From: Truth Out
Monday, 04 March 2013 10:29
By Chris
Hedges, Truthdig | News Analysis
I
was in a military courtroom at Fort Meade in Maryland on
Thursday as Pfc. Bradley Manning admitted giving classified
government documents to WikiLeaks. The hundreds of thousands
of leaked documents exposed U.S. war crimes in Iraq and
Afghanistan as well as government misconduct. A statement
that Manning made to the court was a powerful and moving
treatise on the importance of placing conscience above
personal safety, the necessity of sacrificing careers and
liberty for the public good, and the moral imperative of
carrying out acts of defiance. Manning will surely pay with
many years—perhaps his entire life—in prison. But we too
will pay. The war against Bradley Manning is a war against
us all.
This trial is not simply the prosecution of a
25-year-old soldier who had the temerity to report to the
outside world the indiscriminate slaughter, war crimes,
torture and abuse that are carried out by our government and
our occupation forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is a
concerted effort by the security and surveillance state to
extinguish what is left of a free press, one that has the
constitutional right to expose crimes by those in power. The
lonely individuals who take personal risks so that the
public can know the truth—the Daniel Ellsbergs, the Ron
Ridenhours, the Deep Throats and the Bradley
Mannings—are from now on to be charged with “aiding the
enemy.” All those within the system who publicly reveal
facts that challenge the official narrative will be
imprisoned, as was John Kiriakou, the former CIA analyst who
for exposing the U.S. government’s use of torture began
serving a 30-month prison term the day Manning read his
statement. There is a word for states that create these
kinds of information vacuums: totalitarian.
The cowardice of The New York Times, El Pais, Der
Spiegel and Le Monde, all of which used masses of the
material Manning passed on to WikiLeaks and then callously
turned their backs on him, is one of journalism’s greatest
shames. These publications made little effort to cover
Manning’s pretrial hearings, a failure that shows how
bankrupt and anemic the commercial press has become.
Rescuing what honor of our trade remains has been left to a
handful of independent, often marginalized reporters and a
small number of other individuals and groups—including Glenn
Greenwald, Alexa O’Brien, Nathan Fuller, Kevin Gosztola (who
writes for Firedog Lake), the Bradley Manning
Support Network, political activist Kevin Zeese and
the courtroom sketch artist Clark Stoeckley, along with The
Guardian, which also published the WikiLeaks documents. But
if our domesticated press institutions believe that by
refusing to defend or report on Manning they will escape the
wrath of the security and surveillance state, they are
stunningly naive. This is a war that is being played for
keeps. And the goal of the state is not simply to send
Manning away for life. The state is also determined to
extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and try him in
the United States on espionage or conspiracy charges. The
state hopes to cement into place systems of information that
will do little more than parrot official propaganda. This is
why those with the computer skills to expose the power
elite’s secrets, such as
Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide in January, and Jeremy Hammond, who is
facing up to 30 years in prison for allegedly hacking into
the corporate security firm Stratfor, have been or are being
ruthlessly hunted down and persecuted. It is why Vice
President Joe Biden labeled Assange a “high-tech
terrorist,” and it is why the Bradley Manning trial is
one of the most important in American history.
The government has decided to press ahead with all 22
charges, including aiding the enemy (Article 104), stealing
U.S. government property (18 USC 641), espionage (18 USC
793(e)) and computer crimes (18 USC 1030(a)(1))—the last
notwithstanding the fact that Manning did not hack into
government computers. The state will also prosecute him on
charges of violating lawful general regulations (Article
92). The government has refused to settle for Manning’s
admission of guilt on nine lesser offenses. Among these
lesser offenses are unauthorized possession and willful
communication of the video known as “Collateral Murder”; the
Iraq
War Logs; the Afghan
War Diary; two CIA Red
Cell Memos, including one entitled “Afghanistan:
Sustaining West European Support for the NATO-Led
Mission—Why Counting on Apathy Might Not Be Enough”;
Guantanamo files; documents of a so-called Article 15-6
investigation into the May 2009 Garani
massacre in Afghanistan’s Farah province; and a
Department of Defense counterintelligence report,
“WikiLeaks.org—An Online Reference to Foreign Intelligence
Services, Insurgents, or Terrorist Groups?” as well as one
violation of a lawful general order by wrongfully storing
information.
