Yesterday, Friday, December 16th, at Fort Meade, twenty-three year old United States Army Private, Bradley E. Manning, stood for an Article 32 hearing. This hearing was the first legal proceeding Manning has faced in the eighteen months since his arrest, in May 2010. Manning is being accused of, ... aiding the enemy; wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the internet knowing that it is accessible to the enemy; theft of public property or records; transmitting defense information; fraud and related activity in connection with computers; and for violating Army Regulations 25-2 Information Assurance and 380-5 Department of the Army Information Security Program. (The U.S. Army Military District of Washington, Media Advisory)

In 2009, Manning was stationed near Baghdad as a Specialist. There he had enormous access to classified government intelligence. Manning is alleged to have contacted Wikileaks, the online not-for-profit whistleblower organization that has become infamous via publishing millions of secret government leaked informations, in November 2009. It is presumed that Manning began leaking private cables shortly thereafter. In May 2010, Manning was arrested when, Adrian Lamo, a well-known computer hacker, informed the FBI that Manning had confided, in online conversations, that he had downloaded government material and passed it to WikiLeaks. Purported leaked material includes, among other things, 250,000 government cables and the video 'Collateral Murder'. This video shows Baghdad 2007 airstrikes that explicate: the casual radio chatter between the US soliders, the ground units involved, the murders of unarmed citizens, and the executions of war correspondents carrying cameras mistaken for weapons.

Since July 2010, Manning has been held in maximum custody, in the Marine Corps Brig, in Quantico,Virginia. Inside sources state that Manning has been held in solitary confinement, for extensive periods, and has been routinely exposed to conditions tatamount to torture.

Bradley Manning's case has ignited passionate controversy, across multiple fronts. Anti-war and free speech activists herald Manning as a hero - for releasing documents, that, the activists say, keep the government accountable for their acts. Others claim that Manning is a traitor and had aided the enemy. Daniel Ellsberg, arguably the country's most famous whistleblower, who in 1971, as a military analyst, released highly classified Pentagon documents that detailed the US's involvement in Vietnam, has stated that, The charges against Bradley Manning are an indictment of our governments obsession with secrecy. Manning is accused of revealing illegal activities by our government and its corporate partners that must be brought to the attention of the American people. The Obama administration lacks the courage to confront the crimes and injustices that now stand exposed... If Bradley Manning did what hes accused of, then hes a hero of mine and I think he did a great service to this country.

Beyond the immediate the ethical debates surrounding information access and a democractic government's necessary accountability, further controversy has mounted on both: the treatment of Manning while serving in the military and since his treatment post-arrest. Numerous accounts detail that he was excessively bullied while serving in the military. Accounts state that this bullying stemmed from his effiminate nature and, furthermore, for being openly gay pre-enlistment. It is unclear, at this time, if the defense will argue that Manning was mentally unfit to serve. Evidence bears multiple sources detailing their belief that Manning wasn't emotionally/mentally stable. At one point, it appears that Manning was set for discharge, due to possible instability, but was then recycled back into the forces. Manning was also demoted, in May 2010, from Specialist to Private First Class after punching an officer. Several accounts cite his instability was due to his growing dissatisfaction with the military, deep questions on governmental motives, and the excessive bullying he faced due to his gender performance and sexual orientation. As Manning has received little-to-no mental attention throughout these periods, the reality is unclear.

Deep contention has also broken out over the potentially torturous conditions that Manning is alleged to be suffering while in confinement, the 22 charges he faces, and the potential for Manning to face capital punishment. Recently, over 50 members of European Parliament wrote a signed letter protesting this treatment, stated inordinate charges, and the fact that Manning had yet to face trial after well-over a year in confinement.

These hearings are equivalent to a grand jury hearing. They could last up-to five days. In this process, a military judge will determine if there is sufficient evidence to court-martial. Manning's defense has attempted to call almost 50 witnesses, including President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, to the pre-trial hearing. The government has opposed all defense witnesses but the ten they were already intending to call. The defense declares that these witness denials disallows for a fair hearing.

At this time, the US government contends that they do not wish to seek the death penalty. If convicted, Manning faces life in prison.

At yesterday's proceedings Manning's lawyers requested for Lt. Col. Paul Almanza, the presiding officer, to be removed from the hearings, due to alleged bias. The Army appeals court rejected their request late Friday.

Manning's hearing resumes today, December 17th, 2011. Today is also the soldier's 24th birthday.

Read the original here:
Accused Whistleblower Bradley Manning Begins Court ...

Bradley Manning, the United States Army Intelligence officer charged with leaking confidential data to online whistleblower Wikileaks, called for all charges against him to be dismissed this week, as his court martial trial in Fort Meade, Maryland, resumed.

