Icelandic Parliamentarians Nominate Bradley Manning for Nobel Peace Prize
Last year, as you may remember, PFC Bradley Manning won the UK Guardian reader’s choice poll regarding who should win the Nobel Peace Prize by a significant margin. This year, he has been re-nominated for the prestigious award by The Movement of the Icelandic Parliament. The following article was originally posted on the blog of Icelandic MP member Birgitta Jónsdóttir.
February 1st 2012 the entire parliamentary group of The Movement of the Icelandic Parliament nominated Private Bradley Manning for the Nobel Peace Prize. Following is the reasoning we sent to the committee explaining why we felt compelled to nominate Private Bradley Manning for this important recognition of an individual effort to have an impact for peace in our world.
Our letter to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee:
We have the great honor of nominating Private First Class Bradley Manning for the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize. Manning is a soldier in the United States army who stands accused of releasing hundreds of thousands of documents to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. The leaked documents pointed to a long history of corruption, war crimes, and imperialism by the United States government in international dealings. These revelations have fueled democratic uprising around the world, including a democratic revolution in Tunisia. According to journalists, his alleged actions helped motivate the democratic Arab Spring movements, shed light on secret corporate influence on our foreign policies, and most recently contributed to the Obama Administration agreeing to withdraw all U.S.troops from the occupation in Iraq.
Bradley Manning has been incarcerated for well over a year by the U.S. government without a trial. He spent over ten months of that time period in solitary confinement, conditions which experts worldwide have criticized as torturous. Juan Mendez, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Torture and Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment, has repeatedly requested and been denied a private meeting with Manning to assess his conditions.
The documents made public by WikiLeaks should never have been kept from public scrutiny. The revelations – including video documentation of an incident in which American soldiers gunned down Reuters journalists in Iraq – have helped to fuel a worldwide discussion about America’s overseas engagements, civilian casualties of war, imperialistic manipulations, and rules of engagement. Citizens worldwide owe a great debt to the WikiLeaks whistleblower for shedding light on these issues, and so I urge the Committee to award this prestigious prize to accused whistleblower Bradley Manning.
Sincerely,
Birgitta Jónsdóttir
Margrét Tryggvadóttir
Þór Saari
Members of the Icelandic Parliament for The Movement
I encourage everyone to contact the Nobel Peace Prize Committee with messages of support for the Bradley Manning nomination.
The general e-mail address is: [email protected]
More ways to contact the Nobel Peace Prize Committee can be found on their contact page:
http://bit.ly/UxgWO
Here is the e-mail I sent to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee:
………………
Dear Nobel Committee,
As an American citizen, I am writing to you to strongly support the nomination of Bradley Manning, the alleged Wikileaks leaker, for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Mr. Manning is not a criminal, as my government spuriously alleges. He is a prisoner of conscience. He has been psychologically tortured for his courageous actions, and threatened with life imprisonment and even execution.
The release of the “Collateral Murder” video helped to call attention to American war crimes in Iraq. Cablegate documents helped to unleash the Arab Spring, one of the greatest freedom movements in world history. These documents also brought much-needed transparency to U.S. government actions and called attention to the problem of over-classification of documents.
The chat logs compiled by Adrian Lamo show that Mr. Manning acted out of conscience, not to help any particular “enemy.”
Finally, I am not one of those people who criticized you for giving the Peace Prize to President Obama, even though I’m sure we can both agree he has been unworthy of it. You obviously hoped you could pre-emptively shame him into being a responsible world statesman, and it’s not your fault that he has chosen instead to be a servile hireling of the U.S. military-industrial complex. Awarding the peace prize to Mr. Manning, however, would atone for your well-intentioned mistake. Those are my thoughts, and I appreciate your taking the time to hear me out.
………………
So let them have a piece of your mind. And remember:
if the Nobel Peace Prize is good enough for Barack Obama, it’s good enough for Bradley Manning!
