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Bradley Manning's Quest for Justice
Whatever the outcome of the WikiLeaks suspect's trial, many of us believe he holds to a higher standard of truth than this court's
In a small military court room at Fort Meade, two weeks after he was nominated for a Nobel Peace prize, I watched Bradley Manning appear before a judge – for the second time in his 635-day stint of pre-trial detainment. He sat silently while the prosecution read his 22 charges.
We won't hear his plea until the hearing is continued in March. Manning will likely be tried in early August. If all goes to plan for the prosecution, he will spend the rest of his life in prison.
Bradley Manning escorted from a military vehicle to the court facility at Fort Meade, Maryland. Photograph: Patrick Semansky/APBefore the charges were read, Manning's attorney asked the judge about her prior knowledge of the case, the issues surrounding it, and any previous opinions she may have had about it. She stated that she had known nothing of the case besides Manning's name "and that it involved classified material". When asked if she had spoken to friends or colleagues about the case, she said she hadn't. She held no prior opinion, we were told.
For what must be the biggest controversy of the decade, I found this hard to believe. It reaffirmed my skepticism and brought to mind what many have already said: this trial is a sham.
President Obama, ultimately the judge's commander, does have an opinion about the matter – as he told me when I asked for his view at a fundraiser in San Francisco last April, at the end of Manning's extended solitary confinement at Quantico Marine Base.
In his mind, Bradley Manning was already guilty. The conversation was caught on tape, and legal experts have argued that the president's statement should be grounds for dismissal.
"We're a nation of laws," Obama told me. "He broke the law."
Some people are held to the law and others are not. Recalling the killing of journalists working for Reuters in the "Collateral Murder" video allegedly released by Manning, this is exactly this kind of selective enforcement that motivated WikiLeaks' revelations – and which brought me and my peers to Zuccotti Park last fall to use the only means we have to hold accountable those whose criminal acts brought us to economic crisis.
A generation before Bradley Manning, Daniel Ellsberg understood that some laws were worth breaking to expose and bring accountability to far greater crimes. Ellsberg tried to voice his grievances within his chain of command, as Manning did, before being ignored.
I have heard many people justify the government's treatment of Manning simply because of the risks he allegedly took. "He should have known better," they say, missing the point. Asked in 1971 if he was prepared to go to prison for releasing the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg's reply was simple: "Wouldn't you go to jail to end this war?"
Ellsberg's stand came back to me, sitting at Manning's arraignment. "I want people to see the truth," Bradley is alleged to have typed to the hacker who turned him in.
As the judge announced the recess and prepared to leave the room, someone stood up and shouted: "Your honor! Isn't it a soldier's responsibility to report war crimes?"
The judge silently looked away. It's an argument that the court will have to contend with, before the trial ends. When that happens, I hope the world is watching.
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43 Comments so far
Show AllReferring to the judge, the author said: "She held no prior opinion, we were told.
For what must be the biggest controversy of the decade, I found this hard to believe. It reaffirmed my skepticism and brought to mind what many have already said: this trial is a sham."
What did he expect the judge to say? Remember Clarence Thomas telling the Senate Judiciary Committee that he had never read or thought about Roe v Wade? Just as unbelievable.
That young man should be getting a medal instead of a prison term!!!!!
The court will have to contend with the responsibility of a soldier to report war crimes. So we hope. It is hard to, though, with that creeping feeling that your hope will be crushed. I hope the judge has to watch Collateral Murder in the courtroom for all to see, but maybe even that's too much to expect.
The fascist state needs to have total control over all major parts of society. That includes the military and the courts.
I could understand a juror being out of touch with Manning's case. Such people are, sadly, legion. But, a military judge? What spider hole did she crawl out of? Or, better yet, what kangaroo pouch?
"Your honor! Isn't it a soldier's responsibility to report war crimes?"
We all need to be asking this question over and over again until it's answered.
Point well taken. The soldiers in the searing documentary Sir! No Sir! had the courage and wisdom to speak out and protest what their government was doing against the Vietnamese people. The soldiers of today need to be following Manning's example by saying that they recognize that what the United States is doing in the Middle East is a war crime and that they will not be a party to such atrocities. It is way past the point that they begin emulating what former Green Beret Donald Duncan stated in Sir! No Sir! when he observed:
"I was doing it right but I wasn't doing right."
and many of us, by refusing the draft, tried to keep from doing wrong.