Mr. Manning, who has alleged that he was held under harsh conditions of confinement since his arrest in May 2010, was slapped with 22 charges in March 2011, including aiding the enemy, punishable by death.

At the time prosecutors in the case had argued that Mr. Mannings actions in this regard were prejudicial to good order and discipline in the armed forces and were of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.

His attorney, David Coombs, however suggested this week via court filings that the government prosecutors had mishandled the case, leading to a slew of delayed proceedings and refusals to hand over vital documentation relating to the discovery process in the case.

According to Mr. Coombs filing the Army Court of Criminal Appeals recently said, Ignorance or misunderstanding of basic, longstanding ... fundamental, constitutionally-based discovery and disclosure rules by counsel undermines the adversarial process and is inexcusable in the military justice system.

Going by legal precedents, In this case, the Government has wholly misunderstood those longstanding, fundamental and constitutionally-based rules, resulting in irreparable prejudice to PFC Manning, Mr. Coombs added.

In a sharply-worded attack on the U.S. prosecutors failure to answer his questions relating to the discovery process and disclosure of evidence Mr. Coombs said, The Governments... lack of an answer to [these questions] speaks volumes and can be construed as nothing short of an admission that the government has full knowledge that it committed very serious discovery violations.

Mr. Mannings team had challenged the very basis of the ongoing trial earlier as well. On the first day of the pre-trial hearing Mr. Coombs asked Investigating Officer Colonel Paul Almanza to recuse himself on the grounds that the latter was a Department of Justice prosecutor in the case against Wikileaks for publishing a vast trove of U.S. State Department cables.

Before his move to a Kansas prison prior to the trial, Mr. Manning was held in a military brig at Quantico, Virginia, allegedly in solitary confinement and subject to harsh conditions including being forced to strip naked every night and subjected to unlawful pre-trial punishment.

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Manning calls for dismissal of charges against him - The Hindu

Chelsea Manning formerly known as Bradley Manning

A US District Judge ordered Chelsea (Bradley) Manning to be released from prison a day after he was hospitalized for attempting to commit suicide, Axios reported.

Manning, a former US Army Intelligence analyst who gave classified information to WikiLeaks in 2010 was ordered back to jail last May for defying a grand jury subpoena.

Manning was jailed in early March of 2019 for refusing to testify to a secret grand jury about WikiLeaks and was released after spending 62 days behind bars.

A federal judge held Manning in contempt last May and US Marshals took him back into custody for the second time for refusing to testify before a secret grand jury.

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Manning said he was prepared to return to jail indefinitely rather than testify during a presser last year before the trial.

No matter what happens today, Im not going to comply with this grand jury, Manning said last year.

Manning received a subpoena last January to testify before a federal grand jury in a case in the Eastern District of Virginia this is the same district that the government accidentally revealed there was a sealed indictment against Julian Assange.

U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton, a Reagan appointee, ordered Manning to jail after he refused to testify.

In 2010, Private First Class Bradley Manning (who later transitioned to Chelsea) stole State Department documents, many of them secret international embassy reports. Manning smuggled the security documents out on a CD labeled Lady Gaga, and handed them to WikiLeaks WikiLeaks subsequently took the sensitive cables and made them public.

In 2013, Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison for giving classified materials to WikiLeaks.

In April 2014 a Kansas judge allowed Bradley Manning to change his name to Chelsea.

In January of 2017, Obama commuted Mannings sentence from 35 years to 7 years Manning was released from prison in May of 2017.

According to reports, Manning tried to commit suicide this week by hanging himself with a bed sheet in his prison cell.

Axios reported that since Mannings testimony is no longer needed the judge said he should be released from custody.

More here:
NEW: Judge Orders Chelsea (Bradley) Manning to be Released ...

The military trial ofBradley Manningis 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 governments unverified assertion that he harmed national security.

Lead defense attorneyDavid E. Coombssaid during pretrial proceedings that the judges 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 iswhat has happened.

Manning is also barred from presenting to the court his motives forgiving the websiteWikiLeaks 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. Ouremail 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 prosecutedunder the Espionage Act. Whistle-blowers have no privacy and no legal protection.

This is why Edward Snowdena 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 Councils top-secret program to collect Americans cellphone metadata, e-mail and other personal datahas 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 Mannings youth and sincerity. Coombs is permitted by Lind to present only circumstantial evidence concerning Mannings 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. Mannings most impassioned pleas for freedom of information, especially regarding email exchanges with the confidential government informantAdrian 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 theCollateral Murder videoand 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 orderscharges 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 didnt 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 Finkels account and he talked about this incident thats depicted in the video, he saw that David Finkels 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 wasnt selecting information because it was wanted by WikiLeaks, Coombs concluded. He wasnt 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 professorMarjorie Cohnhas 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 nonprofitFreedom 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 OBrien.

