San Francisco Close Guantanamo Protest, 1/11/12

Bradley Manning’s case comes one step closer to court martial proceedings. The Guardian reports on the Army’s announcement that Colonel Paul Almanza has recommended all 22 charges against Pfc. Bradley Manning be moved to court martial. The final decision however lies now with colonel Carl Coffman, and “a full military trial is almost certain to follow, and is likely to be held within the next three to four months.” The announcement was expected given Investigating Officer Almanza’s biased ties to the Department of Justice who have been working a case against WikiLeaks, but it is still disappointing. A big issue reported is that all the witnesses that would have confirmed that the leaks were harmless, if not beneficial to the U.S., were blocked from testifying on grounds “they were not reasonably available.”. (read more)

“Observers disagree on nearly every philosophical and political point” writes Tiffany Madison, as she dissects different positions and opinions about Bradley Manning’s upcoming court martial proceedings,

“what are the state’s rights to secrecy versus rights of the people to know their government’s actions committed in their name? In times of war, what is the value of an oath versus the moral obligation to act on one’s conscience in the face of atrocities? Can a nation fight against human rights violations while also violating human rights? And if the government wages expensive wars its citizen’s finance and warriors fight, should it be accountable for errors when they are made? If not, who watches the watchers? Answers to these questions reveal a growing political divide along statist and civil libertarian lines.”

Civil libertarians in the military, she writes, understand that Bradley Manning exposed serious war crimes, and that while Manning may have broken his military oath, he did not leak any top secret documents. A bigger issue for them though, is that the prosecution failed to show how the leaked documents were damaging to the United States. They may have been embarrassing, but in no way has the prosecution shown how the release “aided the enemy”. (Read more)

On Wednesday of this week, the Bradley Manning Support Network crew attended a “Close Guantanamo” protest in San Francisco. Bradley Manning is accused of releasing the Guantanamo Files, and thus providing crucial information to help Americans understand the problems with the prison. Here are some photos from the event.

Defense team wants to call denied witnesses to testify, “Earlier today, the defense filed a deposition request with the government. A deposition is the out-of-court testimony of a witness under oath in response to questions by the defense. The defense requested deposition is needed due to these witnesses being improperly denied at the Article 32 hearing.“ The defense considers these key witnesses that would reveal how the leaked documents posed no threat to national security. They had been denied because they were “not reasonably available.” (read more)

We have embedded the original request below,

Finally, here is another article about the billboard Bradley Manning supporters placed in DC, this time from ABC News. 300 supporters from around the world helped to fund this effort, and now it’s getting major media attention.