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<h2><font size=4><b>Tomgram: Chase Madar, The Trials of Bradley Manning,
A Defense<br><br>
</b></font></h2><h5><b>By Chase Madar<br>
Posted on February 10, 2011, Printed on February 10, 2011<br>
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175352/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175352/</a> </b></h5><font size=3>The
Obama administration came into office proclaiming
<a href="http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/news/20090121/index.htm">
"sunshine" policies</a>. When some of the U.S.
government's dirty laundry was laid out in the bright light of day by
WikiLeaks, however, its officials responded in a knee-jerk, punitive
manner in the case of Bradley Manning, now in
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/05/wikileaks-bradley-manning-punitive">
extreme isolation</a> in a Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia. The
urge of the Obama administration and the U.S. military to
<a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/14/manning/index.html">
break his will</a>, to
<a href="http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2011/01/25/quantico-brig-commander-continues-to-abuse-his-authority-and-defy-medical-experts-in-bradley-manning-detention/">
crush him</a>, is unsettling, to say the least. Whatever happens to
Julian Assange or WikiLeaks, Washington is clearly
<a href="http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2011/01/31/bradley-manning-punitive-psychiatric-status-remains-but-hopeful-about-youth-uprising-in-tunisia-and-egypt/">
intent on </a>destroying this young Army private and then putting him
away until hell freezes over.<br><br>
It should not be this way.<br><br>
Today, thanks to lawyer and essayist Chase Madar, TomDispatch is making a
long-planned gesture towards Manning, whose acts, aimed at revealing the
worst this country had to offer in recent years, will someday make him a
genuine American hero -- but that’s undoubtedly little consolation to him
now. When it comes to America’s recent wars, its torture regimes,
<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/13/070813fa_fact_mayer">
black sites</a>, and
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/7789/tom_engelhardt_the_CIA%27s_la_dolce_vita_war_on_terror">
extraordinary renditions</a>, as well as the
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174954/tomgram%3A__collateral_ceremonial_damage/">
death</a> and destruction
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175120/tom_engelhardt_war_of_the_worlds">
visited on</a> distant lands, blood
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175282/tom_engelhardt_out_damned_spot">
is on</a> many official American hands, but <i>not</i> on
Manning’s. Those officials should be held accountable, not
him.<br><br>
With that in mind, TomDispatch offers its version of the defense of
Bradley Manning. (To catch Timothy MacBain’s latest TomCast video
interview in which Chase Madar explores Manning’s case and his defense,
click
<a href="http://tomdispatch.blogspot.com/2011/02/in-defense-of-pfc-manning.html">
here</a>, or download it to your iPod
<a href="http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=j0SS4Al/iVI&subid=&offerid=146261.1&type=10&tmpid=5573&RD_PARM1=http%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Fpodcast%2Ftomcast-from-tomdispatch-com%2Fid357095817">
here</a>.)<i> Tom<br><br>
</i></font>
<dl>
<dd>Why Bradley Manning Is a Patriot, Not a Criminal <br>
<dd>An Opening Statement for the Defense of Private Manning</b> <br>
<dd>By <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/authors/chasemadar">Chase
Madar</a><br><br>
<dd>Bradley Manning, a 23-year-old from Crescent, Oklahoma, enlisted in
the U.S. military in 2007 to give something back to his country and, he
hoped, the world.<br><br>
<dd>For the past seven months, Army Private First Class Manning has been
held in solitary confinement in the Marine Corps brig in Quantico,
Virginia.