See the rest here:
The Judicial Lynching of Bradley Manning - Global ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/24/bradley-manning-lawyer-case-mishandled

Bradley Manning is accused of divulging secrets via WikiLeaks. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

Bradley Manning, the US soldier accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of secret state documents to WikiLeaks, will face his military detractors again this morning at the start of up to three more days of procedural hearings ahead of a full court martial.

Manning's lawyer, David Coombs, has filed several defence motions with the military court in Fort Meade, Maryland, that call for all 22 charges against his client to be dismissed on grounds that the prosecution has mishandled the case. The lawyer will argue that the proceedings have been beset by delays and by refusal to hand over key documents during the discovery process, which he will say is a violation of the military rule book for court martials.

The hearing in Fort Meade is the third time Manning has been seen in public since his arrest on 25 May 2010 at the Forward Operating Base Hammer outside Baghdad. He was working as an intelligence analyst there, and has been charged with downloading and transmitting to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks a huge trove of US state secrets including confidential cables from embassies around the world.

In his filings, Coombs is scathing about the way the military authorities have gone about the pre-trial preparations. He talks about what he calls the "government's ritual incantations" and says that it has taken two years since the case began for the defence to be handed just 12 pages of discovery materials.

Excerpt from:
Bradley Manning lawyer says case 'mishandled' as hearings ...

In this exclusive interview, Bradley Manning's father tells FRONTLINE about his son's upbringing in small-town Oklahoma, Bradley's love of computers, the explosive altercation with his son that led to police being called to the family's home and why he convinced his son to join the Army. This transcript is drawn from two interviews, conducted on Feb. 28 and March 7, 2011.

Why have you decided, at this point, to speak?

The only reason I decided to come forward at this time is because there's so much misinformation out there about Bradley's early life, his later years as he progressed, and the basis of why he took the path of joining the Army. ... I wanted to straighten all that out. There's been so many things that have been misrepresented. Flat-out incorrect information has been put out there by people that I don't even know.

People need to understand that he's a young man that had a happy life growing up.

And I'm only speaking for myself. I'm not speaking for any other member of the family. I am not speaking for Bradley. These are my words, my truths. If I know something that's incorrect, I'll correct it. If I don't know something, I'll say, "I don't know that." And if there's some information that you don't have and I think is pertinent to Bradley's story, I'll supply that for you.

And I want to do this with public broadcasting because it's a media that I, all the time, listen to. I'm a supporter of PBS. I listen to Morning Edition and the afternoon show, All Things Considered, and have for many, many years.

To NPR?

Yep. NPR, National Public Radio. So I thought it would be a better platform to go forward on a media that I trust and that I've listened to for many years. ...

My son, unfortunately, he's in a brig. He's been accused of something, but hasn't been incriminated or judged in a court of law or anything. I have no power over that. But, you know, I have [to talk about] my son's reputation, because his childhood is being reflected, you know, that he had a negative childhood when he had a lovely childhood.

Crescent, [Okla.,] is just a lovely town to grow up in. The school was K-12, so if anything occurred at school or anything, I mean, the entire town knew. ... All the people were lovely. Everybody at school knew everybody. So if you look at it from that point of view, you can see if anything negative had been going on in his life, it would have been apparent to everyone. ...

People need to understand that he's a young man that had a happy life growing up. ...

He would create his own websites. His first website I think he did when he was, like, 10 years old, where I had to go out and actually buy an advanced HTML manual. ... The whole website was based on the movie Goldeneye.

The James Bond film?

Right. And he had links in the HTML where he would link to the lyrics or to the movie and things like that. It was kind of a neat little place to go. ...

He was really into computers?

Oh, yes. You could definitely say that was the focal point of his life.

He was smart about computers?

Very smart, and proactive. ... He taught himself Word and taught himself PowerPoint. And he was avid at the yearly science fairs where he would do a presentation. He was very skilled there. He taught himself PowerPoint to a very high level where he was able to develop all of his material for his presentation in PowerPoint. So when we put together his display, even just looking at it from a distance, it looked so professional. He won, I think three years running, grand prize. This is a K-12 project. And I think the fourth year, he basically qualified to win, but they said, you know, "We can't keep giving you this award." ...

He spent a lot of time on the computer. Is that correct?

If he did anything, that's all he did.

That's all he did?

Yeah. He never went outside there.

He didn't like to go outside?

No.

No sports?

Nope. I guess at some point, in Crescent, while he was still there, he was on their basketball team. I have a nice picture of him in his uniform.

What kind of friends did he have?

Very few friends. I think that he had two close friends that he kept in contact with and would visit them after he came back. I don't recall their names. But he never, to my knowledge, as long as I lived with him, it was never anybody came by the house. There wasn't any sleepover or anything else like that. So he kind of kept to himself, kind of.