"He should have known better,"
he did - which is why he did what he did.
allegedly.
great comment. Mr. Manning is a hero in my books!
ALL of our Presidents, at least since Nixon, and including the present one (despite his Peace Prize), have been war criminals, technically, according to international law, and obviously, blatantly, to anyone looking at the evidence. Our national myth/faith is that they are not. Only others can be war criminals (and there are certainly plenty of them), but not us. Its a definition.
To me all of them back to FDR committed war crimes.
"...the truth....the US people can't handle the truth...".
USA citizens authorize war and killing every time they vote for an R or D. That means 95% support war.
Remember when they said religion was the opium of the masses. Then they said television was the opium. Now they say the Internet is ....
Religion is defiinitly the opiate of the masses; television is definitly the dumb down drug for the masses; the net?
I have experienced what PVT Manning is up against and the only chance he stands is for complete support of the people. When the Army waged their campaign against me, it was nowhere close to the level that Manning is enduring, but I have seen how easily they will cover their own in positions of power. I was stripped of everything, but thankfully stayed out of confinement for a crime I did not commit. After my military lawyer fought back (yes there are good ones out there) my command admitted that what had been done to me was illegal, but refused to reverse any of their actions. It was through my own unwillingness to give up that everything was restored to me, except the ranks I should have been promoted to before retiring. If they can do it on my level, Manning is in for a fight that will require complete public support and outrage.
In 1967 Capt. Howard B. Levy, M.D. had the support of the People. He had the support of myriad members of Congress. Levy had the support of the American Medical Association, plus newspaper editors across the nation. What happened?
President Johnson went on television from the Oval Room and told the American People that this was a =military matter= and would be tried in courts martial for violation of military law - - - exactly as if he had been surreptitiously observed having anal sex with his spouse. That, too was against the UCMJ - no matter how any other American civilian felt about it. Clearly, the law was an ass.
Trylon
Most of us are cognizant of political cycles. For instance, the entire culture swung towards Progressive, egalitarian values between the early l960's-early l980's. In my view, the pendulum has swung about as far to the right as it can; and in such a climate justice is placed off-balance. As unlikely as it is for Bradley Manning to be seen for the hero that he is NOW in this corporately-controlled nexus we think of as our nation, as the pendulum swings back, a time will come when he is exonerated and championed for his courage and conviction.
The current phase is not only Mars rules, or Mammon rules, but also heaped on with serious helpings from Neptune, ruler of the dying age of Pisces, and owner of its capacity for camouflage. It's being played out through infinite forms of deception. Most notable, that we are a FREE nation, that we have a FREE press, that we hold FREE elections, that we honor Peace and JUSTICE for all, etc. The list is LONG.
Truth is not welcome in a phase where deception is taken to a high art. From the likes of Luntz, Rove, Bernays and even Lakoff, keen minds have put language to use to invert the basic meaning of terms. By doing so, these dark functionaries have literally tuned off the public's capacity for accurate reasoning.
This, too, shall pass.
Meanwhile, watch for falling debris.
"As the judge announced the recess and prepared to leave the room, someone stood up and shouted: "Your honor! Isn't it a soldier's responsibility to report war crimes?"
The judge silently looked away. It's an argument that the court will have to contend with, before the trial ends. When that happens, I hope the world is watching"
Really? Seems to me in political cases like this, the court just decides to exclude all relevant issues, allowing the defense to speak only on the narrow technical matters over whether Manning did or did not do the specific acts of which he's accused. Of course his lawyer will say there are other factors that must be brought up--but the judge can just refuse. She already signalled her willingness to manipulate by pretending she knew nothing of the case. Although I suppose it's possible she did that so she could be the one to give him a fair trial...
I, for one, feel that we ought to at least pause and give credit where credit is due.
Our Charlatan-in-Chief, himself a highly-regarded Constitutional scholar, assured the Amerikan public that Bradley Manning would receive a show trial of the utmost probity and scrupulous adherence to the appearance of due process before being formally convicted and sent to his ultimate condign doom.
