelah Shaye, March 21, 2012). As we wrote on this matter, “While paying lip service to media freedom, this administration has undermined the rights of journalists, and the whistleblowers who aid them, whose work has sometimes cast the government in a negative light.”

Enter Pfc. Bradley Manning, whose case reached a critical juncture just as Beltway pundits were seizing on the Woodward affair. On February 28, the 25-year-old pleaded guilty to ten criminal counts stemming from his historic leak of sensitive material to WikiLeaks in 2010. Before a military judge in Fort Meade, Maryland, Manning told how he decided to expose the cache of files, including videos, military logs and 250,000 State Department cables. “The more I read the cables, the more I came to the conclusion that this was the type of information that should become public,” he said. He called TheWashington Post and The New York Times before turning to WikiLeaks. (“I do not believe she took me seriously,” he said of the Post reporter; the Times never called back.)

Manning was eloquent in explaining his motives. Disturbed by footage of a deadly aerial attack on Iraqi civilians in 2007, he said, “I wanted the American public to know that not everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan are targets that needed to be neutralized, but rather people who were struggling to live in the pressure cooker environment of what we call asymmetric warfare.” Such a sober meditation on the human cost of US military force is precisely what was missing from the press during the run-up to both wars.

Manning’s guilty pleas could mean twenty years in prison, on top of the 1,000 days he has languished in pretrial detention (including more than nine months in solitary confinement, often under horribly abusive conditions). But the worst is yet to come: the Obama administration will now prosecute Manning for the most serious charges he faces, including “aiding and abetting the enemy.” It’s a scorched earth move, designed “to terrorize future national security whistleblowers” and journalists alike, in the words of Harvard law professor Yochai Benkler. It’s also a story that merits deeper concern from the Washington press—the kind of story that in another age might have interested Bob Woodward.

The government says Ahmed Ferhani is a terrorist. But, writes John Knefel, Ferhani’s conversations with undercover NYPD police tell a different story.

The Editors 

March 6, 2013   |    This article appeared in the March 25, 2013 edition of The Nation.

Demand 'aiding the enemy' charge is dropped! Call 202-685-2807.

Tue Mar 12, 2013 12:14 pm (PDT) . Posted by:

"Gerry Condon" soldiersayno    VIA VETERANS FOR PEACE

Subject: Fwd: Demand 'aiding the enemy' charge is dropped! Call 202-685-2807.
Here is a great opportunity for Veterans For Peace members to add our voices to thousands of others, demanding that the Army drop its preposterous "Aiding the Enemy" charge against Bradley Manning. 

Subject: Demand 'aiding the enemy' charge is dropped! Call 202-685-2807.
From: Bradley Manning Support Network <contact-bmsn@bradleymanning.org>
To: projectsafehaven@hotmail.com

Call General Linnington. 202-685-2807. Demand the charges be dropped.   This week the Bradley Manning Support Network is joining with FireDogLake in a call-in action to protest the government’s decision to move ahead with all its charges against Bradley Manning. Call Maj. General Linnington, the presiding authority over the trial, and demand he step in to free Bradley. Call 202-685-2807. 
Call in and protest! Demand General Linnington drop the charges against Bradley Manning.
“I believe that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information contained within [the releases] this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general as well as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan.” - Bradley Manning, February 28, 2013.
Last week, Pfc. Bradley Manning delivered a historic, personal testimony to his motivation behind passing diplomatic cables and battlefield data to Wikileaks. 
Manning explained that he had become deeply troubled by the reality of our asymmetric warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the cover-up of horrific battlefield crimes; he felt similar events could only be prevented by vigorous public debate.
It is more clear than ever that Bradley Manning was aiding Americans, not the enemy.
Maj. General Linnington is the presiding authority who will be asked to approve the outcome of Bradley's trial.