He was a happy kid. He was happy with the things he had in his life. As long as anything didn't disrupt his activities, he was fine. As I said, he was basically on autopilot. You didn't have any chores; you didn't have anything else like that. There wasn't anything laid out, like, "Well, Bradley, you need to do this, or you need to do that." He never had anything like that.

What was his temperament like?

He was very calm, very quiet. ...

What kind of things did you like to do together?

Basically just talk about the computer things. When you do IT work all the time -- you know, it's like the old saying: Driving down the street, you know which house is where the painter lives. Well, it's the one that needs to be painted -- you know, so the last thing you want to do when you get home is to do something you've been doing all day. But most of the time he enjoyed figuring stuff out himself.

I had seen a statement on the Internet that I was strict or whatever. ... We never had to tell him to get up. I never had to tell Bradley to go to bed. You know, same with his older sister. They just were very well-behaved kids. And I mean, it was a very happy household.

You say it was a happy household, but you did go through some tough times.

At the very end. ...

You worked for the Navy?

Worked for the Navy, but in the entire time I was in the Navy, I never physically saw a naval ship. Our base was just off of a Royal Air Force base down there. It was called Brawdy Wales, was the name of the Royal Air Force base. ...

Can you describe what you were doing?

No.

In general terms?

No. Not at all.

You were doing classified work?

I can say I was an ocean systems technician, second class. But after second class, and the work I did was classified. It was covert. That's all I can say about it.

So Bradley is born in '87?

[Yes.] ... Bradley was born, and before he was 1 is when we relocated to Phoenix. We had a great time then. Every day after work, I would take him out, and we had a little train, and I'd kind of push-pull him on this little train. We'd go around the block every day. ...

It's reported in the press -- and I'm here to give you every opportunity to correct what's inaccurate -- that it was a sudden breakup. Is that a fair statement? ...

... My ex-wife and I started out on a level plane. ... I was progressively, throughout the military, training all the time, you know, on electronics and other things I needed to learn for my job. But my wife, you know, basically always stayed stagnant as far as learning more things.

And when I got out and I worked full-time and went to college full-time, ... I was always on the learning. And my career advanced from a programmer, senior programmer, to a project leader and then as a manager. And again, you know, she stayed at the same point. ...

In 1994, I basically took a project where ... I'd be in Paris for three weeks and back in the U.S. about five to six days a month.

[My ex-wife] never learned how to drive. She lived four miles outside of town, so I basically had to stock her up with food and supplies and stuff for the three-week period that I'd be gone. And that was kind of a strain for her, because she was basically stranded. Our neighbors weren't real close to us. ...

Did Bradley complain about you being absent a lot? How did it affect your relationship with him?

When I would come back after three weeks, you know, sometimes he wouldn't even recognize me. It was kind of like, reacquaint myself. So that was a little bit rough on him. But, I mean, after a couple hours, it was, "Dad's home," and things were OK. ...

The straw that broke the camel's back was when the opportunity came up to go to Germany for a year. And I really looked forward to the traveling and the opportunity, both for myself and for my career. ... I could go back on, you know, the three-week, one-week, three-week, one-week. And she basically said, "No, there's no way we're going to go back in that mode." She said: "I can't handle that. This is too much load."

And [so] there was just kind of a best friend-type relationship at that time. I guess it was kind of selfish, but I said, "Well, you know, this opportunity's being put in front of me," and I took it. And that basically ended that relationship. ...

And what effect did that have on Bradley, do you think?

I think that the biggest effect on Bradley was that he had -- and again, you know, to be fair, I never prepared my ex-wife for life on her own. She never wrote a check, never handled any bills, never did anything but the checking account.

Didn't drive a car?

Didn't drive a car or anything. So when I went to Germany and kind of moved out of Bradley's life and out of her circle, a lot of the things that I had taken care of, all of a sudden, she had to rely on Bradley. So he had to kind of grow up kind of quick, you know, to handle things, basically, for me.

And he was a young kid?

Yeah. He was about 12, yeah. ...

What kind of contact did you have during that period that [Bradley was living in Wales]?

The only time I had contact is if they thought that alimony check or child support check was late, and then Bradley would call me. ...

So when he comes back, describe what happens. He decides -- he calls you up and says, "I'm going to come back and live with you"?

Basically, yes. He connected with me and said that he'd reached the decision that he wanted to come back and live in the U.S., and pretty much could we make the arrangements. And that was fine. We had a room for him set up and everything.

But that must have been a surprise for you?

It was very much a surprise. ...

How does it go?

It went fine. He didn't drive at that point. I got him enrolled at a driving school that was a mile or so away. ...

Besides taking driving tests, what was he doing?