Manning’s leaks, the government insists, are tantamount
to support for al-Qaida and international terrorism. The
government will attempt to prove this point by bringing into
court an anonymous witness who most likely took part in the
raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan. This witness
will reportedly tell the court that copies of the leaked
documents were found on bin Laden’s computer and assisted
al-Qaida. This is an utterly spurious form of prosecution—as
if any of us have control over the information we provide to
the public and how it is used. Manning, for substantial
amounts of money, could have sold the documents to
governments or groups that are defined as the enemy. Instead
he approached The Washington Post and The New York Times.
When these newspapers rejected him, he sent the material
anonymously to WikiLeaks.
The short, slightly built Manning told the military
court Thursday about the emotional conflict he experienced
when he matched what he knew about the war with the official
version of the war. He said he became deeply disturbed while
watching
a video taken from an Apache helicopter as it and
another such craft joined in an attack on civilians in
Baghdad in 2007. The banter among the crew members, who
treated the murder and wounding of the terrified human
beings, including children, in the street below as sport,
revolted him. Among the dead was Reuters photojournalist
Namir Noor-Eldeen and his driver, Saeed Chmagh. Reuters had
repeatedly asked to see the video, and the Army had
repeatedly refused to release it. [Click
here to see the “Collateral Murder” video.]
“Using Google I searched for the event by its date and
general location,” Manning said in reading from a 35-page
document that took nearly an hour to deliver. “I found
several new accounts involving two Reuters employees who
were killed during the aerial weapon team engagement.
Another story explained that Reuters had requested a copy of
the video under the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA.
Reuters wanted to view the video in order to be able to
understand what had happened and to improve their safety
practices in combat zones. A spokesperson for Reuters was
quoted saying that the video might help avoid the
reoccurrence of the tragedy and believed there was
compelling need for the immediate release of the video.”
[Alexa O’Brien, another journalist who attended Thursday’s
proceedings, has provided a full transcript of Manning’s
statement: Click
here.]
“Despite the submission of the FOIA request, the news
account explained that CENTCOM [Central Command] replied to
Reuters stating that they could not give a time frame for
considering a FOIA request and that the video might no
longer exist,” Manning said. “Another story I found written
a year later said that even though Reuters was still
pursuing their request [the news organization] still did not
receive a formal response or written determination in
accordance with FOIA. The fact neither CENTCOM or Multi
National Forces Iraq, or MNF-I, would not voluntarily
release the video troubled me further. It was clear to me
that the event happened because the aerial weapons team
mistakenly identified Reuters employees as a potential
threat and that the people in the bongo truck [van] were
merely attempting to assist the wounded. The people in the
van were not a threat but merely ‘good Samaritans.’ The most
alarming aspect of the video to me, however, was the seemly
delightful bloodlust they [the helicopter crew members]
appeared to have.
“They dehumanized the individuals they were engaging and
seemed to not value human life by referring to them as quote
‘dead bastards’ unquote and congratulating each other on the
ability to kill in large numbers,” Manning said, speaking
into a court microphone while seated at the defense table.
“At one point in the video there is an individual on the
ground attempting to crawl to safety. The individual is
seriously wounded. Instead of calling for medical attention
to the location, one of the aerial weapons team crew members
verbally asks for the wounded person to pick up a weapon so
that he can have a reason to engage. For me, this seems
similar to a child torturing ants with a magnifying glass.
“While saddened by the aerial weapons team crew’s lack
of concern about human life, I was disturbed by the response
of the discovery of injured children at the scene. In the
video, you can see the bongo truck driving up to assist the
wounded individual. In response the aerial weapons team
crew—as soon as the individuals are a threat, they
repeatedly request authorization to fire on the bongo truck
and once granted they engage the vehicle at least six times.
Shortly after the second engagement, a mechanized infantry
unit arrives at the scene. Within minutes, the aerial
weapons team crew learns that children were in the van, and
despite the injuries the crew exhibits no remorse. Instead,
they downplay the significance of their actions, saying
quote ‘Well, it’s their fault for bringing their kids into a
battle’ unquote.
