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Activist Daniel Ellsberg weighs in on the importance of WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning’s case - Countdown with Keith Olbermann

12-16-11 4 - Manning's Day In Court, with Daniel Ellsberg - Countdown with Keith Olbermann

Ellsberg accuses the U.S. government and U.S. military of gross misconduct in the indefinite detention, torture, and pre-trial condemnation of a U.S. soldier, who acted out of good conscience as a whistleblower concerned about fascistic practices in the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

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Comment by Tony Nuspl on December 26, 2011 at 12:13pm

America’s Debt to Bradley Manning

December 24, 2011

By Robert Parry

The cables and videos allegedly leaked by Pvt. Bradley Manning offer the American people gritty “ground truth” about what the U.S. government has done in their names, such as the slaughter in Iraq.

An example of how the material allegedly leaked by Manning helped educate the American people was the infamous gun-barrel video of U.S. attack helicopters mowing down seemingly defenseless Iraqi men, including two Reuters journalists, as they walked down a Baghdad street.

Not only did a U.S. military helicopter gunship slaughter the men amid macho jokes and chuckling – apparently after mistaking a couple of cameras for weapons – but the American attackers then blew away several Iraqis who arrived in a van and tried to take one of the wounded newsmen to a hospital. Two children in the van were badly wounded.

“Well, it’s their fault for bringing their kids into a battle,” one American remarked.

The videotaped incident – entitled “Collateral Murder” by Wikileaks – occurred on July 12, 2007, in the midst of President George W. Bush’s much-heralded troop “surge,” which the U.S. news media has widely credited for reducing violence in Iraq and bringing something close to victory for the United States.

But the U.S. press corps rarely mentions that the “surge” represented one of the bloodiest periods of the war. Beyond the horrific – and untallied – death toll of Iraqis, about 1,000 U.S. soldiers died during Bush’s “surge” of an additional 30,000 troops into Iraq.

It’s also unclear that the “surge” deserves much if any credit for the gradual decline in Iraqi violence, which had already reached turning points in 2006 – before the “surge” – with the death of al-Qaeda leader Musab al-Zarqawi, the U.S.-funded Sunni Awakening against al-Qaeda in Iraq, and the de facto ethnic cleansing of Iraqi cities with Sunnis and Shiites moving into separate neighborhoods.

Further putting the sectarian killing on a downward path was the Iran-brokered agreement with militant Shiite leader Moktada al-Sadr to have his militia stand down in exchange for an Iraqi government commitment to insist on a firm timetable for total U.S. military withdrawal, a process that has just been completed.

However, the U.S. news media continues to repeat the conventional wisdom about how U.S. troops protected Iraqis from violence through the “successful surge.” The “Collateral Murder” video puts the lie to that smug consensus, showing the “ground truth” of how the “surge” – and indeed the entire Iraq War – truly operated.

Many Americans may want to put the unpleasant memories of the Iraq War behind them – from “shock and awe” and the illegal invasion, to the leveling of Fallujah and the Abu Ghraib atrocities, to the incompetent U.S. occupation, the Haditha murders and the sectarian slaughters – but a failure to face the reality honestly will only encourage future war crimes of similar or even greater magnitude.

http://consortiumnews.com/2011/12/24/americas-debt-to-bradley-manning/

Comment by Tony Nuspl on December 19, 2011 at 2:47pm
Hundreds Rally in Support of Accused WikiLeaks Source

by Charles Davis, December 19, 2011

“Bradley shouldn’t be doing time for the Pentagon’s war crimes,” chanted approximately 300 supporters outside the gates of Maryland’s Fort Meade, home of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), as dozens of police and a helicopter circling above looked on.

The rally, one of 50 taking place across the world, coincided with Manning’s 24th birthday and the second day of court hearings aimed at determining whether evidence against him is sufficient to proceed to trial.

A U.S. Army intelligence analyst, Manning was arrested in May 2010 by U.S. military police in Iraq when a government informant reported him.

Manning is accused of leaking video evidence of a 2007 massacre outside Baghdad in which at least 18 people, including two Reuters journalists, were killed by U.S. troops in what many consider a war crime.

“He did the right thing,” said Michael Patterson, a 21-year-old Alaska native and veteran of the Iraq war. A former U.S. Army interrogator, Patterson credits Manning — and the “Collateral Murder” video of the 2007 massacre in Baghdad in particular — with finally turning him against a war he once supported.

Rather than making him a traitor, he said, Manning’s actions demonstrated his commitment to upholding a “soldier’s honor.”

Manning knew his commanders would be unwilling to act on the evidence of war crimes he witnessed, said Patterson. “So he went outside the influence of the government and gave it to an entity that was for the public good."

Manning explained that he was motivated by a desire to inform the American people about what was being carried out in their name.

“If you had free rein over classified networks … and you saw incredible things, awful things … what would you do?” Manning reportedly asked.

“I want people to see the truth, because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public,” he wrote.

http://original.antiwar.com/charles-davis-ips/2011/12/18/hundreds-r...

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