And, come what may, I am gratified that at least this time, he actually seems to be keeping his promises. It is a testament to this maladministration's "third way" philosophy, which eschews foolish and cumbersome fidelity to ideology or principle in favor of efficacious pragmatism: "What works!"
O.S.
Your comment is reminiscent of the scene in the classic cult Western film One-Eyed Jacks [1961] when Rio [played by Marlon Brando], is visited in jail by his old bank robbery partner Dad Longworth [played by Karl Malden]. Dad had betrayed Rio in the past which resulted in Rio spending five years in prison in Sonora, Mexico. Dad left Rio, in Rios's words, to rot in that prison after they had robbed a bank in Mexico and Dad became, ironically, the sheriff in Monterey, California, circa 1888. Rio asks Dad if he is going to receive a fair trial. Dad gives Rio a meaningful look and tells Rio: Sure, kid, you'll get a fair trial. And then I'm going to hang you.
Rio then tells Dad: You're like a One-eyed Jack. But I see the other side of your face.
As with this film, the fix would appear to be in as it would be quite surprising if the military does not intend to make an example of Manning by making sure that Manning does not see the outside of a jail cell, if not solitary confinement, anytime soon.
wow, great flick...micro to macro... many of us are seeing the other side of the fascist amerikan empire...vicious...doomed to fail !
Bradley Manning did indeed break the law. He deserves a fair trial, which he will receive under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It is against the law to release classified information to persons who do not have "a need to know" period.
As a former Army Intelligence Officer (Vietnam) and a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer I spent forty years dealing with classified information. Granted some (much?) was over classified, but Manning certainly had no authority to release the classified material he did release. Some of the readers seem to think Manning had a "moral obligation to break the law." Now there is an oxymoron for you. I only wish those who gave this young man a security clearance in the first place were being tried as well. Manning deserves to be punished for breaking the law.
"Manning deserves to be punished for breaking the law"
And not Apache helicopter gunmen that randomly, and gleefully, gun down innocent people, including children. Or marines that smash in homes in the middle of the night and kill the occupants, be they women, children, old men? Or drones that obliterate entire families at funerals? What about all the laws being broken just in regards to Manning himself? Illegal detention and probable torture for months on end. "Uniform Code of Military Justice" my ass.
Don't forget: Marines at Quantico Brig demonstrated that the UCMJ is a penile code.
Trylon
So did Lt. William ( Rusty) Calley, and his chain of command.
Stupid people get hardons over =the law= and =legality=. Every atrocity in history conducted under government auspices has been legal. Everything done by Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Chairman Mao, Pol Pot - and every other absolute power wielding son of a bitch psychopath was regarded as Legal.
The most hysterically amusing and suicidal admonition I hear is not to =take the law into your own hands=. That's a bluff. I should leave it in the hands of paranoid psychopaths? Or YOURS? That would be proof I was either out of my mind or scared shitless. But I am neither one.
Trylon
Peter202
Are you also willing to state that people like Bush and Cheney and Rice and Rumsfeld broke the law when the United States unjustifiably invaded and occupied Iraq, an underdeveloped country that could never be thought of as a serious threat to the country [the United States] with the strongest military force on the face of this earth, thereby causing the unnecessary deaths of over a million Iraqis and causing millions more to be displaced from their homes? Somehow I suspect that you will not.
I submit that the above people deserve far more to be tried as war criminals than someone like Bradley Manning. You also sneer at those who felt that they had a moral obligation to break the law. Thankfully there were people, unlike you, who did just that such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. and those military personnel who comprised the GI rebellion during the Vietnam conflict and by doing so had, again, unlike you, the courage and wisdom to protest and to speak out against their government. I suggest that you see the film Sir! No Sir! and/or read David Cortright's classic work Soldiers In Revolt: GI Resistance During the Vietnam War as they will confirm the validity of my assertions.
What this country needs are more, not less, soldiers like Manning since we know [or at least we should know] that there are many if not most soldiers in the military today who appear to have left their brains and their morality behind in the civilian world.
Long live the GI rebellion.
Well done!
