Almost two years ago, in early April 2010, WikiLeaks surged to worldwide fame with the release of the Collateral Murder video, which Julian Assange said revealed a US war crime in Iraq. Three other sensational and significant WikiLeaks releases followed that year: the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, and Cablegate.

A US Army private named Bradley Manning would be charged with being the man behind all of these leaks, and now faces life in prison, possibly even death, for aiding the enemy.

Now Ive written, with Kevin Gosztola, the first book that traces the Manning case from his life in the Army right up to last week. Gosztola, who as aNationintern assisted me with two other books on this subject and helped me write about WikiLeaks daily here, was one of the few journalists to attend Mannings key pre-trial hearings last December and then in mid-March. The book is titledTruth and Consequences: The US vs. Bradley Manning(Sinclair Books) and is available now as an e-book and in print in a week or so.

Here is an excerpt from the Appendix, first published here last summer.

***

For months we have followed the story of Ethan McCord, a former US Army specialist who took heroic actions to help save the two children in the van badly injured in the incident captured in the Collateral Murder video released by WikILeaks in April 2010. He has since spoken out against the Iraq war and is featured in a new documentary,Incident in New Baghdad, that won a top prize at the recent Tribeca Film Festival in New York.

Now he has responded to the lengthy profile of Bradley Manning published in last weeksNew Yorkmagazine. On its site the magazine has printed brief excerpts, but we have obtained the full letter and here it is (below).

* * *

byEthan McCord

Serving with my unit 2nd battalion 16th infantry in New Baghdad Iraq, I vividly remember the moment in 2007, when our Battalion Commander walked into the room and announced our new rules of engagement:

Listen up, new battalion SOP (standing operating procedure) from now on: Anytime your convoy gets hit by an IED, I want 360 degree rotational fire. You kill every [expletive] in the street!

We werent trained extensively to recognize an unlawful order, or how to report one. But many of us could not believe what we had just been told to do. Those of us who knew it was morally wrong struggled to figure out a way to avoid shooting innocent civilians, while also dodging repercussions from the non-commissioned officers who enforced the policy. In such situations, we determined to fire our weapons, but into rooftops or abandoned vehicles, giving the impression that we were following procedure.

On April 5, 2010, American citizens and people around the world got a taste of the fruits of this standing operating procedure whenWikiLeaksreleased the now-famousCollateral Murdervideo. This video showed the horrific and wholly unnecessary killing of unarmed Iraqi civilians and Reuters journalists.

I was part of the unit that was responsible for this atrocity. In the video, I can be seen attempting to carry wounded children to safety in the aftermath.

The video released by WikiLeaks belongs in the public record. Covering up this incident is a matter deserving of criminal inquiry. Whoever revealed it is an American hero in my book.

Private First Class Bradley Manning has been confined for over a year on the governments accusation that he released this video and volumes of other classified documents to WikiLeaksan organization that has been selectively publishing portions of this information in collaboration with other news outlets.

If PFC Bradley Manning did what he is accused of doing, then it is clearfromchat logsthat have been attributed to himthat his decision was motivated by conscience and political agency. These chat logs allegedly describe how PFC Manning hopes these revelations will result in worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms.

Unfortunately, Steve Fishmans articleBradley Mannings Army of OneinNew Yorkmagazine (July 3, 2011) erases Mannings political agency. By focusing so heavily on Mannings personal life, Fishman removes politics from a story that has everything to do with politics. The important public issues wrapped up with PFC Mannings case include: transparency in government; the Obama Administrations unprecedented pursuit of whistle-blowers; accountability of government and military in shaping and carrying out foreign policy; war crimes revealed in the WikiLeaks documents; the catalyzing role these revelations played in democratic movements across the Middle East; and more.

The contents of the WikiLeaks revelations have pulled back the curtain on the degradation of our democratic system. It has become completely normal for decision-makers to promulgate foreign policies, diplomatic strategies, and military operating procedures that are hostile to the democratic ideals our country was founded upon. The incident I was part ofshown in the Collateral Murder videobecomes even more horrific when we grasp that it was not exceptional. PFC Manning himself is alleged to describe (in the chat logs) an incident where he was ordered to turn over innocent Iraqi academics to notorious police interrogators, for the offense of publishing a political critique of government corruption titled, Where did the money go? These issues deserve discussion, debates, and reformsand attention from journalists.

