Democracy Now! considers the Bradley Manning trial in the context of attempts to intimidate and punish government whistle blowers. That the world general reading public that can now see low-level cable traffic is depicted by government lawyers as the nefarious ‘enemy’ is a sign of this mindset.
blurb:
“The military trial of Army whistleblower Bradley Manning at Fort Meade, Maryland, began Monday with the defense and prosecution presenting starkly contrasting accounts. Manning is accused of giving a cache of diplomatic cables and government documents to WikiLeaks in the largest leak of state secrets in U.S. history. The military prosecutor, Captain Joe Morrow, accused Manning of “dumping” hundreds of thousands of documents “into the lap of the enemy,” and painted a picture of close ties between Manning and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Manning’s defense lawyer, David Coombs, said Manning wanted to reveal the human cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. “He believed [the leaked] information showed how we value human life,” Coombs said. “He was troubled by that. He believed that if the American public saw it, they too would be troubled.” We’re joined by Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a lawyer to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. Ratner attended the opening session of Manning’s trial.”
For liveblogging of the trial, see the always excellent and indispensable Firedoglake
Bradley Manning deserves the support of all democrats and progressives: he is a naïve but well-intentioned person who, perhaps, should have thougt harder about the effects of the material he dumped.
Assange, on the other hand, is a cynical, preening psychopath who has repeatedly stated that he thinks anti-Taliban people in Afghanistan who worked with the allies, deserve all they get from the Taliban.
Support Bradley Manning, but ensure that Assange stays exactly where he is now…for ever.
It seems that the model of Israel and Vanunu is the model for Pvt Manning–everyone knows that Israel has nuclear and chemical weapons, but will not admit to it–everyone knew that there were war crimes and attrocities in Iraq but did not have to admit to knowing of it until Bradley Manning released the WikiLeaks cables. A now dead Congressman, George Brown of California, found that once he was on the intelligence committee that the inteligence agencies knew little more than the NY Times reported–“knowlege”and ths source of “knowlege”was more important the intelligance itself. Manning has destroyed the deniability about Iraq.