The prosecution of the whistleblower and alleged WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning is an exercise in intimidation, not justice
by Glenn Greenwald
After 17 months of pre-trial imprisonment, Bradley Manning, the 23-year-old US army private and accused WikiLeaks source, is finally going to see the inside of a courtroom. This Friday, on an army base in Maryland, the preliminary stage of his military trial will start.

He is accused of leaking to the whistleblowing site hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables, war reports, and the now infamous 2007 video showing a US Apache helicopter in Baghdad gunning down civilians and a Reuters journalist. Though it is Manning who is nominally on trial, these proceedings reveal the US government's fixation with extreme secrecy, covering up its own crimes, and intimidating future whistleblowers.
photo: mar is sea Y
Since his arrest last May in Iraq, Manning has been treated as one of America's most dastardly traitors. He faces more than 30 charges, including one – "aiding the enemy" – that carries the death penalty (prosecutors will recommend life in prison, but military judges retain discretion to sentence him to die).

The sadistic conditions to which he was subjected for 10 months – intense solitary confinement, at one point having his clothing seized and being forced to stand nude for inspection – became an international scandal for a US president who flamboyantly vowed to end detainee abuse. Amnesty International condemned these conditions as "inhumane"; PJ Crowley, a US state department spokesman, was forced to resign after denouncing Manning's treatment. Such conduct has been repeatedly cited by the US as human rights violations when engaged in by other countries.

The UN's special rapporteur on torture has complained that his investigation is being obstructed by the refusal of Obama officials to permit unmonitored visits with Manning. (Even the Bush administration granted access to the International Red Cross at Guantánamo.) Such treatment is all the more remarkable in light of what Manning actually did, and did not do, if the charges are true. For these leaks have achieved enormous good and little harm.

From the start, US claims about the damage done have been wildly exaggerated, even outright false. After the release of the Afghanistan war logs, officials accused WikiLeaks of having "blood on their hands", only to admit weeks later that they were unaware of a single case of anyone being harmed. That remains true today.

Even Robert Gates, the Pentagon chief, mocked alarmism over the diplomatic cables leak as "significantly overwrought", dismissing its impact as "fairly modest". Manning's lawyer is seeking internal government documents that, he insists, concluded there was no meaningful harm to US diplomatic relations from the release of any documents. None of the leaked documents were classified at the highest level of secrecy – top secret – but rather bore only low-level classification.

By contrast, the leaks Manning allegedly engineered have generated enormous benefits: precisely the benefits Manning, if the allegations against him are true, sought to achieve. According to chat logs purportedly between Manning and the informant who turned him in, the private decided to leak these documents after he became disillusioned with the Iraq war. He described how reading classified documents made him, for the first time, aware of the breadth of the corruption and violence committed by his country and allies.

He explained that he wanted the world to know what he had learned: "I want people to see the truth … regardless of who they are … because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public." When asked by the informant why he did not sell the documents to a foreign government for profit, Manning replied that he wanted the information to be publicly known in order to trigger "worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms".

There can be no doubt that these vital goals have been achieved. When WikiLeaks was awarded Australia's most prestigious journalism award last month, the awarding foundation described how these disclosures created "more scoops in a year than most journalists could imagine in a lifetime".

By exposing some of the worst atrocities committed by US forces in Iraq, the documents prevented the Iraqi government from agreeing to ongoing legal immunity for US forces, and thus helped bring about the end of the war. Even Bill Keller, the former New York Times executive editor and a harsh WikiLeaks critic, credits the release of the cables with shedding light on the corruption of Tunisia's ruling family and thus helping spark the Arab spring.

In sum, the documentsManning is alleged to have released revealed overwhelming deceit, corruption and illegality by the world's most powerful political actors. And this is why he has been so harshly treated and punished.

Despite pledging to usher in "the most transparent administration in history", President Obama has been obsessed with prosecuting whistleblowers; his justice department has prosecuted more of them for "espionage" than all prior administrations combined.

The oppressive treatment of Manning is designed to create a climate of fear, to send a signal to those who in the future discover serious wrongdoing committed in secret by the US: if you're thinking about exposing what you've learned, look at what we did to Manning and think twice. The real crimes exposed by this episode are those committed by the prosecuting parties, not the accused. For what he is alleged to have given the world, Manning deserves gratitude and a medal, not a life in prison.

© Guardian News and Media Limited 2011
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/12/15-1

It is becoming a trend to punish the whistleblowers, and often they receive more punishment than the actual offenders of the charges.

Such is the case also of the guy who broke the UBS banking scandle that led to the prosecution of 1900+ tax defrauders and recovered over $20B in fines for the US Treasury.... he is the only one who received ANY jail time and is still in prison while all the "offenders" walk free.

It makes you wonder if it is not to set an example to make people be silent to such offenses and keep the rich safe to continue "business as usual".

He deserves to be executed but I will settle for life in a Maximum Security Brig.

yep,nailed to his Chest with a six inch nail!

Or a 9mm led medal

you want it to be visible!

The only way I think he should be given some lienency is if he gives up Assange on a silver platter. That is the only reason the death penalty should be taken off the table.

Why would you be afraid of someone who tells the truth?

It wasn't his to tell in the first Place!
Second,the Swine took an Oath,but that doesn't seem to be important any longer these day and age!
Actually I'd lengthen that Nail to Twelve Inches!

His oath was to the military, he broke it....It's not about transparency.....Deny your country in support of Manning?...Even the slime ball who rated him out had a conscious....

what truth?
there is a reason why certain Communications aren't accessible to the Public,but that seems to escape most people!
And Manning broke his Oath!
Thought you served and were familiar with it,as well as the consequences!

Only cowards and liers are afraid of the truth.
He also took an oath against enemies both foreign and domestic.

Those he rated out are the enemies and liers and fraudsters that commited this country to criminal wars with the intent to rob our treasury.

I'm talking about the scumbag HACKER Adrian Lamo who blew whistle on Manning!

I think you had better look at the Material again that Little Swine turned over to Louse,knowing full well what would happen!
Hope they nail the Things he ain't got to the wall!

Just think, after they put Manning away for life going to take on Mr. Assange, once Sweden get done with him that is..

Guess he was saving his own skin,no honor among Thieves,you know!

Yep, when the chips are down they turn on a dime...

they'll scramble who will be the first to sing Opera!
Mainly in the Buffoon-Role!

He should be given a medal. He did what was needed to be done. He said he weighed the options and the informaiton Manning was sending him put a LOT of lives at risk and he didn't want that on his concious.

Manning also knew what he was doing was a crime and could be executed because if it and he even joked about it! Moron

They also had to move up the Bin Laden raid because they feared that may have been compromised because of this moron.