<a href="http://realcostofprisons.org/blog/archives/2010/01/new_site_solita.html">
Twenty-five thousand</a> other Americans are also in prolonged solitary
confinement, but the conditions of Manning’s pre-trial detention have
been
<a href="http://www.armycourtmartialdefense.info/2011/01/pfc-bradley-manning-is-not-being.html">
sufficiently brutal</a> for the United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on
Torture to
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/23/un-treatment-leaks-bradley-manning">
announce</a> an investigation.<br><br>
<dd>Pfc. Manning is alleged to have obtained documents, both classified
and unclassified, from the Department of Defense and the State Department
via the Internet and provided them to WikiLeaks. (That “alleged” is
important because the federal informant who fingered Manning, Adrian
Lamo, is a <a href="http://www.securityfocus.com/news/7771">felon</a>
convicted of computer-hacking crimes. He was also
<a href="http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/05/lamo/">involuntarily
committed</a> to a psychiatric institution in the month before he
levelled his accusation. All of this makes him a less than reliable
witness.) At any rate, the records allegedly downloaded by Manning
revealed clear instances of war crimes committed by U.S. troops in
<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2010/04/the-wikileaks-video-and-the-rules-of-engagement.html">
Iraq</a> and
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/world/asia/22airstrikes.html">
Afghanistan</a>, widespread torture
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11611319">
committed</a> by the Iraqi authorities with the full knowledge of the
U.S. military, previously unknown estimates of the number of Iraqi
civilians
<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/8082605/Wikileaks-Civilians-gunned-down-at-checkpoints.html">
killed</a> at U.S. military checkpoints, and the massive Iraqi
<a href="http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/10/23/wikileaks-iraqi-death-toll.html">
civilian death toll</a> caused by the American invasion.<br><br>
<dd>For bringing to light this critical but long-suppressed information,
Pfc. Manning has been treated not as a whistleblower, but as a criminal
and a spy. He is
<a href="http://www.bradleymanning.org/3163/charge-sheet-html/">
charged</a> with violating not only Army regulations but also the
Espionage Act of 1917, making him the fifth American to be charged under
the act for leaking classified documents to the media. A
court-martial will likely be convened in the spring or summer.<br><br>
<dd>Politicians have
<a href="http://news.antiwar.com/2010/11/30/mike-huckabee-demands-bradley-mannings-execution/">
called for</a> Manning’s head, sometimes
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/03/mike-rogers-republican-co_n_668968.html">
literally</a>. And yet a strong legal defense for Pfc. Manning is
not difficult to envision. Despite many remaining questions of
fact, a legal defense can already be sketched out. What follows is
an “opening statement” for the defense. It does not attempt to
argue individual points of law in any exhaustive way. Rather, like
any opening statement, it is an overview of the vital legal (and
political) issues at stake, intended for an audience of ordinary
citizens, not Judge Advocate General lawyers.<br><br>
<dd>After all, it is the court of public opinion that ultimately decides
what a government can and cannot get away with, legally or
otherwise.<br><br>
<dd>Opening Statement for the Defense of Bradley Manning, Soldier and
Patriot<br><br>
</b>
<dd>U.S. Army Private First Class Bradley Manning has done his
duty. He has witnessed serious violations of the American
military’s Uniform Code of Military Justice, violations of the rules in
<a href="http://faculty.ed.umuc.edu/%7Enstanton/FM27-10.htm">U.S. Army
Field Manual 27-10</a>, and violations of international law. He has
brought these wrongdoings to light out of a profound sense of duty to his
country, as a citizen and a soldier, and his patriotism has cost him
dearly.<br><br>
<dd>In 2005, General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,177119,00.html">told
reporters</a>: “It is absolutely the responsibility of every U.S. service
member [in Iraq], if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to try
to stop it.” This, in other words, was the obligation of every U.S.
service member in Operation Iraqi Freedom; this remains the obligation of
every U.S. service member in Operation Enduring Freedom in
Afghanistan. It is a duty that Pfc. Manning has fulfilled.<br><br>
<dd>Who is Pfc. Bradley Manning? He is a 23-year-old Private First
Class in the U.S. Army. He was raised in Crescent, Oklahoma
(population 1,281, according to the last census count). He enlisted
in 2007. “He was basically really into America,”
<a href="http://thislandpress.com/09/23/2010/private-manning-and-the-making-of-wikileaks-2/">
says</a> a hometown friend. “He was proud of our successes as a
country. He valued our freedom, but probably our economic freedom
the most. I think he saw the U.S. as a force for good in the
world.”<br><br>
<dd>When Bradley Manning deployed to Iraq in October 2009, he thought
that he’d be helping the Iraqi people build a free society after the long
nightmare of Saddam Hussein. What he witnessed firsthand was quite
another matter.<br><br>
<dd>He soon found himself
<a href="http://firedoglake.com/merged-manning-lamo-chat-logs/">
helping</a> the Iraqi authorities detain civilians for distributing
“anti-Iraqi literature” -- which turned out to be an investigative report
into financial corruption in their own government entitled “Where does
the money go?” The penalty for this “crime” in Iraq was not a slap
on the wrist. Imprisonment and torture, as well as systematic abuse of
prisoners, are widespread in the new Iraq. From the military’s own
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11611319">Sigacts
(Significant Actions) reports</a>, we have a multitude of credible
accounts of Iraqi police and soldiers shooting prisoners, beating them to
death, pulling out fingernails or teeth, cutting off fingers, burning
with acid, torturing with electric shocks or the use of suffocation, and
various kinds of sexual abuse including sodomization with gun barrels and
forcing prisoners to perform sexual acts on guards and each
other.<br><br>
<dd>Manning had more than adequate reason to be concerned about handing
over Iraqi citizens for likely torture simply for producing pamphlets
about corruption in a government notorious for its corruptness.<br><br>
<dd>Like any good soldier, Manning immediately took these concerns up the
chain of command. And how did his superiors respond? His
commanding officer
<a href="http://firedoglake.com/merged-manning-lamo-chat-logs/">told
him</a> to “shut up” and get back to rounding up more prisoners for the
Iraqi Federal Police to treat however they cared to.<br><br>
<dd>Now, you have already heard what the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff had to say about an American soldier’s duties when confronted with
the torture and abuse of prisoners. Ever since our country signed and
ratified the Geneva Conventions and the Convention against Torture, it
has been the
<a href="http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/10/24/iraq-wikileaks-documents-describe-torture-detainees">
law of our land</a> that handing over prisoners to a body that will
torture them is a war crime. Nevertheless, between early 2009 and
August of last year, our military handed over thousands of prisoners to
the Iraqi authorities, knowing full well what would happen to many of
them. <br><br>
<dd>The next time Pfc. Manning encountered evidence of war crimes, he
took a different course of action.<br><br>
<dd>On the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet) shared by
the Departments of Defense and State Manning soon found irrefutable
evidence of possible war crimes, including a now-infamous
<a href="http://www.collateralmurder.com/">“Collateral Murder” video</a>
in which a U.S. Apache helicopter mowed down some 18 civilians, including
two Reuters journalists, on a street in Baghdad on July 12, 2007.