==I suggest that you see the film Sir! No Sir! and/or read David Cortright's classic work Soldiers In Revolt: GI Resistance During the Vietnam War as they will confirm the validity of my assertions. ==
Good start. - - I further suggest The New Solder - and the Washington DC protest in April 1971 by Vietnam Veterans Against the War. It was called Dewey Canyon III and it consisted of =street theater= where combat vets enacted for the American public a typical sweep by booney rats of a Vietnamese ville. These vets wore combat gear, blackened faces, carried standard issue weapons including Zippo lighters. TV cameras hummed. Was there some peaceful counterpart to Dewey Canyon III?
Yes. United Methodist, Army Chaplain, Jack Day conducted a morning worship service with his back to the locked & guarded gate of Arlington National Cemetery. As he gave a brief sermon, he was flanked by standing Gold Star Mothers. Navy Lt. John Kerry was seated on the damp ground with many other vets. Jack has a Vietnam website where the sermon of that protest event is a webpage. I recommend it first to all clergy, then to all veterans of Vietnam, then to veterans of subsequent wars in which the USA has been involved.
Recently I posted to CD a poem by Rev. Day, written the day after he was taken into custody while protesting at the School of the Americas. I hold the following outside-the-box opinion.
On Constitution Mall, the chevron-shaped Vietnam Memorial is flanked by two more chevron-shaped walls, but they are invisible. One contains the names of veterans whose final escape from PTSD was suicide. The Pentagon knows they number more than 58,000. The other wall contains names of persons who had the courage to hammer out warning to American youth, even if they suffered death as the consequence. Alice Herz. Norman Morrison. Roger LaPorte. Daniel Ellsberg. Howard Zinn. Jessica Mitford. Dr. Benjamin Spock. Norman Mailer. WW2 B-24 Liberator pilot, Senator George McGovern. And thousands of others who, ethically, should not remain nameless to history. But - that's just me. I think outside-the-box.
Trylon
Thanks, Trylon, for a great comment.
I would add to the "invisible" wall you are calling for another panel listing the names of the military personnel who deserted the armed forces rather than comply with immoral orders to fight in Vietnam. I would list also the courageous men who went to jail rather than serve in that war. Finally, I would list the men who, while in the service, took a stand for peace similar to the activities shown in "Sir,No Sir!" That film gives a wonderful insight into the antiwar movement inside the military, but of course omits many who took part in that movement.
I am proud to be one of those deserters, and one of those bit players who took a stand while in the Army against the war in Vietnam. I know many others who did far more than I ever did, and suffered far more than I ever suffered. They should not be forgotten.
Re-posted from Nov 12, 2010
.
.
.
.
Hello, David--
My name is Dusty.
I am your night nurse.
I will stay with you.
I will check your vitals
.. every 15 minutes.
I will document inevitability.
I will hang more blood
.. and give you
.. something for your pain.
I will stay with you and
.. touch your face.
Yes, of course, I will
.. write your mother and
.. tell her you were brave.
I will write your mother and
.. tell her how much
.. you loved her.
.
deleted
When I was in high school, my father was a GS-13, and #2 man at an Air Force weather facility in Washington DC. He had a security clearance. (I'm not sure what level.) He told me at one point that he saw a lot of classified documents which contained information that could all be found in other, non-classified, sources. The only reason they were classified is that all the information was in one document.
In today's government _everything_ is being classified, to keep the public from knowing _anything_ about the operation of the government.
"As a former Army Intelligence Officer (Vietnam) and a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer I spent forty years dealing with classified information."
So then you must have seen "classified material" that is evidence of US crimes against humanity... and you didn't speak out. That makes you a coward, and a criminal.
Official US Government secrecy trumps war-crimes? Hardly. Sure, he "technically" broke the law, but in doing so, brought to light FAR more serious crimes. Jaywalking is a crime... but to save the old lady being mugged across the street (A bigger crime), one shouldn't think twice about jaywalking.
" It is against the law to release classified information to persons who do not have "a need to know""
One could argue that WE NEED TO KNOW. If you uncover evidence of a serious crime, and remain silent, are you not complicit in said crime?