Maj. Gen. Michael Linnington
202-685-2807 
Once Maj. Gen. Linnington’s voicemail box is full - you can also leave a message at the DOD: (703) 571-3343 - press "5" to leave a comment. 
*If this mailbox is also full, leave the Department of Defense a written message. 
One of the most moving aspect of Manning’s testimony was his explanation as to why he released the so-called “Collateral Murder” video, which shows the gunning down of two Reuters journalists and bystanders by apparently bloodthirsty and remorseless American soldiers in a US aircraft.
Manning described being deeply troubled by the video, especially the crew’s “lack of concern for human life” and lack of “concern for injured children at the scene.” Manning directly stated that he wanted the American public “to know that not all people were targets that needed to be neutralized” but “people living in the pressure cooker environment of asymmetrical warfare.”
Statements like these solidify what many of us had assumed for some time now: Pfc. Bradley Manning is an American hero who wanted to aid the public, not a traitor looking to 'aid the enemy.' That he risked his life to courageously expose this information and provoke a public debate to bring greater transparency to our foreign policy actions makes the insinuation that he ‘aided the enemy’ all the more absurd.
Please call Maj. General Linnington now!
202-685-2807
It is clear that Pfc. Manning exposed these documents at great personal risk for our benefit. The least we can do is continue to support him in any way we can. Thank you for continuing to do so.

Thank Bradley Manning

RootsAction Team [info@rootsaction.org]

To: James R. Bennett 

Friday, March 01, 2013 9:09 AM

Flag for follow up. Start by Saturday, March 02, 2013. Due by Saturday, March 02, 2013.

Sign the card.  Share this action on Facebook  Share this action on Twitter Bradley Manning, on Thursday, pleaded guilty to actions that fulfilled his moral obligations, and for which he has our gratitude. We're going to thank him, and you can add your name to the card. Manning revealed that he had contacted theWashington Post and the New York Times,and got nowhere, before deciding to give his news to WikiLeaks, from which it would ultimately reach those two newspapers and many more. Manning said he released only information that he was certain would not harm the United States. There's no evidence he was wrong. He released evidence of crimes, as anyone able to do should do.  Manning did so out of an actual belief in democracy (as distinct from "democracy" as a justification for bombings). "We were obsessed with capturing and killing human targets on lists and ignoring goals and missions," Manning said on Thursday of his time in Iraq with the U.S. Army. "I believed if the public, particularly the American public, could see this it could spark a debate on the military and our foreign policy in general as it applied to Iraq and Afghanistan. It might cause society to reconsider the need to engage in counter terrorism while ignoring the human situation of the people we engaged with every day." Let's have that debate.  First, let's thank Bradley Manning.  Sign our note to him now. Please forward this email widely to like-minded friends. -- The RootsAction.org team P.S. Our small staff is supported by contributions from people like you; your donations are greatly appreciated. P.P.S. RootsAction is an independent online force endorsed by Jim Hightower, Barbara Ehrenreich, Cornel West, Daniel Ellsberg, Glenn Greenwald, Naomi Klein, Bill Fletcher Jr., Laura Flanders, former U.S. Senator James Abourezk, Coleen Rowley, Frances Fox Piven, and many others. Background:  CommonDreams: Before Wikileaks, Leaked Docs Offered to NYT, WaPo AFP: WikiLeaks: Manning Wanted to 'Spark Debate' on War Alexa O'Brien: Pfc. Bradley E. Manning's Statement for the Providence Inquiry Image includes detail of portrait by Robert Shetterly from his series Americans Who Tell the Truth.

 

 

The Passion of Bradley Manning

THE STORY OF THE SUSPECT BEHIND THE LARGEST SECURITY BREACH IN U.S. HISTORY

Chase Madar

"As this fine and important study reports, Bradley Manning holds to the principle that 'it's important that the public should know what its government is doing.' Release of the Wikileaks documents has been a courageous and important service to this cause. Those who regard democracy as a value to be cherished should agree with the author that Manning deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and that his atrocious treatment by the authorities should be harshly condemned, and ended." —Noam Chomsky on The Passion of Bradley Manning

"The Passion of Bradley Manning reminds us that it was James Madison himself who wrote that a popular government without popular information is but a prelude to tragedy or farce. Author and lawyer Chase Madar tells a great story that raises critical questions about the appropriate balance of government secrecy and national security in a modern democracy." —Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director, American Civil Liberties Union