The world has now seen and been shocked by this video which Reuters is
alleged to have had in its possession but had not yet made public.
Manning is alleged to have leaked it to the whistleblower site WikiLeaks
in April 2010.<br><br>
<dd>Manning also found a video and an official report on American air
strikes on the village of Granai in Afghanistan’s Farah Province (also
known as “the Granai massacre”).
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/world/asia/22airstrikes.html">
According to</a> the Afghan government, 140 civilians, including women
and a large number of children, died in those strikes. He is
alleged to have released that video as part of a
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/jul/27/wikileaks-afghanistan-data-datajournalism">
tranche</a> of some 92,000 military documents relating to our escalating
war in Afghanistan -- already the longest war our nation has ever fought
-- and Pakistan, where the war is steadily spreading. Manning is
also alleged to have released to WikiLeaks some
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/datablog/interactive/2010/oct/23/wikileaks-iraq-deaths-map">
392,000 documents</a> regarding the Iraq War, many of which relate to the
torture of prisoners, as well as some
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/the-us-embassy-cables">
251,000</a> State Department cables.<br><br>
<dd>Now, in your judgment of Bradley Manning, please know that the stakes
are indeed high, but not in the feverish way our political and media
elites have been telling you from nearly every newspaper, channel, and
website in the land. We will want you, a true jury of Manning’s
military peers, to ask a few questions about what’s really been going on
in this trial -- and in this country. After all, when we reward lawyers
in the Justice Department who created memos that made torture legal with
<a href="http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/06/hbc-90005271">federal
judgeships</a> and
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/12/john-yoo-torture-memo-aut_n_202001.html">
regular newspaper columns</a>, while locking lock up a whistle-blowing
private, you have to ask: What country are we now living in?<br><br>
<dd>This trial couldn’t be more important or your judgment more
crucial. The honor of our country is very much at stake in how you
decide. When we let the aerial slaughter of civilian noncombatants
pass without comment or review, when a reported
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granai_airstrike">92 children
die</a> from an American air strike on an Afghan village and
<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_khatchadourian">
18 civilians</a> are shot dead on a Baghdad street without the slightest
accountability, except when it comes to locking up the private who
ensured that we would know about these acts -- let me repeat -- the honor
of your country and mine is at stake and at risk. Not the security
of your country, though the prosecution will claim otherwise, but the
honor of our country, and especially the honor of our military.<br><br>
<dd>Pfc. Bradley Manning is one soldier who has done his duty. He
has complied with it to the letter. Now you must do your duty as
members of this jury and as soldiers.<br><br>
<dd>Our Whistleblower Laws Protect Pfc. Manning<br><br>
</b>
<dd>The prosecution will surely tell you that none of our existing
whistleblower protection laws, interpreted narrowly, apply to Bradley
Manning.<br><br>
<dd>I say otherwise, and so will the experts we will call to the
stand. You will hear from legal expert
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesselyn_Radack">Jesselyn
Radack</a>, an attorney and former whistleblower who was purged,
punished, and then vindicated for her courageous acts of disclosing
illegal wrongdoing inside the Bush administration’s Department of
Justice. Ms. Radack will explain to you why and how Bradley Manning
is well protected by our current laws. After all, the
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower_Protection_Act">
Whistleblower Protection Act</a> is designed to protect a government
employee who exposes fraud, waste, abuse, or illegality to anyone inside
or outside a government agency, including</i> a member of the news
media. This is well supported by case law. (See
<a href="http://www.ll.georgetown.edu/federal/judicial/fed/opinions/94opinions/94-3332.html">
Horton v. Dep’t of Navy</a>, 66. F3d 279, 282 (Fed. Cir. 1995)].