Hi,
I strongly support nomination of Bradley Manning for the Nobel Peace Prize. Maybe it will be useful to launch support campaign in social networks, like FB, etc, organising special groups or communities. Although I don’t have personal account on FB (’cause I’m not a big fan of social networks), the reality is that this kind of media is very popular. That’s why I’m ready to tell all my friends who have FB accounts about this initiative.
Moreover, it would be great to begin collecting signatures of people – on http://bradleymanning.org or maybe on a new website dedicated especially to Bradley’s Nobel nomination – and my signature will be among others.
Best,
Yevgeni Hvostik (Moscow, RF)
Bravo Iceland – a small isolated island somehow immune to global corruption of USA military way of hate, greed and shortcomings.
Not entirely immune.
The collapse of our largest three banks in 2008 was due to the desire of a handful of greedy individuals to live like the Chicago mafia.
This was my email to the Nobel Committee:
Dear Nobel Committee;
If we are ever to create peace on the planet, it will be because of people like Bradley Manning who have the courage to stand up to destructive forces wherever they find them. An individual counts even though great powers do not think so. Bradley Manning is the perfect choice for such an honour and holds up a high standard to the whole world to let destructive forces know that we won’t be silent any longer.
Thank you
Bravo!!! Iceland and Manning deserve this price!!!
Yes, it is an embarassment for Obama to have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize! I feel so proud to see the award being assigned to Bradley Manning. What a wonderful bit of information! Bravo! Bravo! This award will have been WELL DESERVED!
It Certainly Can do No Harm ,Bradley Manning will need every thing he can get to Have any chance against the Military Attitude that there out to get him regardless of anything resembling Justice .
As I believe and have stated the Military Immaturity in there form of justice to there own Soldiers Airmen and Sailors is a far from anything resemblingg fair and impartial Justice. It is and alwayse has been a Good Old Boys Club of Officers handing out there Verdict ..
I think Bradley Manning is a hero. Who would have that courage?
And the US needs to be held accountable for its imperialism.
I am from the US and am tired of the industrial military complex that rules this
country.
My letter of support for the nomination and awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Bradley Manning:
Dear People,
I strongly support Bradley Manning’s nomination and indisputable merit for the Nobel Peace Prize 2012. In addition I would also propose that this prize be shared evenly with Julian Assange for his part in disseminating the information relevant to the war crimes thereby disclosed.
If we are to pursue a path toward democracy then we need full transparency of what actions our governments are pursuing nationally and internationally.
To my mind, awarding this Peace Prize to the above would demonstrate considerably more thought and vision than a past award to President Obama.
Exactly what did he, Obama, do to earn such a coveted and internationally acclaimed award? Nothing comes to mind, whereas Bradley Manning’s devotion and vision to a quality of truth and justice for a better and more harmonious future is clear.
thank you,
Nomination and actually Receiving the Award is Far apart I’m afraid , My Friend I had the pleasure of Meeting once Pete Seeger was nominated , He was So very much deserving of it in his lifelong quest for Peace and equality in his Music , But heaven forbid He receive the Prize which was eventually awarded to A Politician ..How appropriate a Politician with Blood on his hands would Overrule a Man so dedicated to Peace .
So Bradley Manning has the chance of an Ice Cube in Hell on a cool day I’mm afraid , Be it as it may It is an Honor to be Nominated and receiving the recognitionn , He well Deserves ,
I am positive it will not Phase the Narrowow Minded Military Officers So set in there ways to please there superiors ..Too Bad is it Not??
Can we take back the medal accidently given to Obama and give it to a deserving person, Bradley Manning?