"The mistreatment, trial, and fate of Private Bradley Manning will undoubtedly read like an obituary on the Obama years. His case is a crucial one. Essayist and lawyer Chase Madar turned his sharp eye on it early. His will be the single must-read book on the case." —Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch.com

"Chase Madar has written a powerful, compelling and moving defence of Bradley Manning. He shines a spotlight on government secrecy, duplicity and human rights abuses, and how one young man (allegedly) sought to let the US people know the truth about what the government was doing in their name. Bravo!" —Peter Tatchell, human rights campaigner

BUY THIS BOOK

paperback: $15/£10

ebook: $10/£7

print + ebook: $20/£14

FAQs and shipping information

ABOUT THE BOOK

In May 2010, an intelligence analyst in the US Army’s 10th Mountain Division was arrested on suspicion of leaking nearly half a million classified government documents, including the infamous “Collateral Murder” gunsight video and 260,000 State Department cables. After nine months in solitary confinement, the suspect now awaits court-martial in Fort Leavenworth. He is twenty-four, comes from Crescent, Oklahoma and his name is Bradley Manning.

Who is Private First Class Bradley Manning? Why did he allegedly commit the largest security breach in American history–and why was it so easy? Is Manning a traitor or a whistleblower? Is long-term isolation an outrage to American values–or the new norm? Are the leaks revolutionary or a sensational nonevent? Which is the greater security threat, routinized elite secrecy or flashes of transparency? And what impact does new information really have?

The astonishing leaks attributed to Bradley Manning are viewed from many angles, from Tunisia to Guantánamo Bay, from Foggy Bottom to Baghdad to small-town Oklahoma. Around the world, the eloquent alleged act of one young man obliges citizens to ask themselves if they have the right to know what their government is doing.

Publication April 2012 • 190 pages 
paperback ISBN 978-1-935928-53-9 • ebook ISBN 978-1-935928-54-6

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

IN THE MEDIA

READ AN

- See more at: http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/bradley-manning/#sthash.Gsv2tACq.dpuf

1.                             OR Books — The Passion of Bradley Manning

www.orbooks.com/catalog/bradley-manning/

The Passion of Bradley Manning. The Story of the Suspect Behind the Largest Security Breach in U.S. History. Chase Madar. "As this fine and important study ...

2.                             Amazon.com: The Passion of Bradley Manning: The Story of the ...

www.amazon.com › ... › Politics & Government › Specific Topics

Chase Madar's new book, The Passion of Bradley Manning, pulls together the essential facts that we should try to somehow deliver to television viewers and ...

3.                             Jeremy Harding reviews 'The Passion of Bradley Manning' by Chase ...

www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n14/jeremy.../i-couldve-sold-to-russia-or-china

The Passion of Bradley Manning: The Story of the Suspect Behind the Largest Security Breach in US History by Chase Madar OR, 167 pp, £10.00, April 2012, ...

4.                             Chase Madar: The Passion of Bradley Manning - YouTube

► 6:50► 6:50

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS-KicaI2_Q

Jan 30, 2013 - Uploaded by wearechangect

Follow Jeff on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/Jeffwrcct We Are Change CT interviews Chase Madar Author of The ...

5.                              More videos for Chase Madar, The Passion of Bradley Manning »

6.                             Interview with Chase Madar, author of “The Passion of Bradley ...

www.bradleymanning.org › News

May 4, 2012 – Chase Madar is a civil rights attorney and author of the new book on the accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower, called “The Passion of Bradley ...

7.                             The passion of Bradley Manning - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/.../201242162354978331.html

Apr 25, 2012 – Fethiye, Turkey - When American civil rights attorney Chase Madar told me he was writing a book entitled The Passion of Bradley Manning: The ...

8.                             Book - The Passion of Bradley Manning Chase Madar | Syracuse ...

syracuseculturalworkers.com/book-passion-bradley-manning-chase-...

Imagessold-out: unavailable Quantity: The Passion of Bradley Manning Chase MadarLittle of the (scant) coverage of the imprisonment and trial of Pfc. Manning, ...