He had found this job at Zoto, Zoto.com. Kord Campbell I believe was the owner's name. Bradley still wasn't driving at that point. I drove him down for the interview. Bradley came out, and Kord actually came out with him and came down to my car, where I was sitting.

This is right after his job interview?

Right. He was leaving the job interview, and he said, "You know, Mr. Manning, I just want to tell you, you have an extremely intelligent son," and basically, "I want to hire him on the spot. He can start whenever he possibly can." And then we made some arrangements until he got a driver's license on how we would get him to and from work. And this is, you know, very, very early on him being back in the U.S.

On my way to work, I would go down to a Starbucks, drop him off. And Kord would come from Edmond, go to that Starbucks, pick up coffee, pick up Bradley, go into the office. And then at the end of the day, he would bring Bradley back to that Starbucks, and I would pick him up and take him back to the house. So we did kind of an exchange.

And then once Bradley got his driver's license, I gave him the use of my Nissan pickup, 100 percent for his use. So therefore he was able to drive to and from work.

This is a period where there's been a lot of reporting on what was going on between you and Bradley in the household and [on] Bradley's life, his personal life. Give me your take on all of this.

When he came back, it was like a different person had come back, because his mother had put him in the position that he basically ran the household. And I hear this from her sisters that I've talked to. So it's basically, you know, that sometimes he'd be upstairs. If he wanted something, he'd just beat on the floor and yell down to his mother for a cup of tea or something, and she'd basically bring it up to him.

So he was king of the castle?

He was king of the castle. He handled all the finances and everything else like that, so when he came back to the U.S., he had a certain amount of money that she had given him to get himself established. And he didn't have to pay rent. I had supplied him with a vehicle and got him through the driving class and helped him [with] transportation to and from work.

But he had this total irresponsibility for finances. ... That was causing some real strife, because we were basically bailing him out right and left.

So that caused some tension?

It caused a lot of tension. We picked him up for everything he needed in his life, including car insurance, everything else like that, AAA coverage. All the little sundry things that come along with life, my wife and I are now picking up.

And when he'd have these overdrafts -- I mean, that caused a lot of problems, I'm telling you. You'd go to talk with him, and then he had total disregard for it. [You] just couldn't get through to him that sooner or later, the well was going to run dry.

Were there any other issues?

The other issue -- for several reasons that are personal, we had very strict rules at the house about food and drink. And that is, we had a dining area in the kitchen, and if you wanted to drink or eat something, that's where you went. I followed the rules. Everybody else in the household followed the rules.

And you go back to where Bradley's room [is], and you'd find eight or nine Dr. Pepper cans shoved under the bed. So he was blatantly disregarding that. And you tried to talk to him about it, and it's like talking to a brick wall.

And unfortunately, my current wife's father died of emphysema, so she had a real issue with smoking. And I know for a fact that he had taken to sneaking outside and smoking cigarettes in the garage. And that caused some conflict. ...

And what was he doing, most of the time, when he was in the house?

He would either be at work or be in his bedroom with the door shut.

And what was he doing with the door shut?

I don't know. The door was shut.

But he was on the computer most of the time?

Yeah. A bit, yeah, computer.

Did he have friends?

He occasionally had a friend come by that he would meet somewhere.

At what point does he tell you about his homosexuality? How does that go down?

Not long after he came back from the U.K. I can remember the conversation like we're just sitting here having it today. And he said, "You know, Dad, I just want to let you know, I'm gay." And I said, "Well, you know, I mean, that's a life choice." I said: "I don't have a problem with that. You know, it's not going to affect any relationship that you have with me or anything. And, you know, if that's your choice and what's going to make you happy, then we're fine." ...

It was just supportive. I said: "That's your decision. You know, I don't -- it's fine." ...

So it surprised you when he told you?

Well, yes. It definitely surprised -- I would say I was surprised. But just from a fact of someone, you know, throwing a bucket of water over your head, it's like: "Oh, OK. Well, I didn't know that." (Laughs.) You know, it's not something that you are involved enough where you would start seeing or having suspicions of. He had been at the household long enough that had he, you know, distributed [sic] any traits, I would have had suspicion. But there wasn't. This was just a flat-out statement that "You should know." ...

Read the original here:
Interview - Brian Manning | WikiSecrets | FRONTLINE | PBS

Doctors at UIHC created a program to help track and monitor symptoms of patients recovering from COVID-19 at home.

Tate Hildyard

University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics are seen on Tuesday, June 23, 2020.

Cole Krutzfeild, News Reporter June 29, 2020

A team of doctors at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics have created a program to monitor people with COVID-19 from the comfort and safety of the patients homes.

The UI Health Cares Home Treatment Team is co-run by Clinical Assistant Professors of Internal Medicine Andrew Bryant and Bradley Manning.

