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Army Analyst Linked to WikiLeaks Hailed as Antiwar Hero
For antiwar campaigners from Seattle to Iceland, a new name has become a byword for anti-establishment heroism: Army Pfc. Bradley E. Manning.
Pfc. Bradley E. Manning, a 22-year-old intelligence analyst, is suspected of leaking thousands of classified documents about the Afghanistan war to the Web site WikiLeaks. Manning, a 22-year-old intelligence analyst, is suspected of leaking thousands of classified documents about the Afghanistan war to the Web site WikiLeaks.
The breach has elicited a furious reaction from national security officials, who say it has compromised the safety of U.S.-led forces and their Afghan allies.
Yet, since his arrest in the spring, Manning has become an instant folk hero to thousands of grass-roots activists around the world, some of whom are likening the disclosure to the unauthorized release of the Pentagon Papers or the anonymous tips that helped uncover the Watergate scandal.
Neither Manning nor his attorney have commented on the WikiLeaks dump -- and WikiLeaks has not identified Manning as its source. But chat logs released by an online confidant suggest that the intelligence analyst was as disturbed by U.S. foreign policy as many of the strangers now supporting him.
In the logs, Manning said he had seen "incredible things, awful things" in classified government files. It's "important that it gets out . . . I feel, for some bizarre reason," he said.
The Pentagon has played down the significance of the files disclosed by WikiLeaks. But that has done little to dampen the enthusiasm of Manning's supporters.
Phillip Bailey, an Italian IT specialist living in Croatia, set up a Facebook page to support Manning after he learned of the case. In less than a week, the page had more than 6,000 members.
"When I read [Manning] had been arrested, I knew I had to do something to help the guy," Bailey said. "For me, he has done something really incredible. He did something brave, with a big risk."
Like Bailey, Mike Gogulski, a U.S. citizen living in Slovakia, has never met Manning. He has, nevertheless, set up the Bradley Manning Support Network, a Web site devoted to the cause.
"The story grabbed me," Gogulski said. "It seems to be a new kind of cause. You've got a charismatic young whistleblower being linked to what I've heard called the story of the decade."
Although most of those who contact the Web site are in the United States, Gogulski said he has also received calls from Spain, Germany, Canada, Australia, Italy and Britain.
The group co-coordinating Gogulski's campaign, Courage to Resist, has developed a line of Manning memorabilia, replete with images of the boyish-looking private. There are "Save Bradley Manning!" badges, posters and T-shirts. The products' tagline: "Blowing the whistle on war crimes is not a crime."
Jeff Patterson, head of Courage to Resist, said the group has set an initial goal of $50,000 to support Manning's defense and has already raised $33,000.
The campaign extends beyond the Internet. More than 100 supporters gathered at a hastily organized rally Sunday in Quantico, where Manning is being held at the Marine Corps base. Another took place Thursday night in Oklahoma City, the capital of his home state. Plans are being drawn up for an international day of solidarity.
Andrew Burgin, spokesman for Britain's Stop the War Coalition, said that whoever disclosed the classified material to WikiLeaks had done the public a favor.
Although Manning has not been charged in connection with the more than 90,000 documents leaked to WikiLeaks, he has been charged in the disclosure of U.S. combat video footage showing a helicopter attack that killed several civilians in Iraq.
Burgin said Manning should "be on a par" with Muntadar al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who threw a shoe at George W. Bush during a Baghdad news conference in 2008.
Peace campaigners hope that Manning's rising profile will spur interest in their cause.
"It is like the story of the boy who cried out that the emperor was wearing no clothes," said Gerry Condon, president of Seattle's branch of Veterans for Peace and a member of the Bradley Manning Support Network.
"He's really becoming a focus that could help revive what has been a somewhat weakened antiwar movement."
Daniel Ellsberg, who was imprisoned for leaking the top-secret Pentagon Papers in 1971, said he felt "great identification" with Manning.
"He's a hero to me," he said. "I haven't seen someone make an unauthorized disclosure on this scale, that would lead to serious charges, for 40 years. It seems he believed, as I did, the stakes involved justified that kind of risk."
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24 Comments so far
Show Allsurprisingly positive story from Washington Post
Iran will go better.
Talk about Apple Pie
OilBomber is the CIA poster boy for war
Manning should be the Poster Boy for Peace.
Support resistance Power to the People!