9.                             The Boston Occupier – Free Press | 99% Spotlight: The Passion of ...

bostonoccupier.com/99-spotlight-the-passion-of-bradley-manning-b...

Dec 11, 2012 – Despite its title, The Passion of Bradley Manning is about more than the persecution of one U.S. dissident. Chase Madar's 2012 book offers a ...

10.                         Murray Polner: Review of Chase Madar's “The Passion of Bradley ...

www.historynewsnetwork.gmu.edu/.../murray-polner-review-chase-...

Murray Polner: Review of Chase Madar's “The Passion of Bradley Manning: The Story of the Suspect Behind the Largest Security Breach in U.S. History” (New ...

11.                         Chase Madar, The Passion of Bradley Manning: The Story of the ...

peacenews.info/.../chase-madar-passion-bradley-manning-story-suspe...

Born in a small Oklahoma town in 1987, computer whizz-kid Bradley Manning enlisted in the US army in 2007. Two years later, he was posted to Iraq where he ...

 

 

 

WE ARE BRADLEY MANNING

 

Chris Hedges, TruthDig, March 3, 2013 
Hedges writes: "Manning will surely pay with many years - perhaps his entire life - in prison. But we too will pay. The war against Bradley Manning is a war against us all." 

I was in a military courtroom at Fort Meade in Maryland on Thursday as Pfc. Bradley Manning admitted giving classified government documents to WikiLeaks. The hundreds of thousands of leaked documents exposed U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as government misconduct. A statement that Manning made to the court was a powerful and moving treatise on the importance of placing conscience above personal safety, the necessity of sacrificing careers and liberty for the public good, and the moral imperative of carrying out acts of defiance. Manning will surely pay with many years—perhaps his entire life—in prison. But we too will pay. The war against Bradley Manning is a war against us all.

This trial is not simply the prosecution of a 25-year-old soldier who had the temerity to report to the outside world the indiscriminate slaughter, war crimes, torture and abuse that are carried out by our government and our occupation forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is a concerted effort by the security and surveillance state to extinguish what is left of a free press, one that has the constitutional right to expose crimes by those in power. The lonely individuals who take personal risks so that the public can know the truth—the Daniel Ellsbergs, the Ron Ridenhours, the Deep Throats and the Bradley Mannings—are from now on to be charged with “aiding the enemy.” All those within the system who publicly reveal facts that challenge the official narrative will be imprisoned, as was John Kiriakou, the former CIA analyst who for exposing the U.S. government’s use of torture began serving a 30-month prison term the day Manning read his statement. There is a word for states that create these kinds of information vacuums: totalitarian.

The cowardice of The New York Times, El Pais, Der Spiegel and Le Monde, all of which used masses of the material Manning passed on to WikiLeaks and then callously turned their backs on him, is one of journalism’s greatest shames. . . .

READ MORE  http://readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/369-wikileaks/16315-we-are-bradley-manning   (from David D)

 

 

With War Crimes Argument Banned, Manning's Military Trial Is Judicial Lynching

12 June 2013  By Chris Hedges, Truthdig | Op-Ed

Bradley Manning. (Photo: United States Army)The military trial of Bradley Manning is a judicial lynching. The government has effectively muzzled the defense team. The Army private first class is not permitted to argue that he had a moral and legal obligation under international law to make public the war crimes he uncovered. The documents that detail the crimes, torture and killing Manning revealed, because they are classified, have been barred from discussion in court, effectively removing the fundamental issue of war crimes from the trial. Manning is forbidden by the court to challenge the government’s unverified assertion that he harmed national security. Lead defense attorney David E. Coombs said during pretrial proceedings that the judge’s refusal to permit information on the lack of actual damage from the leaks would “eliminate a viable defense, and cut defense off at the knees.” And this is what has happened.

Manning is also barred from presenting to the court his motives for giving the website WikiLeaks hundreds of thousands of classified diplomatic cables, war logs from Afghanistan and Iraq, and videos. The issues of his motives and potentially harming national security can be raised only at the time of sentencing, but by then it will be too late.