Fishmans article was also ignorant of the realities of military service. Those of us who serve in the military are often lauded as heroes. Civilians need to understand that we may be heroes, but we are not saints. We are young people under a tremendous amount of stress. We face moral dilemmas that many civilians have never even contemplated hypothetically.

Civil society honors military service partly because of the sacrifice it entails. Lengthy and repeated deployments stress our closest relationships with family and friends. The realities, traumas, and stresses of military life take an emotional toll. This emotional battle is part of the sacrifice that we honor. That any young soldier might wrestle with his or her experiences in the military, or with his or her identity beyond military life, should never be wielded as a weapon against them.

If PFC Bradley Manning did what he is accused of, he is a hero of mine; not because hes perfect or because he never struggled with personal or family relationshipsmost of us dobut because in the midst of it all he had the courage to act on his conscience.

Chelsey Manning Wikileaks

Read the original here:
Bradley Manning: From 'Collateral Murder' to Court-Martial ...

Bradley Manning exposed war crimes committed by the U.S. on WikiLeaks. Credit: Claire Stockdill/The Foothill Dragon Press

Solitary confinement for months, sleep deprivation, forced nudity, and torture are all ways that our government and military punishes people for simply exposing the truth. Bradley Manning, an Army intelligence analyst, received all of those punishments and more after being accused of leaking military secrets to the public and the Collateral Murdervideo, which shows the killing of 12 unarmed citizens and the wounding of two children by a U.S. helicopter crew in Iraq.

Manning was suspected of releasing these government secrets to WikiLeaks, a website created by the famous whistleblower Julian Assange.

During Mannings trial on February 28, he stated about the Collateral Murder videothat the most alarming aspect of the video to me, however, was the seemingly delightful bloodlust they appeared to have.

Manning is undeniably correct. The men in the helicopter refer to the men they just killed by saying, Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards.

The enthralled joy that these men got from killing innocent Iraqi citizens is beyond Mannings understanding, which is why he leaked it to the public, not because he had some mischievous plan take down America or aid the enemy (a charge made against him), but because he wanted to promote discussion, debates, and reforms.

He went with being a moral human being before being a soldier.

One of the most ironic aspects of Mannings case is that the soldiers who committed war crimes and violated the laws set in the Geneva Conventions had no charges against them. Yet Manning who blew the whistle on these war crimes had his rights violated, was tortured, and was imprisoned over 1,000 days before his recent trial.

Politicians and media are portraying him as some sort of traitor to America. Exposing crimes and informing the public (since mainstream media is the biased opinions of arrogant Republicans and Democrats) is why I would consider Bradley Manning to be a hero. He is not a traitor but is in fact the opposite, a patriot. Patriotism in no way means conformity, but standing up for the good of people before the state, even if that means breaking some unjust laws along the way.

President Obama stated about Manning, What he did was illegal.

Regardless of the legality, no person should have suffered the conditions that Manning underwent for the first nine months that he was held in solitary confinement. And Obama really isnt in much of a position to subject others when he himself has committed numerous war crimes abroad, and is more concerned about corporatism, profit, and imperialism than the good of the people.

In our democracy, is it okay to do illegal things if you are in a higher position of power? Morally, honestly, and democratically, of course not. However, under the imperialist empire that is becoming America, yes, it is okay. Bradley Manning, a man who exposed war crimes our military is committing, is awaiting his next trial in June, with the possibility of life in prison.

Like Walter E. Williams says, Legality, alone, cannot be the talisman of moral people.

The crimes Hitler, Mao, and Stalin committed were actually legal, but in no way were they moral. In the same way, we cant use laws to justify the torturing of an individual or the imprisonment of a hero. Laws dont bring out morality in people. We need to stop saying that Bradley Manning broke the law because that holds no relevance.

What is relevant is the fact that he was tortured in solitary confinement for nine months, which violated his Eighth and Fifth Amendment rights. And what is relevant is that he risked his life by exposing the truth. He released information for the good of American democracy, which is deeply respectable that he, in fact, is nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Anyone can show their support for Bradley Manningby going to bradleymanning.org and signing the Stand with Brad petition, donating to the defense fund, submitting the I am Bradley Manning photo, volunteering, attending or hosting an event in support, and most importantly, spreading awareness of the heroic actions of Bradley Manning.