Dear Nobel Peace Prize Committee:
Some months ago, I wrote to the Nobel Committee to see if I could recommend Pvt. Bradley Manning to be a recipient of the Peace Prize. My reasons for attempting to nominate Pvt. Manning included the significant personal risk he knowingly and willingly accepted in order to force transparency on potential war crimes and highly questionable government policies and practices. The “Collateral Murder” video had the effect of broadening the worldwide conversation about the military occupation of Iraq by the United States. It also had the direct impact of bringing the war to an earlier end then was intended by the U.S. government. Additionally, by confirming the depth of corruption of various Middle East dictators it helped to spark the Arab Spring which has been the impetus for several peaceful democratic uprisings across the region.
It was explained in your return email that nominations needed to come from governments, known organizations or prestigious persons. In any case, I read online today a rumor that a nomination for Pvt. Manning was put forth by a group acceptable to the committee. I hope it’s true and I want to voice my strong support for this nomination and furthermore for the awarding of the Prize. Manning’s continuing detention demonstrates the grave risk that he took which unfortunately has come to pass. The cause of peace has been greatly furthered by his actions. I respectfully ask that Pvt. Bradley Manning be seriously considered for the Nobel Peace Prize. Thank you for your time and attention.
The prestige of the Nobel Prize was somewhat tarnished with the awarding of the Peace Prize to a War Hawk like Barack Obama.
It is refreshing that the Icelandic Parliament has voted to nominate Bradley Manning for the peace prize. Bradley is one who is much more worthy of the honor than Obama. He put his job, safety, and even his life on the line for the sake of truth and justice. His courageous actions have cost him dearly. His revaluations have helped to spark peaceful revolutions against fascism around the world, helped end the Was in Iraq, and influenced good progressive change in the United States and the World. Truth is a powerful weapon to end Wars.
I’m sure at this point the Nobel Prize People would like to ask Obama to return the award, but they just can’t do that. What better way to restore the good image of the Nobel Prize than giving it to Bradley Manning, a man who is truly deserving of it.
Note FireDogLake have a petition to the committee urging them to consider Bradley for this prize, you can sign it here http://action.firedoglake.com/page/s/manning-nobel?source=twitter
please sign it and send it to your friends, he deserves millions of signatures.
Birgitta Jónsdóttir will be Skyping into the Occupy the Truth Whistleblowers Conference on February 17th.
http://www.freshjuiceparty.com/occupy-the-truth-whistleblower-conference-feb-17-to-19/
Dear Nobel commitee!
I AM CONVINCED, that Pvt. Bradley Manning should get a Nobel Peace Prize of 2012. And I am ashamed that government of my motherland Estonia did not propose him shortly afterwards as the parliament of small Iceland did. The recent situation of Pvt. Bradley Manning resembles me the situation of tens of thousands of estonians, who were tortured in the prisons at the time of Soviet occupation. And, more over, also the monstrous soviet regime had such obedient judges, who did all to castigate innocent men and women, especially those who stood for truth and transparency of the government. As did Pvt. Bradley Manning. We all are in dept to him, that the wars in Iraq and Afganistan would end sooner.
With thanks for reading my appeal, Juhan Lichfeld,
Tartu, Estonia, Europa
Hi Juhan,
Nice letter to the Nobel Committee. If you want, you could encourage your country to join Iceland in nominating Pvt. Manning. If enough countries recommend him, it will help make it happen.
Peace,
David
i want bradley manning to recieve the nobel peace prize. i am greatfull to him for the light he has shed on americas excessive military exploits with their illegal. and the transparency that his revolations bring to a secreative military industrial complex are absolutly nessiceary to any examination of weather war is justifyable or not
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To the extent that we are supporting anti-militarism, encouraging support for Bradley Manning makes sense. Please spread around these links:
– http://tinyurl.com/ManningForPeacePrize2012 — going here:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Click-Like-to-vote-Bradley-Manning-the-2012-Nobel-Peace-Prize/293192687415280?sk=wall
For Facebook readers, clicking “Like” for the page will add up.
This is a new page.
The Peace Prize is not decided by any public vote. But still, getting up a big total for this kid has to help his morale. He deserves our support.
Please, please copy a link to your own page.