Update 2/6/12: Trial announcement, Nobel Peace Prize nomination, Chomsky interview, WL reveals oppression of indigenous peoples
Last Friday General Linnington announced that all of PFC Bradley Manning’s charges would be referred to court martial. Bradley’s trial is expected to take place sometime in the next 120 days.
“This administration owes all Americans an honest explanation for their extraordinary retaliation against Bradley Manning,” said Jeff Paterson, a lead organizer of the Bradley Manning Support Network.
You can read the rest of our statement here.
February 1st 2012 the entire parliamentary group of The Movement of the Icelandic Parliament nominated Private Bradley Manning for the Nobel Peace Prize. We have reposted the text of their nomination as presented by MP Birgitta Jónsdóttir on our site here. Here is a video of Birgitta explaining the nomination:
Also on Saturday, P.J. Crowley tweeted about Bradley’s case. P.J. Crowley is the State Department Spokesperson who had to resign after calling Bradley Manning’s 8 months of solitary confinement at Quantico, VA “ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid.” He had this to say about the referral of all of Bradley’s charges to court martial:
While P.J. Crowley is not 100% a Bradley Manning supoprter, it’s telling that someone with significant insider knowledge and some remaining loyalty to the Obama Administration must concede with the Bradley Manning Support Network’s point that the “Aiding the enemy” charge is completely unfounded.
Public intellectual Noam Chomsky was interviewed last week about his support for WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning. Watch the interview below:
CHOMSKY on WIKILEAKS from CaTV on Vimeo.
Rock-n-roll hall of famer Graham Nash released a song a couple of months ago commemorating Bradley Manning and his mistreatment at Quantico, VA. The song, “Almost Gone,” is now available for listen online in an audio-only format: Almost Gone -Graham Nash
A blog dedicated to Indigenous People’s and Human Rights, Censored News, learned a lot from WikiLeaks. The authors posted a thorough list at the end of December, 2011 describing how the WikiLeaked cables attributed to PFC Bradley Manning have revealed that the U.S. State Department has on multiple occasions in recent years secretly worked to undermine advocacy efforts of indigenous rights groups. For example:
The United States worked behind the scenes to fight the adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In Ecuador, the US established a program to dissuade Ecuador from supporting the Declaration. In Iceland, the US Embassy said Iceland’s support was an “impediment” to US/Iceland relations at the UN. In Canada, the US said the US and Canada agreed the Declaration was headed for a “train wreck.”
You can read more here.
On February 4th, activists in Munich, Germany rallied in support of PFC Manning. In attendance as speakers were Malalai Joya of Afghanistan, GI resister André Shepherd, and Gerry Condon of Veterans For Peace.
Photo from the rally in Munich.
A supporter created the image below based on an article we published last week entitled Punishing the messenger while murderers go free.
I believe he is very innocent…he did something which in his view was for the benefit of the world and indee it has helped a great deal of people even the down-trodden. he deserves an award not crucifixion! a lot of us in Ghana support his release…
Great job on this page. Nice to see this type of centralization of info.
I believe that no man should march in another land with arms at hand. Protect your home fiercely, but no more. Those who go fight on foreign soil are doing more harm than good..
This is similar to the story when the US police were attacking civilians who were videotaping them. An officers worst enemy is a video camera in the hand of a citizen recording just how exactly the police “serve and protect” them.
More and more footage got out of bad bad cops, more people read their rights, and eventually things got better. If more people expose things co-corporations and governments are hiding, they should cease all illegal inhumane actions. I agree that some actions are effective and prevent problems and conflict.. But if you do them, you abuse your power and resources at hand simply to achieve your goals more swiftly. If you resist the temptation, you keep your humanity and get the job done anyway, just with a tad more effort.
What he did was great. Even america should be held accountable for their war crimes but at the same time he did violate UCMJ and thats where his main issue is. Soldiers pretty much give up all rights when they join so if he was a civilian and did this it would flat out be an amazing thing but since hes a soldier its more complicated.
The US military should be charged for high treason against humanity when it committed such atrocities as that having been revealed by Manning and submitted to the general public by Julian Assange and Wikileaks! I do believe that if Olof Palme would have lived today he would perhaps not have been afraid of ranking the atrocious act so committed by the US military in the same category as we know from the nazis during WW2! So, not freeing Manning should be condemned by the whole wrightthinking world!
Let us consider suing the U.S government and military for inhumane and unlawful actions against Bradley Manning. Instead of being passive, truth-seeking activists should be active and work against U.S imperialism and nationalism, and therefore restore world peace.
Bradley Manning is an American hero. He exposed many lies and atrocities our government hides and deceives us with. The US needs more whistleblowers like Bradley Manning. He stood up to evil. Like Roosevelt said All we have to fear is fear itself. Unfortunately, our government is way worse than it was back then. God Bless you Bradley Manning and all you stand for. You are in my prayers every night. You will have a high place in heaven.
Bradley Manning is a patriot and a hero…with more balls than I ever had.
-A Patriot -USN/USMC First Marine Division, I-Corps, Vietnam, 1967-68, Hue City Jan 31, 1968 and Feb 1968.
If we, the citizens of the USA are who we say we are, we will press for justice. Why murderous/sinful behaviors are not severely punished but whistle-blowing AKA truth telling is severely punished – if we remain silent about these things – then WE ARE WHO WE PUPORT TO BE and SHAME ON US!!!
I errored!!! Please re-consider my comment as follows: If we, the citizens of the USA are who we say we are, we will press for justice. Why murderous/sinful behaviors by our military are not severely punished but whistle blowing AKA truth telling by our military IS severely punished – if we remain silent about these things – then WE ARE NOT WHO WE SAY WE ARE and SHAME ON US!!!!
He violated UMCJ, countless army regulations, policy letters and security protocol and regardless of his motives, that is what he is charged with and that is what he is guilty of. That is how the military justice system works – it is not a civilian court. He is lucky they are not trying to attach a death penalty because under UMCJ (in times of war) he is eligible for it and it would stick under court martial. I wish him good luck though.