I spoke to an OilBomberbot, a librarian just returned from studying Shakespeare at Oxford.
First Agrument was if you do not vote for OilBomber you will get Palin. AKA Known as the Boogeyman Argument.
Sometimes one retreats before advancing.
Second claim was that OilBomber slowed down the Neocon Agenda
Not accurrate in many areas. In fact you see acceleration of Neocon policies.
Such as:
Afghanistan/Drones/Global War and Assassinations
Offshore Oil (until the gusher)/ Nuclear Power
Larger Military and New Nuclear Weapons Budget
The Health Deform is an unconstitutional mandate to purchase a defective corporate instrument.
Thank heavens. Something that actually lifted my spirit!
Notice that there was not one Senator willing to put the documents into The Congressional Record as was done with "The Pentagon Papers".
If a soldier knows that he is being ordered to commit an illegal act, the soldier is obligated to refuse the order and report said crime. Bradley Manning saw that crimes had been committed: murder, and the covering up of murder...Yet, he is the only one facing criminal or military prosecution.
At no point, does the Washington Post mention the illegal acts committed by The Department of Defense!
DOD destroyed all documents dealing with "Able Danger Group" and that group was either following Mohammed Atta or working with him.......That too was a crime!
This Country doesn't care how many "towel heads" are killed. America doesn't care how we get our oil, I believe more, and more each day, that many of the citizens in this country are not very nice people. They go to Church, and ordaine themselves Holy, all along turning their backs on the pain, and suffering that their country is bestowing on millions of innocent people, in Iraq, and Afghanistan. From what I hear all around me they think these people are evil, and that God doesn't even like them, so why should they.
When Bush, and his buddies blamed Iraq for 9/11 , it just never got out of most Americans heads, that the Iraqs' had nothing to do with 9/11 .As far as Afghanistan Americans don't like them, or care about them. So the reason that there is no anti-war movement is because the few that are against it, don't do anything to show that ,and the rest could care less, and actually want to see us kill those people that blew up the towers. It seems no matter how much you try to explain the truth, no one wants to hear it.
If Obama and a bunch of Republicans would get on T.V. and teach the Americans the truth who knows, but until then (when hell freezes over) we are blood thirsty, broke and angry, and just don't give a shit. I am very dissapointed in America , one side claims to hate the war, and the other side thinks we should stay until the job is done...whatever that means. People have not been very polite with each other lately, and it seems to be getting worse. There is a tension in this Country, and like a pimple it is going to burst.
Ever so true, the masses put their blinders, turn on the one-eyed propaganda box and zone out, sucking up the daily dose of deadly lies ! The apathy and complicity are all part of the fascist american empires slide into the abyss !
tioche, Mexico
If people can blind themselves to the brutal torture and murder going on every day of millions of animals, murdered and tortured for their tastebuds, then it's not a big step up to blind themselves to murder and torture of other people in other places in order for them to continue their narcissistic, highly consumptive lifestyles, which includes animal consumption, which requires a major portion of the oil consumed.
So true. As Leo Tolstoy said, "As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will always be wars."
I believe the ethics of the USA citizenry has become more negative.
When I explained to the Liberal Librarian that just the fact that OilBomber claims the right to kill,anyone anytime anywhere disqualifies him in my mind as an acceptable leader.
Her reply was I admire your ethics but the other possibilities are worse.
When before has the USA accepted an outright claim to the legality of extrajudicial Murder?
Manning said: " he had seen incredible things, awful things " in classified government files. Again, many of these government files are classified for one reason and for one reason only: to cover up for the Pentagon's evil. When they say Manning is jeopardizing national security what they mean is he is embarrassing the hell out of them and exposing them for what they are; guilty of war crimes! It is really THEIR SECURITY that they are worried about! Do you actually believe the Pentagon's elite care about our troops security, when they are killing them practically every day in a totally illegal war to steal Afghanistan's billion $ drug trade and other resources, not to mention access for nefariously, egregious reasons!
Manning and Assange are heroes to many of us. The rapid response in support of Manning by Vets for Peace, IVAW, and many others is something rarely seen.
Now WE have work to do. WE cannot allow the Press to bury this story. Anyone who does not spread the word about U$A war crimes is complicit in those crimes.
Good job exposing the disgusting behavior of the upper class war criminals. STOP WAR NOW!