The draconian trial restrictions, familiar to many Muslim Americans tried in the so-called war on terror, presage a future of show trials and blind obedience. Our email and phone records, it is now confirmed, are swept up and stored in perpetuity on government computers. Those who attempt to disclose government crimes can be easily traced and prosecuted under the Espionage Act. Whistle-blowers have no privacy and no legal protection. This is why Edward Snowden—a former CIA technical assistant who worked for a defense contractor with ties to the National Security Agency and who leaked to Glenn Greenwald at The Guardian the information about the National Security Council’s top-secret program to collect Americans’ cellphone metadata, e-mail and other personal data—has fled the United States. The First Amendment is dead. There is no legal mechanism left to challenge the crimes of the power elite. We are bound and shackled. And those individuals who dare to resist face the prospect, if they remain in the country, of joining Manning in prison, perhaps the last refuge for the honest and the brave.

Coombs opened the trial last week by pleading with the judge, Army Col. Denise Lind, for leniency based on Manning’s youth and sincerity. Coombs is permitted by Lind to present only circumstantial evidence concerning Manning’s motives or state of mind. He can argue, for example, that Manning did not know al-Qaida might see the information he leaked. Coombs is also permitted to argue, as he did last week, that Manning was selective in his leak, intending no harm to national interests. But these are minor concessions by the court to the defense. Manning’s most impassioned pleas for freedom of information, especially regarding email exchanges with the confidential government informant Adrian Lamo, as well as his right under international law to defy military orders in exposing war crimes, are barred as evidence.

Manning is unable to appeal to the Nuremberg principles, a set of guidelines created by the International Law Commission of the United Nations after World War II to determine what constitutes a war crime. The principles make political leaders, commanders and combatants responsible for war crimes, even if domestic or internal laws allow such actions. The Nuremberg principles are designed to protect those, like Manning, who expose these crimes. Orders do not, under the Nuremberg principles, offer an excuse for committing war crimes. And the Nuremberg laws would clearly condemn the pilots in the “Collateral Murder” video and their commanders and exonerate Manning. But this is an argument we will not be allowed to hear in the Manning trial.

Manning has admitted to 10 lesser offenses surrounding his leaking of classified and unclassified military and State Department files, documents and videos, including the “Collateral Murder” video, which shows a U.S. Apache attack helicopter in 2007 killing 12 civilians, including two Reuters journalists, and wounding two children on an Iraqi street. His current plea exposes him to penalties that could see him locked away for two decades. But for the government that is not enough. Military prosecutors are pursuing all 22 charges against him. These charges include aiding the enemy, wanton publication, espionage, stealing U.S. government property, exceeding authorized access and failures to obey lawful general orders—charges that can bring with them 149 years plus life.

“He knew that the video depicted a 2007 attack,” Coombs said of the “Collateral Murder” recording. “He knew that it [the attack] resulted in the death of two journalists. And because it resulted in the death of two journalists it had received worldwide attention. He knew that the organization Reuters had requested a copy of the video in FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] because it was their two journalists that were killed, and they wanted to have that copy in order to find out what had happened and to ensure that it didn’t happen again. He knew that the United States had responded to that FOIA request almost two years later indicating what they could find and, notably, not the video.

“He knew that David Finkel, an author, had written a book called ‘The Good Soldiers,’ and when he read through David Finkel’s account and he talked about this incident that’s depicted in the video, he saw that David Finkel’s account and the actual video were verbatim, that David Finkel was quoting the Apache air crew. And so at that point he knew that David Finkel had a copy of the video. And when he decided to release this information, he believed that this information showed how [little] we valued human life in Iraq. He was troubled by that. And he believed that if the American public saw it, they too would be troubled and maybe things would change.”

“He was 22 years old,” Coombs said last Monday as he stood near the bench, speaking softly to the judge at the close of his opening statement. “He was young. He was a little naive in believing that the information that he selected could actually make a difference. But he was good-intentioned in that he was selecting information that he hoped would make a difference.”

