Bradley Manning, the US soldier who was so tortured by the
clear video evidence of US soldiers committing war crimes in Iraq that he gave
over 700,000 intelligence documents to Wikileaks, the organisation campaigning
for open government and transparency is to be sentenced by a Military Court
tomorrow after his “trial.”
Bradley Manning has in fact been tortured by the US for
months, held without trial in solitary
confinement in a Marine military brig for nearly a year, part of the time
naked, before being finally put on trial in a kangaroo court, where the judge
(a mid-ranking officer surely thinking about the impact her verdict will have
on her promotion prospects) is as much prosecutor as jurist, and where his
guilt was declared in advance by the President of the United States - the same president who has also already publicly
declared Snowden guilty too. (How, incidentally, can a military
"court" render any real justice, when the Judge and Jury are officers
who are beholden to superior officers, up to and including their commander in
chief, and who have to consider how their decisions will affect their careers
in the service?)
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| Julian Assange |
Here is Julian Assange of Wikileaks statement on the 14th
August after Bradley Manning’s statement to his Court Martial.
Response to Today’s Bradley Manning Statement
14 August 2013, 23:50 UTC
Today Bradley Manning reportedly made a statement of remorse
in a sentencing hearing at Fort Meade, Maryland. Manning’s statement comes
towards the end of a court martial trial pursued with unprecedented
prosecutorial zeal.
Since his arrest, Mr. Manning has been an emblem of courage
and endurance in the face of adversity. He has resisted extraordinary pressure.
He has been held in solitary confinement, stripped naked and subjected to
cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment by the United States government. His
constitutional right to a speedy trial has been ignored. He has sat for three
years in pre-trial detention, while the government assembled 141 witnesses and
withheld thousands of documents from his lawyers.
The government has denied him the right to conduct a basic whistle-blower
defense. It overcharged him until he faced over a century in prison and barred
all but a handful of his witnesses. He was denied the right at trial to argue
that no harm was caused by his alleged actions. His defence team was
pre-emptively banned from describing his intent or showing that his actions
harmed no one.
Despite these obstacles, Mr. Manning and his defense team
have fought at every step. Last month, he was eventually convicted of charges
carrying up to 90 years of prison time. The US government admitted that his
actions did not physically harm a single person, and he was acquitted of
"aiding the enemy." His convictions solely relate to his alleged
decision to inform the public of war crimes and systematic injustice.
But Mr. Manning’s options have run out. The only currency
this military court will take is Bradley Manning’s humiliation. In light of
this, Mr. Manning’s forced decision to apologise to the US government in the
hope of shaving a decade or more off his sentence must be regarded with
compassion and understanding.
Mr. Manning’s apology is a statement extorted from him under
the overbearing weight of the United States military justice system. It took
three years and millions of dollars to extract two minutes of tactical remorse
from this brave soldier. Bradley Manning’s apology was extracted by force, but
in a just court the US government would be apologizing to Bradley Manning. As
over 100,000 signatories of his Nobel Peace Prize nomination attest, Bradley
Manning has changed the world for the better. He remains a symbol of courage
and humanitarian resistance.
Mr. Manning’s apology shows that as far as his sentencing is
concerned there are still decades to play for. Public pressure on Bradley
Manning’s military court must intensify in these final days before the
sentencing decision against him is made.
WikiLeaks continues to support Bradley Manning, and will
continue to campaign for his unconditional release.
Free Bradley Manning.
Wikileaks has obtained and decrypted this previously
unreleased video footage from a US Apache helicopter in 2007. It shows Reuters
journalist Namir Noor-Eldeen, driver Saeed Chmagh, and several others as the
Apache shoots and kills them in a public square in Eastern Baghdad. They are
apparently assumed to be insurgents. After the initial shooting, an unarmed
group of adults and children in a minivan arrives on the scene and attempts to
transport the wounded. They are fired upon as well. The official statement on this
incident initially listed all adults as insurgents and claimed the US military
did not know how the deaths occurred. Wikileaks released this video with
transcripts and a package of supporting documents on April 5th 2010 on;
Well, it is clear that Snowden has made the right choice when he escaped the US.
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