Blowing the whistle on war crimes helps to create a society in which people are safe and knowledgeable. Manning wasnt aiding the enemy or being disloyal to our country. He simply holds the desire for people to know the honest truth, even though the truth is ugly.

See the rest here:
Bradley Manning: A criminal in the eyes of our government, a ...

(10 am. promoted by ek hornbeck)

Cross posted http://www.thestarshollowgazet from The Stars Hollow Gazette

The Freedom of the Press Foundation Press, an organization dedicated to press freedom and transparency in a digital age, released an audio recording of Pvt. Bradley Manning reading a statement he made in military court at Fort Meade on February 28 about releasing United States government documents to WikiLeaks. Glenn Greenwald, one of the founders of FPF, had this to say at The Guardian about the audio tape:

The court-martial proceeding of Bradley Manning has, rather ironically, been shrouded in extreme secrecy, often exceeding even that which prevails at Guantanamo military commissions. This secrecy prompted the Center for Constitutional Rights to commence formal legal action on behalf of several journalists and activists, including myself, to compel greater transparency. One particularly oppressive rule governing the Manning trial has barred not only all video or audio recordings of the proceedings, but also any photographs being taken of Manning or even transcripts made of what is said in court. Combined with the prohibition on all press interviews with him, this extraordinary secrecy regime has meant that, in the two-and-a-half years since his arrest, the world has been prevented, literally, from hearing Mannings voice. That changes today.

The Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), the group I recently helped found and on whose board I sit, has received a full, unedited audio recording of the one-hour statement Manning made in court two weeks ago, and this morning has published that recording in full.

The Guardian published the full text of the statement as it was transcribed bu independent journalist Alexa OBrian who has been covering the pre-trial hearings. Here also is the unclassified redacted statement in a pdf file.

Daniel Ellsbreg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times, joined Amy Goodman on Democracy Now to discuss the audio of the statement:

What weve heard are people like The New York Times who have consistently slandered him that he was vague and couldnt think of specific instances that had led him to inform the American people of injustices, Ellsberg says. The American people can now, for the first time, hear Bradley in his own words, emotionally and in the greatest specific detail, tell what it was that he felt that needed revelation.

Transcript here

A Salute to Bradley Manning, Whistleblower, As We Hear His Words for the First Time

by Daniel Ellsberg

Today, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, an organization that I co-founded and of which Im on the board, has published an audio recording of Bradley Mannings speech to a military court from two weeks ago, in which he gives his reasons and motivations behind leaking over 700,000 government documents to WikiLeaks.

Whoever made this recording, and I dont know who the person is, has done the American public a great service. This marks the first time the American public can hear Bradley Manning, in his own voice explain what he did and how he did it.

After listening to this recording and reading his testimony, I believe Bradley Manning is the personification of the word whistleblower. [..]

For the third straight year, Manning has been nominated for the Noble Peace Prize by, among others, Tunisian parliamentarians. Given the role the WikiLeaks cables played in the Arab Spring, and their role in speeding up the end of the Iraq War, I can think of no one more deserving who is deserving of the peace prize.

I see a hero in these wars whose example should inspire others. His name Bradley Manning.

See the rest here:
Bradley Manning Speaks DocuDharma

The Guardian byEd Pilkington

On SaturdayBradley Manningwill mark his 1,000th day imprisoned without trial. In the course of those thousand days, from the moment he was formally put into pre-trial confinement on 19 May 2010 on suspicion of being the source of theWikiLeaksdisclosures, Manning has been on a long and eventful journey.

It has taken him from the desert of Iraq, where he was arrested at a military operating base outside Baghdad, to a prison tent in Kuwait. From there he endured hisinfamous harsh treatment at Quantico Marine basein Virginia, and for the last 14 months he has attended a series ofpre-trial hearings at Fort Meade in Maryland, the latest of which begins next week.

For the small band of reporters who have tracked the prosecution of Private First Class Manning, the journey has also been long and eventful. Not in any way comparable, of course; none of us have been ordered to strip naked or put in shackles, and we have all been free to go home at night without the prospect of a life sentence hanging over us.

But its been an education, nonetheless. Though we are a mixed bag a fusion of traditional outlets such as the Washington Post and Associated Press and new-look bloggers such asFiredoglakeand theBradley Manning support network we have been thrown together by our common mission to report on the most high-profile prosecution of an alleged leaker in several decades.