Isn’t that exactly what Pfc. Bradley Manning has done?<br><br>
<dd>As a fallback argument, the prosecution is sure to suggest that
WikiLeaks is not a real media entity in the way that the New York
Times</i> is. Any one of you who has ever gotten the news and
information from the Internet knows otherwise.<br><br>
<dd>The prosecution will also be eager to inform you that the
<a href="http://www.ig.navy.mil/complaints/Complaints%20%20%28Reprisal%20Military%20Whistleblower%20Protection%29.htm">
Military Whistleblower Protection Act</a> (MWPA) does not apply
here. We, however, will prove to you that the act applies with
great and particular force to Pfc. Manning. For one thing, the MWPA
not only allows an even wider array of government officials to make
disclosures of classified information, it also broadens the scope of what
kinds</i> of disclosure a soldier can make. It expressly allows
disclosures of classified information by members of the armed forces if
they have a “reasonable belief” that what is being disclosed offers
evidence of a “violation of the law,” “an abuse of authority,” or “a
substantial danger to public safety.” In other words, the purpose
of the Military Whistleblower Protection Act is to protect soldiers just
like Pfc. Manning who report on improper -- or in this case, patently
illegal -- activities by other military personnel.<br><br>
<dd>Now, there is no strict precedent, the prosecution will claim, for
any of our whistleblower protection laws to apply to Pfc. Manning.
But as we will make clear, there is no contrary precedent either.
That’s because we’ve never seen a whistleblower disclosure as massive,
vivid, and horrific as this one. We are in uncharted
territory. If the plain language of these whistleblower protection
laws is unclear, legal convention
<a href="http://www.lectlaw.com/def2/s104.htm">dictates</a> that we look
at the laws’ intent</i>. Clearly Congress meant, and legislative
history supports this, for the whistleblower protection laws to protect
whistleblowers, not -- as this administration seems to think -- to
prosecute them.<br><br>
<dd>The progress of our common law is prudent, it is incremental, it is
slow. But our common law is not dead. It does progress.
Whether the common law will take that small step forward in the case of
Pfc. Manning is your duty to decide. And your decision will have
repercussions.<br><br>
<dd>For if you convict Bradley Manning, then you are also clearing the
way to try and possibly convict Army Specialist
<a href="http://motherjones.com/politics/2008/03/am-i-torturer?page=2">
Joseph Darby</a>, the whistleblower who leaked the Abu Ghraib photos and
thereby ended acts of torture and abuse that were shaming our military
and our nation. Now, Specialist Darby did not leak the photos of
this disgrace up the chain of command or to the Army Inspector General as
our whistleblower law envisions. Instead, he leaked it straight to
the Army Criminal Investigative Division, and this path is not strictly
what our whistleblower laws allow. Was Spc. Joseph Darby doing his
duty as an honorable soldier when he exposed the torture and abuse at Abu
Ghraib? Or was he just trying to damage the United States?
Your verdict on Bradley Manning could reopen that question, and answer it
anew.<br><br>
<dd>If you convict Bradley Manning, you will also potentially be
convicting the father of Army Specialist Adam Winfield. In February
2010, Winfield
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/18/AR2010091803935_2.html?sid=ST2010091803942">
informed</a> his father, Christopher Winfield, a marine veteran, via
Facebook, of a homicidal “Kill Team” at Forward Operating Base Ramrod in
Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, that was murdering civilians.
Winfield’s father tried to sound the alarm
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/18/AR2010091803935_2.html?sid=ST2010091803942">
via phone calls</a> to the Army Inspector General’s 24-hour hotline, to
Senator Bill Nelson, and even to members of his son’s command unit in
Fort Lewis.<br><br>
<dd>Both father and son went beyond the “proper” channels to stop the
murder of innocent Afghan civilians. Spc. Winfield is now on trial
for possible complicity in the “kill team” murders, but no charges have
been filed against his father. Tell me, then: Is Winfield’s father
guilty of damaging his country because he tried to warn the Army about a
homicidal “kill team” in the ranks? Whether you like it or not,
whether you care to or not, this is something you will</i> decide when
you render your judgment on Bradley Manning’s actions.<br><br>
<dd>The Espionage Charges<br><br>
</b>
<dd>The most outlandish entries on the
<a href="http://www.bradleymanning.org/3163/charge-sheet-html/">
overachieving charge sheet</a> are those stemming from the
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espionage_Act_of_1917">Espionage
Act</a> of 1917. After all, Pfc. Manning is just the fifth American in 94
years to be charged under this archaic law with leaking government
documents. (Of the five, only one has been convicted.)<br><br>
<dd>The Espionage Act was never intended to be used in this way, as an
extra punishment for citizens who disclose classified material, and that
is why the government only carts it out when its case is exceptionally
desperate.<br><br>
<dd>In order for Espionage Act charges to stick, it is required that Pfc.