We created the Home Treatment Program to allow for us to monitor, treat, and safely remain in contact with COVID-19 patients who were not able to come and be treated at the hospital, Bryant said.

He said the program has proven successful with a 99.7 percent recovery rate and one death being reported.

While similar programs have been created in certain major cities and some major universities, the University of Iowa still has one of the best and most comprehensive home treatment programs for COVID-19 patients, Bryant said.

Spokesperson for UI Health Care Jennifer Brown said in an email to The Daily Iowan that the program monitored more than 525 patients in May.

More than 320 patients recovered and have been discharged from home monitoring, and only 9 percent of patients being monitored through the program have been admitted for inpatient care, Brown said.

RELATED: Johnson County hospitals on high alert for potential uptick in COVID-19 cases

Bryant said the program is able to help patients remotely by checking on them through phone calls and giving them equipment to conduct certain tests themselves and report their results back to a doctor.

All COVID-19 patients who are interested in the program are enrolled, Brown said in the email, including patients who have been discharged from the hospital and those who tested positive as outpatients.

Brown said patients receive a home monitoring kit with a blood pressure cuff and pulse oximeter, and staff from the Home Treatment Team call patients every 24 to 72 hours for an average of 15 days.

Patients often worsen around day 10, so this extended monitoring period enables providers to better help patients manage their recovery or instruct them to go to the hospital for necessary care, she said.

Patrick Hartley, a clinical professor of internal medicine at the UI, utilized the program when he and another member of his household tested positive for COVID-19.

Within four hours of me having reported that I had tested positive for the novel coronavirus, me and another member of my family who had tested positive a few days earlier were contacted by the Home Treatment Program and we were very soon sent devices to check our blood pressure, and our oxygen levels, and we were advised to drink plenty of fluids, Hartley said.

Bryant said the Home Treatment Team is prepared for the return of students, faculty, and staff to campus in the fall.

We are prepared for any enlargement in patient size we will face in the fall and we will monitor any student or member of the faculty who cannot be placed in the hospital, he said.

Excerpt from:
University of Iowa doctors monitor and help COVID-19 patients remotely - UI The Daily Iowan

For decades they covered up the U.S. massacre of civilians at No Gun Ri and elsewhere. This is why we never learn our lessons.

June 25th was the 70th anniversary of the start of the Korean War. Hundreds of thousands of American soldiers fought bravely in that war, and almost 37,000 were killed. But the media is ignoring perhaps the wars most important lesson: the U.S. government has almost unlimited sway to hide its own war crimes.

During the Korean War, Americans were deluged with official pronouncements about how the U.S. military was taking all possible steps to protect innocent civilians. Because the evils of communism were self-evident, few questions arose about how the U.S. was thwarting Red aggression. When a U.S. Senate subcommittee appointed in 1953 by Sen. Joseph McCarthy investigated Korean War atrocities, the committee explicitly declared that, war crimes were defined as those acts committed by enemy nations.

In 1999, forty-six years after the cease fire in Korea, the Associated Press exposed a 1950 massacre of Korean refugees at No Gun Ri. U.S. troops drove Koreans out of their village and forced them to remain on a railroad embankment. Beginning on July 25, 1950, the refugees were strafed by U.S. planes and machine guns over the following three days. Hundreds of people, mostly women and children, were killed. The 1999 AP story was widely denounced by American politicians and some media outlets as a slander on American troops.

The Pentagon promised an exhaustive investigation. In January 2001, the Pentagon released a 300-page report purportedly proving that the No Gun Ri killings were merely an unfortunate tragedy caused by trigger-happy soldiers frightened by approaching refugees.

President Bill Clinton announced his regret that Korean civilians lost their lives at No Gun Ri. In a January 2001 interview, Clinton was asked why he used regret instead of apology. He declared, I believe that the people who looked into it could not conclude that there was a deliberate act, decided at a high enough level in the military hierarchy, to acknowledge that, in effect, the government had participated in something that was terrible. Clinton specified that there was no evidence of wrongdoing high enough in the chain of command in the Army to say that, in effect, the government was responsible.

In 2005, Sahr Conway-Lanz, a Harvard University doctoral student, discovered a letter in the National Archives from the U.S. ambassador to Korea, John Muccio, sentto Assistant Secretary of State Dean Rusk on the day the No Gun Ri massacre commenced. Muccio summarized a new policy from a meeting between U.S. military and South Korean officials: If refugees do appear from north of U.S. lines they will receive warning shots, and if they then persist in advancing they will be shot. The new policy was radioed to Army units around Korea on the morning the No Gun Ri massacre began. The U.S. military feared that North Korean troops might be hiding amidst the refugees. The Pentagon initially claimed that its investigators never saw Muccios letter but it was in the specific research file used for its report.