Errol makes some good points in rebutal to my contention that PVT Manning deserves to face the bar for his release of classified information. Errol asks is I condone Bush, Rumsfeld and company invading Iraq. The amswer is I believe their crime is worse than Manning's by several layers of magnitude. Manning's transgression did not result in the death of thousands brave members of the armed services and the killing of thousands of Iraqi men, women and children. Manning was not a duplicious liar, only misguided. But the fact remains he broke the law.
Frankly, I feel very sorry for this young man and only wish he had never been put in a position where he was bullied and refused the "dignity of difference" to such an extent that he felt that releasing thousands of classified documents served a noble purpose.
It is terribly demeaning to Bradley Manning to allege that he released classified material "because he was bullied" and refused the "dignity of difference". In other words, he was getting back at the Army because he is gay, and the Army treated him badly.
No doubt Bradley was mistreated, in part because he is gay, in part because he has a slight build, in part because he was not a gung ho soldier, etc.
But he acted on his conviction that what he learned during his time in the Army made it clear to him that the Iraq War was wrong and immoral. The famous video of the airman gunning down a group of innocent people from his airplane, then celebrating his sharp shooting with the exclamation "Dude!" needed to be released and seen by as many people as possible. Thanks to Bradley Manning, it was.
His lawyers seem to be using a strategy of claiming that Manning should never have been assigned to Iraq, perhaps should never have been allowed to enlist, due to his feelings about his gender and sexual orientation. Let's hope that legal strategy is successful. For Manning to state defiantly that he released the documents because of his opposition to the Iraq War would be equivalent to a guilty plea, which he does not wish to enter.
That legal strategy is not binding on the rest of us. We have every right to celebrate the heroism of this young man, his courageous endurance of ill treatment both outside and inside prison, and his determination not to play the game the Army has been trying to force him to play, of saying he is sorry and begging for forgiveness.
As a gay man, I'm pretty tired of the "pity him, he's gay" argument. Bradley Manning doesn't deserve this kind of demeaning "understanding". He deserves an immediate presidential pardon, and he deserves to be the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
What? Pardon me, but your perceptions of what manning did as being of some moral and noble nature are completely false. Manning's history as a soldier and before his enlistment says a lot about the quality of his character. If the story was different, if Manning had been a successful soldier with increasing potential, then came to realize a great injustice was taking place and took it upon himself to do the right thing by exposing the crimes and perpetrators. Well, then it might be worth considering what he did as a crime of morality. However, the evidence says that Manning broke the law out of personal grievances against his superiors. The idea that he was serving a higher cause is just an illusion. The same kind of illusion Cheney and Bush used. Haven't we had enough of that already?
" But the fact remains he broke the law."
Did he? Is not the constitution the highest law of the land? He swore an oath to defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic... which he did by uncovering war crimes perpetrated by the government, which are in itself, unconstitutional.
Did the US not execute Nazi soldiers for NOT opposing the Nazi's war crimes and just going along?
Your stance that Manning should be punished for his "crime" only serves to further entrench the police state.
Well of course, if he broke the law. The law being sacrosanct and applied with equal vigilance to all who transgress. And that place is where?
"We're a nation of laws," Obama told me. "He broke the law."
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney broke the law, and so has Obama, who is now as much a war criminal as is Bush.
Just as there was a widespread movement against the Vietnam War among members of the armed forces, so there has been a widespread movement against the Iraq War among the current generation of servicepeople.
One aspect of that has been the women and men who have gone to Canada to seek sanctuary, as thousands did in the Vietnam era. They have met with a different reception -- not from the Canadian people, but from the right wing Stephen Harper Government.
Due to that public support, and to the excellent organizing work of the War Resisters Support Campaign and the fine legal work of some great lawyers, many of those war resisters are still in Canada. You can find out more by visiting www.resisters.ca. Please show your support for these courageous and decent young women and men and their families.
"Quest for justice"? That is quite a contortion of reality Mr Logan. The criminal demanding justice is about as much a farce as can be. You see, he did commit crimes. He's not in confinement because the federal government of the United States has gone completely tyrannical and wholly corrupt.
Group religions are the opiates of the masses. Individual, non-secular spirituality is just part of being human.