Manning had the conscious intent</i> -- take note of that crucial phrase
-- to damage the United States or aid a foreign nation with his
disclosures. Not surprisingly, given this, you are going to hear
the prosecution spare no effort to portray the release of these cables as
the gravest blow to America’s place in the world since Pearl
Harbor.<br><br>
<dd>I hope you’ll take this with more than a grain of salt. For
where is the staggering fallout from all the supposed bombshells in these
leaked documents? Months after the release of the State Department
cables, not a single American ambassador has been recalled.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who commands far more
<a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/factsheet_department_defense/">
budget and power</a> than the
<a href="http://www.state.gov/s/d/rm/rls/bib/2010/index.htm">Secretary of
State</a>, publicly insists that these leaks -- the Iraq War logs, the
Afghan War Logs, and the diplomatic cables --
<a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/checkpoint-washington/2010/11/the_obama_administration_has_w.html">
have not done</a> any major harm. “Now I've heard the impact of
these releases on our foreign policy described as a meltdown, as a
game-changer and so on,” said Gates. “I think those descriptions are
fairly significantly overwrought.” Significantly overwrought?
"Every other government in the world knows the United States
government leaks like a sieve,” he added, “and it has for a long
time."<br><br>
<dd>So what happened to the biggest blow to American prestige since the
1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam? And keep in mind that the Secretary
of Defense is by no means the only official pooh-poohing the hype about
the WikiLeaks apocalypse. One former head of policy planning at the
State Department looked at the cables, shrugged, and said that the
documents
<a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/11/30/10_conversations_that_just_got_a_little_more_awkward">
hold</a> “little news,” and that they are “unlikely to do long-term
damage.” A senior Pentagon spokesperson, Colonel David Lapan,
confessed to reporters last September that there is
<a href="http://blogs.mcclatchydc.com/nationalsecurity/2010/10/waiting-for-wikileaks.html">
zero evidence</a> any of the Afghan informers named in the leaked
documents have been injured by Taliban reprisals. Tell me, where is
the Armageddon that this 23-year-old private has supposedly loosed on our
American world?<br><br>
<dd>Of course, there’s no denying that some members of our foreign policy
elite have been mightily embarrassed by the State Department
cables. Good. They deserve it.<br><br>
<dd>Their fleeting embarrassment is nothing compared to the shame they
have brought down on our country with their foolish deeds over the past
decade, actions that range from the reckless and incompetent to the
downright criminal. It’s no secret that America’s standing in the
world has been severely damaged in these years, but ask yourself: Is this
because of recent disclosures of civilian deaths and war crimes --most of
which are surprising only to Americans -- along with diplomatic
tittle-tattle?<br><br>
<dd>I suggest to you that the damage to our nation, which couldn’t be
more real, has come not from the disclosures of a young private, but from
our foreign policy elite’s long pattern of foolish and destructive
actions. After all, the invasion and occupation of Iraq have cost
<a href="http://icasualties.org/Iraq/index.aspx">rivers of
blood</a>. The price tag for our current foreign wars has now
officially <a href="http://costofwar.com/en/">soared</a> above the
trillion-dollar mark (and few doubt that, in the end, the real cost will
run into the trillions of dollars). And don’t forget, the invasion
of Iraq has inspired new waves of hatred and distrust of our country
overseas, and
<a href="http://motherjones.com/politics/2007/03/iraq-101-iraq-effect-war-iraq-and-its-impact-war-terrorism-pg-1">
has provided</a> an adrenaline boost for Islamic terrorists.<br><br>
<dd>Needless to say, our political, military, and media elites have not
lined up to take responsibility for this series of self-inflicted
wounds. Before they try to pin a nonexistent catastrophe on Pfc.