“He wasn’t selecting information because it was wanted by WikiLeaks,” Coombs concluded. “He wasn’t selecting information because of some 2009 most wanted list. He was selecting information because he believed that this information needed to be public. At the time that he released the information he was concentrating on what the American public would think about that information, not whether or not the enemy would get access to it, and he had absolutely no actual knowledge of whether the enemy would gain access to it. Young, naive, but good-intentioned.”

The moral order is inverted. The criminal class is in power. We are the prey. Manning, in a just society, would be a prosecution witness against war criminals. Those who committed these crimes should be facing prison. But we do not live in a just society.

The Afghans, the Iraqis, the Yemenis, the Pakistanis and the Somalis know what American military forces do. They do not need to read WikiLeaks. They have seen the bodies, including the bodies of their children, left behind by drone strikes and other attacks from the air. They have buried the corpses of those gunned down by coalition forces. With fury, they hear our government tell lies, accounts that are discredited by the reality they endure. Our wanton violence and hypocrisy make us hated and despised, fueling the rage of jihadists and amassing legions of new enemies against the United States. Manning, by providing a window into the truth, opened up the possibility of redemption. He offered hope for a new relationship with the Muslim world, one based on compassion and honesty, on the rule of law, rather than the cold brutality of industrial warfare. But by refusing to heed the truth that Manning laid before us, by ignoring the crimes committed daily in our name, we not only continue to swell the ranks of our enemies but put the lives of our citizens in greater and greater danger. Manning did not endanger us. He sought to thwart the peril that is daily exacerbated by our political and military elite. 

Manning showed us through the documents he released that Iraqis have endured hundreds of rapes and murders, along with systematic torture by the military and police of the puppet government we installed. He let us know that none of these atrocities were investigated. He provided the data that showed us that between 2004 and 2009 there were at least 109,032 “violent deaths” in Iraq, including those of 66,081 civilians, and that coalition troops were responsible for at least 195 civilian deaths in unreported events. He allowed us to see in the video “Collateral Murder” the helicopter attack on unarmed civilians in Baghdad. It was because of Manning that we could listen to the callous banter between pilots as the Americans nonchalantly fired on civilian rescuers. Manning let us see a U.S. Army tank crush one of the wounded lying on the street after the helicopter attack. The actions of the U.S. military in this one video alone, as law professor Marjorie Cohn has pointed out, violate Article 85 of the First Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, which prohibits the targeting of civilians, Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which requires that wounded be treated, and Article 17 of the First Protocol, which permits civilians to rescue and care for wounded without being harmed. We know of this war crime and many others because of Manning. And the decision to punish the soldier who reported these war crimes rather than the soldiers responsible for these crimes mocks our pretense of being a nation ruled by law.

“I believed if the public, particularly the American public, could see this, it could spark a debate on the military and our foreign policy in general as it applied to Iraq and Afghanistan,” Manning said Feb. 28 when he pleaded guilty to the lesser charges. He said he hoped the release of the information to WikiLeaks “might cause society to reconsider the need to engage in counterterrorism while ignoring the situation of the people we engaged with every day.”

But it has not. Our mechanical drones still circle the skies delivering death. Our attack jets still blast civilians. Our soldiers and Marines still pump bullets into mud-walled villages. Our artillery and missiles still raze homes. Our torturers still torture. Our politicians and generals still lie. And the man who tried to stop it all is still in prison.

Trial transcripts used for this report came from the nonprofit Freedom of the Press Foundation, which, because the government refused to make transcripts publicly available, is raising money to have its own stenographer at the trial. Transcripts from the pretrial hearing came from journalist Alexa O’Brien.

HUMAN RIGHTS CONTEXTS OF MANNING

ROBERT F. DRINAN, S.J.  A WORLD VIEW OF HUMAN RIGHTS: THE MOBILIZATION OF SHAME.  Yale UP, 2001.

Chap. 2, “The U.N. Charter: A Blow to National Sovereignty.”  Chap. 2, “The U.N. Commission on Human Rights.”  Chap. 15, “The Human Rights of Prisoners.”  Chap. 8, “The United States Intervenes on Behalf of International Human Rights.”  Chap. 16, “Human Rights Depend on an Independent Judiciary.”

 

END MANNING NEWSLETTER #4