Theres something else that binds us disparate though our reporting styles and personal politics might be and thats the daily struggle to do our jobs properly, confronted as we are by the systemic furtiveness of the US government. Its an irony that appears to be lost on many of the military lawyers who fill the courtroom at Fort Meade. A trial that has at its core the age-old confrontation between a governments desire for confidentiality and the publics need to know, is itself being conducted amid stringent restrictions on information.

None of the transcripts of the court martial procedure have been released to us. No government motions to the court have been published. David Coombs, Mannings lead lawyer, has had to plead to be allowed to post his defence motions, and when he has been granted permission he has often been forced to redact the documentsto an almost comical degree.

The most egregious example of this over the past 1,000 days was the moment in January when the military judge, Colonel Denise Lind,issued her ruling in an Article 13 motionbrought by Mannings defence. This was the complaint that the soldier, while at Quantico, had been subjected to a form of pre-trial punishment that is banned under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

It was an important moment in the narrative arc that is the Bradley Manning trial. Technically, Lind had the power to dismiss all charges against the soldier; she could have, though none of us expected that she would, let him walk out of that court and into freedom. (In the end she knocked 112 days off any eventual sentence).

The accusations contained in the Article 13 also went to the heart of the defence case that Manning has singled out for unfair and at times brutal treatment. During the testimony,Manning himself gave evidence, standing inside a 6ft by 8ft (180cm by 240cm) box that had been drawn on the floor of the courtroom to replicate the dimensions of his cell. He recalled such humiliating details as the routine he was required to follow when he needed toilet paper. Standing to attention at the front bars of his cell, he was ordered to shout out to the guards who kept him under 24-hour observation: Lance Corporal Detainee Manning requests toilet paper!

So my fellow reporters and I awaited with intense interest Linds judgment, though also with some trepidation. Wed sat through the spectacle of Lind reading out to the court her rulings, and it wasnt a pleasant experience. The judge has a way of reading out her decisions at such a clip that it is almost impossible to take them down even with shorthand or touch typing.

In the event, Lind spent an hour and a half without pause reading out a judgment that must have stretched to 50 pages, at a rate that rendered accurate reporting of it diabolically difficult. No copy of the ruling has then or now been made available to the public, presumably on grounds of national security, even though every word of the document had been read out to the very public that was now being withheld its publication.

Such is the Alice-in-Wonderland world of the Bradley Manning trial. Why does it matter? It matters to Bradley Manning. The soldier is facing charges that carry the stiffest punishment available to the state short of killing him. (They could technically do that to him too, but the prosecution has made clear it will not seek the death penalty). If found guilty of the most serious charge aiding the enemy he could be confined to military custody for the rest of his life with no chance of parole, a prospect that makes the past 1,000 days look like a Tea Party.

The least Manning deserves is stringent fairness in his prosecution, and stringent fairness cannot exist in the absence of openness and transparency. As a British appeal court judge wrote in arecent case brought by the Guardianto protest against excessive courtroom secrecy: In a democracy, where power depends on the consent of the governed, the answer must lie in the transparency of the legal process. Open justice lets in the light and allows the public to scrutinise the workings of the law, for better or for worse.

Theres a much bigger reason why the cloak-and-dagger approach of the US government to this trial should be taken seriously. America doesnt seem to have woken up to this yet, but the prosecution of Bradley Manning poses the greatest threat to freedom of speech and the press in this country in at least a generation.

The aiding the enemy count essentially accuses Manning of handing information to Osama bin Laden as a necessary consequence of the act of leaking state secrets that would end up on the internet. When one of the prosecution lawyers was asked whether the government would still have gone after Manning had he leaked to the New York Times instead of WikiLeaks,she unhesitatingly replied: Yes.

If thats not a threat to the first amendment, then what is? This prosecution, as it is currently conceived, could have a chilling effect on public accountability that goes far beyond the relatively rarefied world of WikiLeaks.

Thats something worth contemplating as Bradley Manning enters his second 1,000 days sitting in a cell. Looked at this way, were sitting in the cell with him.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/22/bradley-manning-wikileaks-1000-days-detention

Excerpt from:
Bradley Manning: 1,000 Days in Detention and Secrecy Still ...