Glenn Greenwald: The intellectual cowardice of Bradley Manning’s critics [View all]

[Better Believe It]

The intellectual cowardice of Bradley Manning’s critics
December 24, 2011

Ever since Manning was accused of being the source for the WikiLeaks disclosures, those condemning these leaks have sought to distinguish them from Ellsberg’s leak of the Pentagon Papers. With virtual unanimity, Manning’s harshest critics have contended that while Ellsberg’s leak was justifiable and noble, Manning’s alleged leaks were not; that’s because, they claim, Ellsberg’s leak was narrowly focused and devoted to exposing specific government lies, while Manning’s was indiscriminate and a far more serious breach of secrecy. When President Obama declared Manning guilty, he made the same claim: “No it wasn’t the same thing. Ellsberg’s material wasn’t classified in the same way.”

One problem for those wishing to make this claim is that Ellsberg himself has been one of Manning’s most vocal defenders, repeatedly insisting that the two leaks are largely indistinguishable. But the bigger problem for this claim is how blatantly irrational it is. As Ellsberg clearly details in this Al Jazeera debate, he — Ellsberg — dumped 7,000 pages of Top Secret documents: the highest known level of classification; by contrast, not a single page of what Manning is alleged to have leaked was Top Secret, but rather all bore a much lower-level secrecy designation. In that sense, Obama was right: “Ellsberg’s material wasn’t classified in the same way” the secrets Ellsberg leaked were classified as being far more sensitive.

Nor, if the U.S. Government’s evidence is to be believed, can there be any doubt about the similarity in motives between the two leakers. Just as Ellsberg repeatedly explained that he could not in good conscience stand by and have the world remain ignorant of the government lies he discovered about the Vietnam War (a war he once supported and helped plan), so, too, did Manning repeatedly state that these leaks were vital for informing the world about the depths of brutality, corruption and deceit driving these wars (including one war to which he was deployed as a soldier) — all with the goal of triggering what he called “worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms.” In the purported chats he had, Manning described how the intense worldwide reaction to the video of an Apache helicopter shooting unarmed civilians and a Reuters journalist in Baghdad “gave me immense hope”; that’s because: “i want people to see the truth… regardless of who they are… because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public.” That is as pure an expression as possible of exactly what motivated Ellsberg as well.

What’s really going on here in this Manning v. Ellsberg comparison is pure intellectual cowardice. At this point — four decades after it happened — most people are unwilling to stand up and publicly condemn the Pentagon Papers leak. In progressive circles, it has long been entrenched dogma that Ellsberg’s leak was just and noble and that the Nixon administration’s efforts to prosecute Ellsberg were ignoble. Ellsberg has hero status, and deservedly so: he risked his life, literally, to expose to the world just how systematic and deliberate was the U.S. Government’s deceit about the Vietnam War and how heinous was the war itself.

Please read the full article at:

http://www.salon.com/2011/12/24/the_intellectual_cowardice_of_bradley_mannings_critics/


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Punishing the whistleblower?
As Bradley Manning faces charges of espionage over the Wikileaks cables we ask if the US government is overreacting.
December 23, 2011

So, should Private Bradley Manning be on trial? And is the Obama administration being too tough on him?

Inside Story Americas with presenter Shihab Rattansi discusses with guests: Glenn Greenwald, a columnist for Salon.com who has covered the Manning case extensively; Daniel Ellsberg, the former military analyst and whistleblower who famously leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971; and Clifford May, a national security analyst and the president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

"I don't think justice can be done by court martial in this particular case because of the circumstances of the last 19 months. [If it comes to a court martial] this court martial [would be] incurably poisoned, I would say, by that misjudgement by President Obama."

Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistleblower

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestoryamericas/2011/12/20111223133535524719.html?utm_content=automateplus&utm_campaign=Trial6&utm_source=SocialFlow&utm_medium=MasterAccount&utm_term=tweets

See the above program on YouTube at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=53Fs13hbPr4