Our current campaign t-shirt, which is available for purchase at https://bradleymanning.org/shop

We have entered a new, exciting and crucial phase of the campaign to support Bradley Manning.  Following Bradley’s statement to the court on Feb 28, 2013, his cause is receiving more attention worldwide than ever before.  Bradley courageously provided the public with a detailed account of how he came to be disturbed by evidence of war crimes and corruption in the government documents, and how he released them through the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks:

I believed that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information… it could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan…

While Bradley is swiftly becoming a worldwide symbol of international human rights and the best in American ideals, we want to help his supporters spread his message in every way we can.  We are looking for new t-shirt designs and other graphics which can be reprinted.

At the end of March, we’ll send our favorite t-shirt design submissions to the printer, to print 50 of each, which will be offered for sale on the Bradley Manning Support Network website.  The one(s) that sell the best will become our new campaign t-shirt.  Designs not printed on shirts will still be made available on our website for other activists to download and use on campaign material.  Credit will be given to artists for their designs.

Thank you for supporting Bradley Manning!

We are calling for proposals for video projects which will…  A) promote public awareness about Bradley Manning’s case, B) encourage protests of the court martial on June 1st, C) solicit donations for the Bradley Manning Defense Fund, OR D) any combination of the above.

To submit a proposal, please send a detailed description of your idea, including film length, required budget, and expected time until completion to emma@bradleymanning.org.  Please also submit examples of your prior work.  If your proposal is chosen, we will use our extensive networks to promote funding of your project via crowdfunding website kickstarter, as well as to show the finished project to tens of thousands of people around the world.

Click Here to visit the Brown Paper Tickets event page at
savebradley.brownpapertickets.com

Written and performed by Graham Nash and James Raymond, video by Andrew Thomas.

Almost Gone (The Ballad Of Bradley Manning )
Written by Graham Nash and James Raymond

Locked up in a white room, underneath a glaring light
Every 5 minutes, they’re asking me if I’m alright
Locked up in a white room naked as the day I was born
24 bright light, 24 all alone

What I did was show some truth to the working man
What I did was blow the whistle and the games began

Tell the truth and it will set you free
That’s what they taught me as a child
But I can’t be silent after all I’ve seen and done
24 bright light I’m almost gone, almost gone

Locked up in a white room, dying to communicate
Trying to hang in there underneath a crushing wait
Locked up in a white room I’m always facing time
24 bright light, 24 down the line

What I did was show some truth to the working man
What I did was blow the whistle and the games began

But I did my duty to my country first
That’s what they taught me as a man
But I can’t be silent after all I’ve seen and done
24 bright light I’m almost gone, almost gone
(Treat me like a human, Treat me like a man )

Read more on Nash’s blog – grahamnash.com

…On April 6th 2010 Wikileaks published a video of a massacre of civilians which occurred in New Baghdad, Iraq,  on July 12th, 2007. Two Reuters photographers were killed and the incident was investigated at the request of Reuters and the military dismissed any irregularities, declaring the killing to have been lawful.

As a painter of images of war, four screenshots stood out for me. The first two involve the civilians walking along innocuously unsuspecting while they are seen in the crosshairs of the helicopter gunner video. Contrary to the Army report, these civilians were not shooting at anyone and they were aware of the helicopter’s presence. The dialogue of the pilots is revealing: they suspected these men of being enemies because they were military aged males.

In the second screenshot, the civilians are simply gunned down in a haze of dust and  30MM helicopter bullets. There was so much violence that even the gunner’s video could not display the true violence of their murders:

The numbers on the screen, the white crosshairs and the telemetry box at the bottom of each frame are depersonalizing. The pilots’ comments are sadistically charged as if the human beings they had just killed were beneath contempt. As a Vietnam era person, I can recall how civilians were mowwed down by helicopters in free fire zone mentality to increase ‘daily body counts’ of supposed enemies.

A black van stops and a Good Samaritan gets out to help a wounded man: The Apache helicopter asks for permission to shoot the van saying that they have come to retrieve the wounded and weapons. “Come on!  Let us shoot!” whines the gunner.

There are two children in the van who are wounded when the soldiers shoot everyone down from the helicopter. International Humanitarian Law states that when an enemy is incapacitated, soldiers are not allowed to kill them and are not allowed to kill Good Samaritans who come to assist the wounded.

Iraq had become a free fire zone in 2007 and it is now open season in Afghanistan. The propaganda guys know that they can win the war if they can make it so that you never saw it, you never read about it, no one mentioned it to you, you did not hear about it on TV.

The artist concludes with:

In terms of International Humanitarian Law and the Geneva Convention rulings, there were at least three violations of law in this incident. It is the opinion of Marjorie Cohn, an expert on International Law, that the attack on civilians was the first violation of International law. The second was to kill the wounded and the Good Samaritan, and the third was the desecration of a dead body by running over it with a tank. For more specific information regarding Cohn’s legal opinion, please read her work here:         http://www.marjoriecohn.com/2010/09/bradley-manning-american-hero.html

In the face of dehumanizing and brutal events, art can not only show us the truth but also give us a lens with which to view such events outside of “official channels.”  Bradley Manning Solidarity Weekend (April 9th and 10th) is a time for us to begin to tip the scales.  As artists and organizers we can bring Bradley Manning into public space, and provide a lens for which the public can take a new look at the injustice and hypocrisy of his imprisonment.  Without yet being convicted of a crime, Bradley is already serving the sentences of the war criminals he is blamed of exposing, and of our leaders who lied to put us into war — and whose ongoing complicity in these atrocities and attempts to keep them secret make them accomplices.

