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[this is how the USG treats war crimes whistleblowers... kept naked
to prevent his Swartzing... perhaps make lesson that everyone else
will remember... ]<br>
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<div class="category"> <a moz-do-not-send="true"
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<h2>The Judicial Lynching of Bradley Manning</h2>
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<h6 class="date">Posted on Jun 9, 2013</h6>
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<td align="right"><span class="photocredit">AP/Patrick
Semansky</span></td>
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<td><span class="photocaption">
<p>Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is escorted out of a
courthouse at Fort Meade, Md., on Wednesday after the
third day of his court-martial. </p>
</span></td>
</tr>
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</table>
<p>By <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.truthdig.com/chris_hedges/">Chris Hedges</a></p>
<p>FORT MEADE, Md.—The military trial of <a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.bradleymanning.org/">Bradley
Manning</a> is 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 government’s unverified
assertion that he harmed national security. Lead defense
attorney <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Edward_Coombs">David
E. Coombs</a> said during pretrial proceedings that the
judge’s 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 is <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/676419-20120719-ae-221-ruling-government-motion-to.html">what
has happened</a>.</p>
<p>Manning is also barred from presenting to the court his motives
for <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/the_death_of_truth_20130505/">giving
the website</a> WikiLeaks 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. </p>
<p>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. Our <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/07/us/nsa-verizon-calls.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">email
and phone records</a>, 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
prosecuted <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/27/business/media/white-house-uses-espionage-act-to-pursue-leak-cases-media-equation.html">under
the Espionage Act</a>. Whistle-blowers have no privacy and no
legal protection. This is why Edward Snowden—a 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 Council’s top-secret program to collect Americans’
cellphone metadata, e-mail and other personal data—has 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.</p>
<table class="instorybar" border="0" cellpadding="0"
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<td>
<p><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/the_death_of_truth_20130505/"
title="Read Chris Hedges' Dig about Julian Assange,
WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning here">Read Chris Hedges’
Dig about Julian Assange, WikiLeaks and Bradley
Manning here</a>.</p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Coombs opened the trial last week by pleading with the judge, <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.law.gwu.edu/Faculty/profile.aspx?id=20526">Army
Col. Denise Lind</a>, for leniency based on Manning’s youth
and sincerity. Coombs is permitted by Lind to present only
circumstantial evidence concerning Manning’s 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.
Manning’s most impassioned pleas for freedom of information,
especially regarding email exchanges with the confidential
government informant <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/174650/bradley-mannings-informant-adrian-lamo">Adrian
Lamo</a>, as well as his right under international law to defy
military orders in exposing war crimes, are barred as evidence.<iframe
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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 the <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.collateralmurder.com/">“Collateral Murder”
video</a> and their commanders and exonerate Manning. But this
is an argument we will not be allowed to hear in the Manning
trial.
<p>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
orders—charges that can bring with them 149 years plus life. </p>
<p>“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 didn’t 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.</p>
<p>“He knew that David Finkel, an author, had written a book
called ‘The Good Soldiers,’ and when he read through David
Finkel’s account and he talked about this incident that’s
depicted in the video, he saw that David Finkel’s 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.”<br>
</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“He wasn’t selecting information because it was wanted by
WikiLeaks,” Coombs concluded. “He wasn’t 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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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. </p>
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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
professor <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.tjsl.edu/directory/marjorie-cohn">Marjorie Cohn</a>
has 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.
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><i>Read Chris Hedges’ Dig about Julian Assange, WikiLeaks and
Bradley Manning <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/the_death_of_truth_20130505/"
title="here">here</a>.</i></p>
<p><i>Trial transcripts used for this report came from the
nonprofit <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/">Freedom of the
Press Foundation</a>, 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 O’Brien.</i></p>
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