Conway-Lanzs 2006 book Collateral Damage quoted an official U.S. Navy history of the first six months of the Korean War stating that the policy of strafing civilians was wholly defensible. An official Army history noted: Eventually, it was decided to shoot anyone who moved at night. A report for the aircraft carrier USS Valley Forge justified attacking civilians because the Army insisted that groups of more than eight to ten people were to be considered troops, and were to be attacked.

In 2007, the Army recited its original denial: No policy purporting to authorize soldiers to shoot refugees was ever promulgated to soldiers in the field. But the Associated Press exposed more dirt from the U.S. archives: More than a dozen documentsin which high-ranking U.S. officers tell troops that refugees are fair game, for example, and order them to shoot all refugees coming across riverwere found by the AP in the investigators own archived files after the 2001 inquiry. None of those documents was disclosed in the Armys 300-page public report.

A former Air Force Pilot told investigators that his plane and three others strafed refugees at the same time of the No Gun Ri massacre; the official report claimed all pilots interviewed knew nothing about such orders. Evidence also surfaced of other massacres like No Gun Ri. On September 1, 1950, the destroyer USS DeHaven, at the Armys insistence, fired on a seaside refugee encampment at Pohang, South Korea. Survivors say 100 to 200 people were killed.

Slaughtering civilians en masse became routine procedure after the Chinese Army intervened in the Korean war in late 1950. U.S. Commander Gen. Douglas MacArthur spoke of turning North Korean-held territory into a desert. The U.S. military eventually expanded its definition of a military target to any structure that could shelter enemy troops or supplies. In a scoring method that foreshadowed the Vietnam war body counts, Air Force press releases touted the square footage of enemy-held buildings that it flattened. General Curtis LeMay summarized the achievements: We burned down every town in North Korea and some in South Korea, too. A million civilians may have been killed during the war, and a South Korean government Truth and Reconciliation Commission uncovered many previously unreported atrocities.

The Pentagon strategy on Korean War atrocities succeeded because it left truth to the historians, not the policymakers. The facts about No Gun Ri finally slipped outten presidencies later. Even more damaging, the Rules of Engagement for killing Korean civilians were covered up until after four more U.S. wars. If U.S. policy for slaying Korean refugees had been exposed during that war, it might have curtailed similar killings in Vietnam (many of which were not revealed until decades after the war).

Former congressman and decorated Korean War veteran Pete McCloskey warned, The government will always lie about embarrassing matters. The same shenanigans permeate other U.S. wars. The secrecy and deceit surrounding U.S. military interventions has had catastrophic consequences in this century. The Bush administration exploited the 9/11 attacks to justify attacking Iraq in 2003, and it was not until 2016 that the U.S. government revealed documents exposing the Saudi governments role in financing the hijackers (15 of 19 were Saudi citizens). The Pentagon covered up the vast majority of U.S. killings of Iraqi civilians until Bradley Manning and Wikileaks exposed them in 2010. There is likely reams of evidence of duplicity and intentional slaughter of civilians in U.S. government files on its endlessly confused and contradictory Syrian intervention.

When politicians or generals appear itching to pull the U.S. into another foreign war, remember that truth is routinely the first casualty. The blood of civilian victims of U.S. wars is the political version of disappearing ink. But the kinfolk and neighbors of those victims could pursue vengeance regardless of whether cover-ups con the American people.

James Bovard is the author ofLost Rights,Attention Deficit Democracy, andPublic Policy Hooligan. He is also aUSA Todaycolumnist. Follow him on Twitter@JimBovard.

Originally posted here:
The Korean War Atrocities No One Wants to Talk About - The American Conservative

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange secretly fathered two children with one of his lawyers while he evaded espionage charges inside Londons Ecuadoran embassy, Assanges alleged partner claims in a video posted Saturday by WikiLeaks and the Daily Mail.

The couple conceived 2-year-old Gabriel and 1-year-old Max as Assange was wanted in the United States for leaking classified intelligence materials and in Sweden for rape allegations, the Daily Mail reported. The British news group says attorney Stella Morris revealed the relationship because she wants 48-year-old Assange released from the London prison where he landed after the Ecuadoran Embassy kicked him out last April.

Morris, a Swedish national living in Britain, says she is worried about Assanges health as the coronavirus pandemic spreads in prison populations, according to the Daily Mail.

I feel like Julians life might be coming to an end, a woman identifying herself as Morris says in the video.

The Daily Mail writes that it is understood that Morris and Assange were able to hide their relationship and children from the authorities who granted Assange shelter, even as the fugitive faced intense surveillance. The Ecuadoran Embassy did not immediately respond to The Washington Posts inquiries Saturday, nor did WikiLeaks or a lawyer for Assange.

Morris says in the video that she fell in love with Assange after meeting him in 2011 and joining his international legal team, which led her to spend almost every single day in the embassy.

