Memo From Oslo: If Peace Is Prized, A Nobel For Bradley Manning

Theheadquarters of the Nobel Committee is in downtown Oslo on a street named after Henrik Ibsen, whose play An Enemy of the Peoplehas remained as current as dawn lightfallingon the Nobel building and then, hours later, ona Fort Meade courtroom whereBradley Mannings trialenters a new stage defense testimony in the sentencing phase.

Ibsens play tells ofmendacity and greed in high places: dangerous threats to public health. You might call the protagonist a whistleblower. Hes a physician who cant pretend that he hasnt seenevidence; herejects all the pleas and threats tostay quiet, to keep secret what the public has a right to know. He couldbe content to take an easy way, to let others suffer and die. But he refuses to just follow orders. He will save lives.There will be some dire consequences for him.

The respectable authorities know when theyve had enough. Thought crimescan betrivial but are apt to becomeintolerable if they lead to active transgressions. In the last act, our hero recounts: They insulted me and called me an enemy of the people. Ostracized and condemned, he offers final defiant words before the curtain comes down: I have made a great discovery. It is this, let me tell you that the strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.

Alone Bradley Manning will stand as a military judge proclaims a prison sentence.

As I write these words earlyMonday, sky is starting to lightenover Oslo. This afternoonIll carry several thousand pages of a petition filled with the names of more than 100,000 signers, along withindividual comments from tens of thousands of them to an appointment with the Research Director of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Thepetitionurges that Bradley Manning be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.Like so many other people, the signers sharethe belief of Nobel Peace laureate Mairead Corrigan-Maguire who wrote this summer: I can think of no one more deserving.

Opening heart and mind to moral responsibility seeing an opportunity to provide the crucial fuel ofinformation for democracy and compassion Bradley Manning lifted a shroud and illuminated terribleactions of the U.S.s warfare state.He chose courage on behalf of humanity. He refused to just follow orders.

If theres one thing to learn from the last ten years, its that government secrecy and lies come at a very high price in blood and money, Bradley Manning biographer Chase Madar wrote. And though information is powerless on its own, it is still a necessary precondition for any democratic state to function.

Bradley Manning recognized that necessary precondition. He took profound action to nurture its possibilities on behalf of democracy and peace.

No doubta Nobel Peace Prize for Bradley Manning is a very long longshot. After all, four years ago, the Nobel Committee gave that award to President Obama,while he was escalating the war in Afghanistan, and since thenObamas dedication to perpetual war has become ever more clear.

Now, the Nobel Committee and its Peace Prize are in dire need of rehabilitation. Intruth, the Nobel Peace Prize needs Bradley Manning much more than the other way around.

No one can doubt thesincere dedication of Bradley Manning to human rights and peace. Buton Henrik Ibsen Street in Oslo, the office of the Nobel Committee is under a war cloud of its own making.

Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His books include War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death and Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with Americas Warfare State.

This article originally was published at Common Dreams.

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Memo From Oslo: If Peace Is Prized, A Nobel For Bradley Manning