Tuesday, February 15, 2011

The Forgotten Man: Bradley Manning

Video Report - ABC '4 Corners', Australia

WikiLeaks & Julian Assange champion free speech, and expose the crimes of the powerful.

Bradley Manning, who allegedly released the incriminating classified documents published by WikiLeaks, is now languishing in a US military prison, suffering deprivation, torture and denial of legal rights - yet no charges have been laid against him.

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The Trials of Bradley Manning, A Defense

Tomgram: Chase Madar

February 10, 2011

...When some of the U.S. government's dirty laundry was laid out in the bright light of day by WikiLeaks, ... its officials responded in a knee-jerk punitive manner in the case of Bradley Manning, now in extreme isolation in a Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia.

The urge of the Obama administration and the U.S. military to break his will, to crush him, is unsettling, to say the least. Whatever happens to Julian Assange or WikiLeaks, Washington is clearly intent on destroying this young Army private and then putting him away until hell freezes over.

It should not be this way.

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, black sites, and extraordinary renditions, as well as the death and destruction visited on distant lands, blood is on many official American hands, but not on Manning’s. Those officials should be held accountable, not him.

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 here, or download it to your iPod here.)

Tom

Why Bradley Manning Is a Patriot, Not a Criminal
An Opening Statement for the Defense of Private Manning

By Chase Madar


Click here to read more of this dispatch.


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