One can assume, with absolute certainty, that in the nether regions of one's wildest imagination there will never be issued a commemorative American postage stamp with Bradley Manning's or Joseph Darby's (the whistleblower from Abu Ghraib) picture on it.
That beneficent event, that honorarium– which would make any sane nation proud– would be so extreme as to constitute, and be evidence of the end of America as we know it. For in truth, that would be the only way it could ever occur.
Yet one can all but be feasibly assured that a similar stamp, will one day be issued– embossed with the leering visage of Dick Cheney– staring malevolently like a deranged Halloween gargoyle, all in the appropriate motif of 'blood' red.
For "Antiwar Heroes" in America will remain sequestrated in oblivion, while the murderous glee of Dick Cheney, whether one believes so or not, is ineluctably and unashamedly expressive of what America is–not in the specific–but in the, wider generalized sense–making it more horrific yet.
This sepulchral offering would assure Americans that all is well– that exigent death, state terror, war profiteering, mass murder, unrepentant war criminality– and of course, torture– is afoot in the land, and that nothing has or will change. And indeed it has not!
And who can say that is not the popular will– the very accouterment of American democracy, what you all 'vote' for? Here it is not enough to self exculpate oneself by saying: "Well, I didn't vote for that!"
When the highest, most august media outlet in the United States, "The New York Times," vilely smears someone as noble as Manning, who can say that the Cheney commemorative will not one day become a proud collectable, an American 'heirloom,' an ex officio reminder of the omnipresence of the fascist state?
Apocryphal you say? One must never forget that they live in America.
There are no surprises, only recognitions.
This is an essential and pertinent comment.
I have one criticism. The USA is not America. US citizens are not the only Americans.
The common assumptions of the word America to mean the USA, or American to mean US citizen, lie at the centre of the current repulsive mess that the USA has come to be.
It seems clear that this US mess is created on bad thinking and bad thinking is the other face of bad language. Bad language is a product of lies and lies are disseminated by propaganda.
Which, as the comment indicates, about sums up the USA. All Americans cannot be assumed to be the same.
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Forget hailing Manning as a anti-war hero - get him out of jail!
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$33,000 raised, but they need as much as possible, as Manning needs a very good legal team that specializes in military law. The legal team must also be flown abroad. Manning might choose less capable legal counsel if he thinks his family are going to be burdened with a huge debt.
The $50,000 "target" should be taken as the absolute minimum needed.
I will be donating as much as I can. Bradley did me a favor, so now I will do him a favor.
The politicians protect their own. CEOs, and other rich businessmen, protect their own. Medical doctors protect their own. Isn't it time the public protected their own, too?
If we let our own hang, don't complain when there's no one left to save us or care.
Well said. If we do not all hang together you can bet your last dollar we will ALL hang separately!
Supporters of Bradley Manning can write a letter of support to his military brig address: 3247 Elrod Avenue, Quantico, Virginia 22134. And you can call the brig phone to let the military know that citizens are concerned and watching: 703-764-4242. And you can contribute to the fund for his legal defense by going to the Support Bradley Manning website.
The Web site is www.bradleymanning.org - there is a link on the homepage to "Courage To Resist", where you can make a donation, small or large, to fund his legal defense.
10,000 people giving just $15 each = $150k. It should be easy to raise plenty of money for Manning's legal team - if enough people actually care!
Courage to Resist was at http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/
The pdf newsletter there is free. They cover lots of others who have left the military as well as whistleblowers. More subscriptions may lead to more articles like the above.
The Bradley Manning Support Network was at http://www.bradleymanning.org/
They have a petition that is worth signing even if you're out of cash.
Of course WaPo's not trying to get anything done, so they don't give the URL's, but where's the FACEBOOK page?
respect
Manning is a boy with all the potential for morality and immorality, wisdom and stupidity that implies.
His deed could as well be motivated by a silly desire for attention as by a profound desire to do the right thing. In all honesty his picture indicates a tendency towards the first.
But it was the right thing to do even if he has tendencies towards the silly option. His action is proof of the potential for good in all people. In lauding his action we laud not him but this.
With support he may turn into a mature and admirable leader but to concentrate on him is to invite the dark forces he exposed to concentrate on him and break him and shame him; to crucify him. Should they do so those who promoted him as a hero will be partners in the crime.
It is imperative to support and wish the young man well while we concentrate on the matter, not the character.
Manning is a hero to me!
Chelsea :)