Manning, they ought to take a long, hard look in the mirror and think
about the real damage they’ve done to our nation, the world, and not
least the
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/02/AR2005050201504.html">
overstretched</a>, overstrained
<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2010-08-23-1Aforthood23_CV_N.htm">
U.S. military</a>.<br><br>
<dd>Just imagine: if only someone like Bradley Manning had leaked
conclusive documentation about Saddam Hussein’s supposedly deadly but
nonexistent arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, the excuse for our
invasion of Iraq. Such a disclosure would have profoundly
embarrassed Washington’s foreign policy elite and in the atmosphere of
early 2003, the media would undoubtedly have called for that
whistleblower’s head, just as they’re doing now.<br><br>
<dd>Such a leak, however, would have done a powerful load of good for our
nation. Four thousand four hundred and thirty-six American soldiers would
not be <a href="http://icasualties.org/Iraq/index.aspx">dead</a> and
thousands more would not be maimed, wounded, or suffering from
PTSD. At the very least,
<a href="http://www.iraqbodycount.org/">more than 100,000</a>, and
probably
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/world/middleeast/10casualties.html">
hundreds of thousands</a>, of Iraqi civilians would still be
living. These are the consequences of policy-making by a secretive
government that wants the American people to know nothing, and a media
that is either
<a href="http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/watch.html">unable or
unwilling</a> to do its job and report on facts, not government
spin.<br><br>
<dd>You all are old enough to have noticed that the health of our
republic and the reputations of our ruling elites are not one and the
same. In the best of times, they overlap. The past 10
years have not been the best of times. Those elites have led us
into disaster after disaster, imperiling our already breached national
security, straining our ruinous finances, and tearing to shreds our moral
standing in the world. Don’t try to blame this state of affairs on
Private Bradley Manning.<br><br>
<dd>The Nuremberg Principles Mean Something in Our Courts<br><br>
</b>
<dd>Our soldiers have a solemn duty not to obey illegal orders, and Pfc.
Manning upheld this duty. General Peter Pace’s statement on a
soldier’s overriding duty to stop the torture and abuse of prisoners,
whatever his or her orders, is not just high-minded public relations;
it’s the law of the land. More than 50 years ago,
<a href="http://faculty.ed.umuc.edu/%7Enstanton/FM27-10.htm">U.S. Army
Field Manual 27-10</a> incorporated the
<a href="http://nuclearfiles.org/menu/library/treaties/nuremberg/trty_nuremberg-principles_1950.htm">
Nuremberg Principles</a>, among them Principle IV: “The fact that a
person acted pursuant to an order of his government or of a superior does
not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a
moral choice was in fact possible to him.” This remains the law of
our land and of our armed forces, too. <br><br>
<dd>I suspect the prosecution will have other ideas. They will tell
you that the Nuremberg Principles are great stuff for commencement
addresses, but don’t actually mean anything in practical terms. They will
tell you that the Nuremberg Principles are of use only to the Lisa
Simpsons of the human-rights industry.<br><br>
<dd>But know this: some
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties">400,000</a>
of your fellow soldiers died in the Second World War for the
establishment of those principles. For that reason alone, they are
something that you in the military ought to treat with the utmost
seriousness.<br><br>
<dd>And if the judge or prosecutor should tell you that the Nuremberg
Principles don’t mean a thing in our courts, they would be flat
wrong. Courts have taken the Nuremberg Principles to heart before,
and more and more have done so in the past few years. In 2005, for
example, Judge Lieutenant Commander Robert Klant
<a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2005/5/13/war_resister_pablo_paredes_wins_surprise">
took note</a> of the Nuremberg principles in a sentencing hearing for
Pablo Paredes, a Navy Petty Officer Third Class who refused redeployment
to Iraq, and whose punishment was subsequently minimized.<br><br>
<dd>Similarly, at his court martial in 2009, Sergeant Matthis Chiroux
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthis-chiroux/refusing-to-redeploy-my-s_b_191156.html">
justified</a> his refusal to redeploy to a war that he believed violated
both national and international law, and was backed up by expert
testimony on the Nuremberg Principles. The court martial granted
Sgt. Chiroux a general discharge.<br><br>
<dd>A long line of Supreme Court cases, from
<a href="http://supreme.justia.com/us/54/115/">Mitchell v.
Harmony</a></i> in 1851 all the way back to <a href="??">Little v.