By Angelina Llongueras. Originally appeared at The Network of Spiritual Progressives, and read by the author at the Bradley Manning Support Event in San Francisco on 20 March 2011.

An Urgent Poem for Bradley Manning

I

We all saw those images in black and white,
The murdered, unarmed “civilians”,
Walking by,
The children,
That day,
in that street
in Baghdad.

A war where there’s only one army,
not two.
An army against ragged people that used to have an identity,
no more.
A privatized army to “transcend” legal barriers
That might hint at later responsibilities,
Like a well drafted contract
Written by a torture-advocating lawyer,
That will save money to his boss,
Like an agency usurping the place of a union
mediating the misery of the many,
saving money for their boss.

Those black, dirty waters.

But it wasn’t that …

What it was…

We all heard
that absurd dialogue above,
that cold,
indifferent,
vulgar
cruel…
dumb
video game
raging in those helicopters.

That shared
Bored
Detached
Racist
Contemptuous
Nightmare that demanded some “action”
and set in motion
the slaughter.

Those Iraqis,
like hundreds more,
thousands,
perhaps millions…
-They won’t be counted –
Happened to be turned
into targets
to be smashed,
into laying bulks
to be bled on the asphalt…

just a few more
in a numberless sea of bodies.

That speech in the helicopters…
Hadn’t we all heard it for months?
Hadn’t we all been contaminated ?
Didn’t we all live a certain measure
-much too big, against our will-
of the obscure world of the predators?

So effective,
basic,
cheap
a fantasy!

II

Sometimes truth too is like a fairy tale,
Only in brighter colors.

It comes in the shape of a young prince,
Blonde and blue eyed,
Brave, daring, hopeful,
with an innocent smile,
with a healthy manhood,
And eyes that spark
As he sees the lies.

A prince
who playfully
Joyfully
Even naïvely, you could say,
Decides
That those are people that die.

They are not enemies,
Targets,
Collaterals,
Evil
Creatures,
too cheap to worry about
Or mourn,
But people,
Like him,
And you
And I.

Yet this vision
is high treason.
He’s been trained to see otherwise
By the War Lords
That preside
This pillaged earth,
This engineered
realm of desolated poverty,
where an invisible few
Keep us all in isolated slumber
So our fear
Will make them rich.

Bradley Manning, our prince,
Knows the game
He’s put within,
But he trusts
There are ways to regain freedom.

Paths
that when we take
Can give us all a say
In the way
matters are dealt with.

He believes we must all know
What’s at stake
What has been hidden.

He believes we won’t turn our heads away
if we are given this place
Of knowledge.

And like all heroes do,
He knows he’s not alone
In his yearnings

He counts on our courage
And union,

He bets
On our dignity
As people

To act together
For peace,

For an end
To the shameless horror
That cuts lives
And livelihoods,
Families and homes,
Schools and hospitals,
And that shreds

Our own very soul,
In the name of money,
In the name of war.

This is the reason why the prince is in chains

III

This is an urgent poem, Bradley Manning,
And it must reach you,
It must reach the double sided ax,
The sacred space,
The center of the labyrinth,
The place
Where the flame is alive
And it may become
A forest of flames
A mountain afire
A city of light.

It must penetrate thick walls,
And conspiracies of silence
That cry in eloquent loudness
That the empire
Has no prisoners of conscience.

For they all
try to isolate your clarity.
And your clarity is also ours,
It belongs to us all,
we cannot afford to miss it.

This poem, Bradley Manning,
must enter your gut
And infuse it with power,
with every memory of joy
you must use
to retain your sanity,
so it gives you back the certainty,
That you won’t be left alone.

Can they suppress a silent mental song in your cell?

Use it as an invocation.
That it is your chainers,
Not you,
who have been isolated.
That it is them,
Not you,
who have created their damnation.

Your voice has sung too bright a song
Not to be heard
And acted upon.

Yet, you have been wounded for too long
By the five angled arrow
that poisons your hope with impunity,
with the same impunity
that murdered those people in Baghdad
and millions more
and stole the riches of your land
and my land.

The zombie-like bureaucracy of fear,
Clutches you in its claws.
And seeks to punish your will
with the threat of oblivion
with the threat of being turned into an empty shell
of your old joyful self.

Bradley Manning, I say your name
So you may hear me,
So I may also hear your voice
Soon.
It has too long been silenced.

I don’t care if your voice is darkened
By the long confinement,
By pain or pain-killers.
I need to hear it.
I need to see you in the light of day.
I need you to be free
Soon.

For your joy is mine and so is your hope
And they must be returned to you.
Soon.

I cannot live without them.
We cannot live without them.

This is the hour of the wolf.
Just as at dawn
Light rises and expands
Unobtrusively
And fades darkness away
So smoothly
You can hardly notice,
Your hope has risen and expanded
Our lives
And your freedom
Is a global volcano
Fuming.

James Cerveny contacted us early on, as we were getting the Bradley Manning campaign up and running. A man of many talents, he consulted with us on some legal issues as well as contributing articles here and getting letters to the editor published. Now he displays another one of those many talents, in song:

“Free Bradley Manning” by James Cerveny