Bradley Manning: A Hero, Not a Traitor [View all]

[Better Believe It]

Last edited Mon Dec 26, 2011, 01:36 PM - Edit history (1)

Bradley Manning: A Hero, Not a Traitor
by Marjorie Cohn
Marjorie Cohn, a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and past President of the National Lawyers Guild, is the deputy secretary general for external communications of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, and the U.S. representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists.
December 25, 2011

Manning wrote: “If you had free reign over classified networks… and you saw incredible things, awful things… things that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC… what would you do? God knows what happens now. Hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms… I want people to see the truth… because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public.“

The U.S. government considers Manning one of America’s most dangerous traitors. Months ago, Obama spoke of Manning as if he had been proved guilty, saying, “he broke the law.” But Manning has not been tried, and is presumed innocent in the eyes of the law. If Manning had committed war crimes instead of exposing them, he would be a free man today.

Besides helping to end the Iraq war, the leaked cables helped spark the Arab Spring. When people in Tunisia read cables revealing corruption by the ruling family there, they took to the streets.

If Manning did what he is accused of doing, he should not be tried as a criminal. He should be hailed as a national hero, much like Daniel Ellsberg, whose release of the Pentagon Papers helped to expose the government’s lies and end the Vietnam War.

Read the full article at:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/12/25


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History Will Judge Bradley Manning And Laud Him For Telling The Truth
A former career intelligence officer and longtime critic of America's overseas debacles compares Bradley Manning to America's greatest patriots.
By Ray McGovern
Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
December 21, 2011

It’s also instructive to see how selective prosecutions work in Official Washington. Manning may face life imprisonment for exposing the slaughter of civilians and other serious crimes (as well as for revealing the absurd over-classification of U.S. government documents).

However, when President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney confess that they ordered waterboarding and other acts that have long been regarded as illegal torture, they and their subordinates are spared prosecution, presumably because to do otherwise would stir up a political mess.

Suddenly, clear violations of the law must be set aside as being outweighed by larger national considerations, i.e. political comity in Washington. But no such balancing act is available to spare Pvt. Manning possible life imprisonment for truth-telling, even when many experts believe much good has come from the disclosures, including inspiration for the Arab Spring’s ouster of dictators whose brutality and corruption were frankly described in the WikiLeaks cables.

Daniel Ellsberg has called Bradley Manning a hero, and that’s what he is. We need to find ways to tell the American people the full story. These days, they are not going to get the whole truth (or anything close to it) from the New York Times.

Read the full article at:

http://www.alternet.org/story/153539/history_will_judge_bradley_manning_and_laud_him_for_telling_the_truth/?page=entire


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In the Year of the Protester, Bradley Manning is the Great Dissenter
by Davin O'Dwyer
December 24, 2011

There are many lessons to be learned from the Manning case, but the most pertinent is the one that we are conditioned to most assiduously ignore, however instinctively we realize it to be true: secrecy tends to be corrosive to those who wield it, and unchecked secrecy, the sort of secrecy that Manning so bravely attempted to challenge, is always a sign that the corrosion itself is what’s being kept secret.

We might hope that a US president who convinced so many that he stood for change might appreciate someone who tried to engender some real change, but it’s unlikely that Manning’s principled bravery will be recognized and rewarded until after he has spent many years and maybe decades in prison.

Speaking to the press on Thursday, Ellsberg said, “Bradley Manning no more deserves to face charges of treason than I did. He no more deserves to be called a traitor than I do, because I am not.”

Manning’s current isolation emphasizes the bravest aspect of his protest: he did it on his own. He didn’t have a crowd wearing Guy Fawkes masks for support or an occupied square full of tents to call home. When the history of these unsettled times comes to be written, Manning’s lonely protest might well be seen as the most important of all.

Read the full article at:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2011/1224/1224309458306.html



Daniel Ellsberg