Barreme</a></i> in 1804, established that soldiers have a duty not to
follow illegal orders. In short, it is a matter of record and
established precedent that these Nuremberg Principles have meant
something in our courts. Yours will not be the first court martial to
apply these principles, fought for and won with American blood, nor will
it be the last.<br><br>
<dd>Whistleblowers Are Patriots Who Sacrifice for Their Country <br><br>
</b>
<dd>Whistleblowers who attempt to rectify the disastrous policies of
their nation are not criminals. They are patriots, and eventually
are recognized as such. Bradley Manning is by no means the first
American to serve his country in such a way.<br><br>
<dd>Today, <a href="http://www.ellsberg.net/">Daniel Ellsberg</a> is
famous as the leaker of the
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers">Pentagon
Papers</a>, a secret internal history ordered up by Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara himself that candidly recounted how a series of
administrations systematically lied to the nation about the planning and
prosecution of the Vietnam War. Ellsberg’s massive leak of these
documents helped end that war and bring down a criminal
administration. How criminal? Midway through Ellsberg’s trial
in 1973, the Nixon administration
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Matthew_Byrne,_Jr.">
offered</a> the judge overseeing his treason trial the directorship of
the FBI in an implicit quid pro quo</i>, a maneuver of such brazen
corruption as to shame any banana republic. The judge dismissed all
the government’s charges with prejudice and now Daniel Ellsberg is a
national hero.<br><br>
<dd>Those born after a certain date may be forgiven for assuming that
Ellsberg was some long-haired subversive of an “anti-American”
stripe. In fact, he had been, like Bradley Manning, a model
soldier.<br><br>
<dd>At the
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Corps">Marine
Corps</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_School">Basic
School</a> in
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantico,_Virginia">Quantico,
Virginia</a>, Ellsberg
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg#Early_life_and_career">
graduated</a> first in a class of some 1,100 lieutenants. He served as a
platoon leader and rifle company commander in the Marine 2nd Infantry
Division for three years, and
<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=bQl4LRTmkx0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=daniel+ellsberg+secrets&source=bl&ots=DBqLVi6kBC&sig=q31KwR8dVxcEakL1mgE-LnyAzUU&hl=en&ei=94xJTYGaCZOdgQeRu6AP&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CFEQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q&f=false">
deferred</a> his graduate studies so he could remain on active duty with
his battalion during the Suez Crisis of 1956. (You will note
that deferring graduate school in order to stay on active military duty
is the exact opposite of what
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Cheney#Early_life_and_education">
so many</a> of our recent, and
<a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/sep/01/bidens-draft-deferments-equal-cheneys-during-vietn/">
current</a>, national leaders did in those decades.) After
satisfying his Reserve Officer commitment, Ellsberg was discharged from
the Corps as a first lieutenant, and leaving the military went on to a
distinguished career in government.<br><br>
<dd>Daniel Ellsberg was a model Marine, and later a model citizen.
His courageous act of leaking classified information was only one more
episode in a consistent record of patriotic service. When Ellsberg
leaked the Pentagon Papers he did so out of the profoundest sense of
duty, knowing full well, just like Bradley Manning today, that he might
spend the rest of his life in jail.<br><br>
<dd>Ellsberg calls Pfc. Manning
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg#Later_activism_and_views">
his hero</a> and he is a
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-11879951">tireless</a> defender
of the brave Army private our government has locked away in
solitary.<br><br>
<dd>Vandals trash things without a care in their hearts, but real
patriots like former Lt. Ellsberg and Pfc. Manning do their duty knowing
that the privilege of living in a free society does not always come
cheap.<br><br>
<dd>“Frankly and in the Public View”: The American Tradition of
Diplomacy<br><br>
</b>
<dd>Today, Ellsberg himself is lionized, even by the U.S. government, as
a national hero. The State Department recently put together a
traveling roadshow of American documentary films to screen abroad, and
<a href="http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/01/15/general-us-us-wikileaks-state-department_8258541.html">
front and center</a> among them is an
<a href="http://www.mostdangerousman.org/">admiring movie</a> about
Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. But then it is only appropriate
that the government recognize Ellsberg and his once-controversial
disclosures as part and parcel of the American tradition.<br><br>
<dd>After all, demands for more open and transparent diplomacy are as
American as baseball and Hank Williams. World War I-era President
Woodrow Wilson himself insisted on the abolition of secret treaties as
part of his <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_Points">14
points</a> for the League of Nations; in fact, it’s the very first point:
“Open <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_treaty">covenants of
peace</a>, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_treaty">private
international understandings</a> of any kind but
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomacy">diplomacy</a> shall
proceed always frankly and in the public view</i>.”<br><br>
<dd>How can foreign policy be democratic if the most serious decisions
and facts -- alliances, death tolls, assessments of the leaders and
governments we are bankrolling with our tax dollars -- are all kept as
official secrets? The
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bricker_Amendment">“Bricker
Amendment”</a> was an attempt by congressional Republicans in the 1950s
to require Senate approval of U.S. treaties, in large part to open up
public debate about foreign affairs. The late Senator Daniel
Patrick Moynihan, a Democrat who served as representative to the U.N. for
Republican President Richard Nixon, was also a
<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=FWq-5a5tqH0C&pg=PA171&lpg=PA171&dq=moynihan+overclassification&source=bl&ots=Z-zAYYBODM&sig=2P4LrNmMDTiiKQ_TWGuCy4dd7kE&hl=en&ei=1JBJTeHeM87pgAeR5sHzDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false">
severe critic</a> of government secrecy and the habitual
<a href="http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2008/09/overclassification.html">
over-classification</a> of state documents. These American statesmen knew
that if foreign policy is crafted in secret, without the oxygen and
sunlight of vigorous public debate, disaster and dysfunction would
result.<br><br>
<dd>For the past 10 years, we have had exactly such disaster and
dysfunction as our foreign policy. Our leaders have plunged us into
a dark world of secrecy and lies. Tell me: Is this Private Bradley
Manning’s fault?<br><br>
<dd>Let me be clear as I bring this opening statement to a close: for all
the complexities this case holds, your job will in the end prove a simple
and basic one. It’s your task not to let our leaders, or the
prosecution, pin the horrendous state of affairs into which this country
has been thrown on Pfc. Manning. I am confident that you will see
him for the patriot he is, a young man with a moral backbone whose goal
was not self-aggrandizement or profit or even attention and glory.
