Chelsea Manning: I’m not a traitor – The Washington Post |

Chelsea Manning appeared on stage in the final interview of the four-day Nantucket Project conference on the island of Nantucket, Mass., on Sept. 17. (AP)

The question has doggedChelsea Manning ever since she walked out of prison four months ago nearlythree decadesshortof a35-year sentence, courtesyof a commutation from President Barack Obama in the last days of his administration.

Is she a traitor? Had the Army privatebetrayed her country in 2010 when she passed hundreds of thousands of classifieddocuments to WikiLeaks? Or had Manning, as many believe, demonstrated loyalty to the American publicby exposingits government institutions?

At least once,the question was put toManning herself.An ABC reporterasked itin June, in one of Mannings rare interviewssince walking free, butdidnt get a clear answer.

Often, an answer was supplied by another, such as President Trump, who called Manninga traitorin all-capital letters.

Manningwas asked the question again Sunday, this timepoint-blank on astage on the island of Nantucket, Mass.

And this time, sheansweredwith finality.

Are you an American traitor? asked the moderator, in the final interviewof the four-day Nantucket Project conference(the boldest and most thought-provoking ideas of our time).

No, Im not, Manningsaid. And I believe I did the best I could in my circumstances to make an ethical decision.

And when she said ethical, she hammeredher fist inher lap.

[Chelsea Manning on leaking information: I have a responsibility to the public]

Manning tried to kill herself twice during her seven years in a cell in Fort Leavenworth. She was reportedly forced to sleep naked.

Not everyone was sympathetic.

As an Army intelligence analyst in 2010, then named Bradley Manning, she perpetratedwhat The Washington Post once described as one of the most notorious leaks of classified documents in U.S. history.

A quarter-million State Department cables. Classified documents about military prisoners atGuantanamo Bay, Cuba. Recordingsof U.S. soldiers firing from a helicopter atsuspected insurgents in Baghdad(I think they just drove over a body. Ha ha!), leaving two journalists dead and revolting much of the American public.

Chelsea Manning has served a tough prison sentence, President Obama said seven years after her arrest as he wiped out the remainder of her sentence. She took responsibility for her crime.

She had, in a sense. But in Manningsfirst interview after going free, she told ABC News she felt a responsibility to the public.

Youre getting all this information, and its just death, destruction, mayhem, she said in June.And eventually, you just stop. I stopped seeing just statistics and information, and I started seeing people.

So many people call you a traitor. Many call you a hero, said the interviewer. Whois Chelsea Manning?

Im just me, she said. And for a while, that answer stood.

Vogue scored another interview in September a long piece that focused less on Mannings morality than on her fashion decisions (she came out as a transgender woman while in prison).

[Harvard dean rescinds Chelsea Mannings visiting fellow invitation, calling it a mistake]

And Harvard University has invited her to make a speech therein the future, although the schools relationship with the privatewas clouded this month when itrescinded a fellowship offer to Manning, bowing to pressure from upset staff and graduates.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo, for instance, canceled his own speech at the school,calling Manning an American traitor.

Pompeos comments mightbe why the Nantucket Project moderator, Eugene Jarecki, used exactly that term in on Sunday, when he and some of about 600 people in the audience questioned Manning, according to the Associated Press.

No,Manning said.She was not an American traitor.

Nor did she mind being snubbed by Harvard: I view that just as much of an honored distinction as the fellowship itself.

With a microphonetucked into her shirtcollar, sometimes sitting and sometimes rising to face the audience, Manning painted a dark picture of the country where she walks free.

Im walking out of prison, and I see literally a dystopiannovel unfolding before my eyes, she said. Thats how I feel when I walk in American streets today.

Butat one point,she also hinted at her version of brighterfuture.

There are things we as people can always do, Manningsaid. Whenever society and the institutionsare failing, we can always take our own individualactions against the institutionsof power.