This is a person that I knew well by then, Morris said. A person I know better than most in this world.

In the video released Saturday, she flips through photos of the children, a cat beside her, remarking at one point that the older boy resembles Assange: Very Julian.

The children, both British citizens, have visited their father in Belmarsh Prison in London, according to the Daily Mail, which says the dramatic revelations of a clandestine relationship surfaced last week in court documents reviewed by the news organization. The Daily Mail also claims that Assange watched his childrens births over video and was able to secretly meet Gabriel in the embassy.

Morris states on video that she suspected surveillance targeting her children when a guard told her someone was trying to steal one sons DNA. The Daily Mail said Morris and Assange think American intelligence was behind the attempt. Assange has argued he is being unfairly prosecuted as a whistleblower.

I realized that I couldnt really protect my family, Morris says. I understood that the powers that were against Julian were ruthless and had no bounds to it.

Assange was immediately arrested on a hacking charge after Ecuador ended his asylum last year, accusing their yearslong guest of rule-breaking and discourteous and aggressive behavior.

U.S. prosecutors confirmed in 2018 that they had secretly charged him with conspiring with an Army intelligence analyst to illegally obtain secret military and diplomatic documents, which Assanges group published online. He is accused of helping Chelsea Manning, the former soldier then known as Bradley Manning, try to crack a government password, perhaps unsuccessfully.

The Washington Posts William Booth, James McAuley, Ellen Nakashima and Matt Zapotosky contributed to this report.

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Julian Assange fathered two children while hiding in Ecuadoran Embassy, alleged partner claims in video - Seattle Times

IOWA CITY While the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics has ramped up its campus preparation for any potential surge in COVID-19 patients requiring hospitalization, most patients dont, prompting the facility to roll out a virtual hospital for those recovering at home.

About 80 percent of COVID-19 patients dont need to be hospitalized, and the new initiative provides them with direct daily care and support from a team of medical specialists.

Being diagnosed with COVID-19 is a pretty scary thing, but being able to navigate it with the help of a doctor or a nurse really gives our patients the support they need, Bradley Manning, clinical assistant professor of internal medicine and a hospitalist with UI Health Care, said in a statement.

He noted those patients are in self-quarantine, making their recovery particularly isolating and daunting even if thats the best place for them to be for their own safety and the safety of the general public and health care professionals.

But a Home Treatment Team provides support from nurses, physicians, pharmacists and other staff who use telemedicine to monitor and care for patients as they recover.

Its like the doctor is (visiting) you while you are in the comfort of your own home, Manning said.

A monitoring kit also is delivered to patients who are recovering at home. It contains a blood pressure cuff and pulse oximeter, which measures a patients blood oxygen level and heart rate.

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The kit also includes instructions for self-isolation and symptoms patients should be watching for. The patients then log their vital signs including temperature, blood pressure and oxygen levels and discuss any issues theyre managing with a health care provider via a daily telephone check-in.

The system, according to UI Health Care, allows its providers to monitor patient progress in real time to prevent disease complications and also gives them the ability to intervene quickly if a patient starts to worsen.

A patients family members also can ask questions or voice concerns during the daily calls.

These daily contacts with COVID-19 patients has afforded UI Health Care workers valuable insights and information about how the disease affects people including that a large number of those tracked by UIHC have experienced an unpleasant taste and fever.

Those, for some patients, are the only symptoms they experience in the early phases of the illness making it hard for patients to eat enough or drink enough, leading to dehydration. The daily reports of patient blood pressure, heart rate, and urine volume for example helps providers track hydration in real time and intervene.

Based on what we have seen in our patients, staying properly hydrated in the first few days of the illness really seems to be important to a patients ability to fight the disease and lower the risk of hospitalization, Manning said. The altered sense of taste is a really dramatic symptom and does make it very unpleasant to eat or drink. So, we really emphasize to patients the importance of staying hydrated.

To date, UIHC which administrators say is one of only a few hospitals using this approach to COVID-19 patient care has served 76 patients through its virtual hospital.

Of those, 35 have recovered, 38 are still being monitored and three have been transferred to the hospital for more intensive care.

The goal, according to Manning, is to help patients beat the disease without coming to the hospital keeping more of the hospitals critical care beds open.

We are encouraged by our preliminary results, Manning said, recommending other health care systems consider this as a model, so that we may all better care for our patients and improve outcomes during this pandemic.

In staying in touch with the areas COVID-19 patients, UIHC Vice President for Medical Affairs Brooks Jackson earlier this week said his campus is close to receiving approval to begin using plasma from recovered patients to help hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

The hope is any antibodies in the plasma would help patients recover faster.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com

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University of Iowa Health Care debuts 'virtual hospital' for COVID-19 patients - The Gazette