His urge was to shine a bright light on his own country’s wrongdoing and,
in that way, bring it, bring us, back to our nobler national
traditions.<br><br>
<dd>It is Pfc. Manning, not our fearless national leaders, who has
sacrificed much to restore the rule of law and a minimal level of public
oversight to American foreign and military policy. “Frankly and in the
public view</i>”: this once would have been called a reasonable
description of the American character, something that set us apart from
the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Otto von Bismarck’s Prussia, or Imperial
Japan. Whether our government has any responsibility to conduct its
affairs frankly and in the public view in 2011 and beyond -- this is
something else you will decide in your judgment on Pfc. Manning.<br><br>
<dd>As soldiers, you know well that most Americans have insulated
themselves from the last decade’s foreign-policy disasters. Even as
we spend a trillion dollars on foreign wars, our taxes are
cut. If you’re making decent money, the odds are it’s not
your kids, grandchildren, brothers, or sisters who are off fighting,
killing, and dying in our foreign wars. Most Americans, thanks in
part to the media, have little idea of what you and your peers have lived
through, the weight you have shouldered.<br><br>
<dd>This is not true of Pfc. Bradley Manning. He came face to face
with this disaster. He saw, and participated in, the roundup
of Iraqi civilians to be tortured by their own national police
force. Tell me honestly: Was this what Operation Iraqi Freedom was
supposed to accomplish? Is this why you, his jury of peers,
enlisted in the military?<br><br>
<dd>Pfc. Manning saw this misery and rampant illegality with his own two
eyes, and then, online, he discovered more of the same -- much, much more
-- and he did something about it,
<a href="http://firedoglake.com/merged-manning-lamo-chat-logs/">knowing
full well</a> the penalty. “I wouldn’t mind going to prison for the rest
of my life, or being executed so much, if it wasn’t for the possibility
of having pictures of me […] plastered all over the world press,” he
confided to the informant who betrayed him. Manning knew the stakes
and the risks when he leaked these documents, but still he loyally
performed his duty, both to the United States Army and to his
country.<br><br>
<dd>As one of Manning’s childhood friends from Crescent, Oklahoma, has
<a href="http://thislandpress.com/09/23/2010/private-manning-and-the-making-of-wikileaks-2/">
testified</a>, “He wanted to serve his country.” It’s up to you to
decide whether he did.<br><br>
<dd>You have a duty as a fully informed jury of free citizens. You are
not an assortment of rubber stamps pulled out of a judge’s desk
drawer. You are as important a part of this court as the judge,
prosecutor, and the accused himself.<br><br>
<dd>Whichever way you decide in your verdict, you will not face the
consequences Bradley Manning already endures, but your judgment will have
great consequences, not just for him, but for the honor and future of the
country you have taken an oath to serve.<br><br>
<dd>Now, go and do your duty.<br><br>
<dd>Chase Madar is an attorney in New York and a member of the National
Lawyers Guild. He writes for
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175316/tomgram%3A_chase_madar,_all-american_gitmo/">
TomDispatch</a>, the</i> American Conservative magazine</i>, Le Monde
Diplomatique, and the </i>London Review of Books. (To listen to Timothy
MacBain’s latest TomCast video interview in which Chase Madar explores
Manning’s case and his defense, click
<a href="http://tomdispatch.blogspot.com/2011/02/in-defense-of-pfc-manning.html">
here</a>, or download it to your iPod
<a href="http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=j0SS4Al/iVI&subid=&offerid=146261.1&type=10&tmpid=5573&RD_PARM1=http%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Fpodcast%2Ftomcast-from-tomdispatch-com%2Fid357095817">
here</a>.)<br><br>
</i>
<dd>Copyright 2011 Chase Madar<br><br>
<br>
</dl><h5><b>© 2011 TomDispatch. All rights reserved.<br>
View this story online at:
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175352/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175352/<br><br>
<br><br>
</a></b></h5><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
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