For those unaware of the recent controversy about the American military document leaks, the earlier videos released by wikileaks, or the arrest of Brad Manning, here are some links;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_of_Bradley_Manning
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/leak/
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To summarize:
Beginning in 2009, Brad was responsible for, or had a role in, the extrication and release of a video showing an airship gun down civilians and children in cold blood (Collateral Murder) , a video showing a mistakenly aimed airstrike raining down and killing a group of 100+ civilians, mostly children(Garrani Airstrikes), a classified Army document evaluating Wikileaks as a security threat, and 260,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables detailing issues surrounding the war.
Later released by wikileaks (with several edits hiding the identity of individuals that may have been put into danger and edits highlighting certain important details) these videos and documents show chillingly what many opponents of the American wars in the middle east have feared for years.
That is, that the United States is fighting a series of unjust wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, is funding it's own enemies, is not progressing in its puported goals, is fighting a much stronger Taliban et al. insurgency, is consistently and blatantly lying to the American public, is responsible for far more civilian deaths that it admits, is attempting to expand the war into Pakistan Yemen and Iran, and has far less support or hope in achieving the mission of 'stabilizing' Afghanistan than it claims.
Currently PFC Manning is being held without charge in a Kuwaiti prison, and will continue to be until he charged with violating security regulations and army conduct regulations. These are not idle threats.
Brad Manning is twenty-two years old. If he is convicted, and there is every reason to believe that he will be, he faces a sentence of up to 52 years. Assuming that the trial happens with unusual effeciency and is concluded within the next year, Brad will emerge from prison at the age of 75; an old man. In exposing the video and the documents, Brad will have sacrificed his adult life.
In Brad's own words;
“if you had free reign over classified networks for long periods of time... say, 8-9 months... and you saw incredible things, awful things... things that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC... What would you do? ... say... a database of half a million events during the Iraq war... from 2004 to 2009... with reports, date time groups, lat-lon locations, casualty figures... ? or 260,000 state department cables from embassies and consulates all over the world, explaining how the first world exploits the third, in detail, from an internal perspective?"
This is a question that I think we all need to answer, particularly those of us who puport to be anti-war, anti-Imperialistic, and against all the death and violence meted out on people of a different colour and different culture half-way across the world.
What if you could make a difference at great personal risk?
Would you value the constitution over the edicts and compulsion of your superiors? Would you value the lives of others over your own comfort? Would you value so highly the right of your fellow citizens to know the truth that you would be willing to risk your freedom?
What would you do?
PFC Bradley Manning
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