“The aerial weapons team crew members sound like they
lack sympathy for the children or the parents. Later in a
particularly disturbing manner, the aerial weapons team
verbalizes enjoyment at the sight of one of the ground
vehicles driving over a body—or one of the bodies. As I
continued my research, I found an article discussing the
book ‘The Good Soldiers,’ written by Washington Post writer
David Finkel. In Mr. Finkel’s book, he writes about the
aerial weapons team attack. As I read an online excerpt in
Google Books, I followed Mr. Finkel’s account of the event
belonging to the video. I quickly realize that Mr. Finkel
was quoting, I feel in verbatim, the audio communications of
the aerial weapons team crew. It is clear to me that Mr.
Finkel obtained access and a copy of the video during his
tenure as an embedded journalist. I was aghast at Mr.
Finkel’s portrayal of the incident. Reading his account, one
would believe the engagement was somehow justified as
‘payback’ for an earlier attack that led to the death of a
soldier. Mr. Finkel ends his account of the engagement by
discussing how a soldier finds an individual still alive
from the attack. He writes that the soldier finds him and
sees him gesture with his two forefingers together, a common
method in the Middle East to communicate that they are
friendly. However, instead of assisting him, the soldier
makes an obscene gesture extending his middle finger. The
individual apparently dies shortly thereafter. Reading this,
I can only think of how this person was simply trying to
help others, and then he quickly finds he needs help as
well. To make matters worse, in the last moments of his life
he continues to express his friendly gesture—his friendly
intent—only to find himself receiving this well known
gesture of unfriendliness. For me it’s all a big mess, and I
am left wondering what these things mean, and how it all
fits together. It burdens me emotionally. …
“I hoped that the public would be as alarmed as me about
the conduct of the aerial weapons team crew members. I
wanted the American public to know that not everyone in Iraq
and Afghanistan are targets that needed to be neutralized,
but rather people who were struggling to live in the
pressure cooker environment of what we call asymmetric
warfare. After the release I was encouraged by the response
in the media and general public who observed the aerial
weapons team video. As I hoped, others were just as
troubled—if not more troubled than me by what they saw.”
Manning provided to the public the most important window
into the inner workings of imperial power since the release
of the Pentagon Papers. The routine use of torture, the
detention of Iraqis who were innocent, the inhuman
conditions within our secret detention facilities, the use
of State Department officials as spies in the United
Nations, the collusion with corporations to keep wages low
in developing countries such as Haiti, and specific war
crimes such as the missile strike on a house that killed
seven children in Afghanistan would have remained
hidden without Manning.
“I felt that we were risking so much for people that
seemed unwilling to cooperate with us, leading to
frustration and anger on both sides,” Manning said. “I began
to become depressed with the situation that we found
ourselves increasingly mired in year after year. The SigActs
[significant-acts reports of the Army] documented this in
great detail and provide a context of what we were seeing on
the ground.
“In attempting to conduct counterterrorism, or CT, and
counterinsurgency, COIN, operations we became obsessed with
capturing and killing human targets on lists and not being
suspicious of and avoiding cooperation with our host nation
partners, and ignoring the second- and third-order effects
of accomplishing short-term goals and missions. I believe
that if the general public, especially the American public,
had access to the information contained within the CIDNE-I
and CIDNE-A tables [a reference to military information]
this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the
military and our foreign policy in general as it related to
Iraq and Afghanistan.
“I also believed the detailed analysis of the data over
a long period of time by different sectors of society might
cause society to re-evaluate the need or even the desire to
engage in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations
that ignore the complex dynamics of the people living in the
affected environment every day.”
It is certain that with this “naked” plea Manning will
serve perhaps as much as 20 years in prison. The judge, Col.
Denise Lind, who will determine Manning’s sentence, warned
him that the government could use his admissions to build a
case for the more serious charges. Manning faces 90 years if
he is convicted on the greater charge of espionage, and he
faces life if convicted of aiding the enemy. Military
prosecutors have made it clear they are out for blood. They
said they will call 141 witnesses, including 15 who will
charge that Manning caused harm to national interests; 33
witnesses, the government claims, will discuss information
so sensitive or secret that it will require closed court
sessions. Four witnesses—including, it appears, a Navy SEAL
involved in the bin Laden raid—will give testimony
anonymously. Army Maj. Ashden Fein, the lead prosecution
attorney, has told the court that the government witnesses
will discuss issues such as “injury and death to
individuals” that resulted from the WikiLeaks disclosures,
as well as how the “capability of the enemy increased in
certain countries.” The government
is preventing Manning’s defense team from interviewing
some of the witnesses before the trial.
When he was secretary of defense, Robert
Gates said a Defense Department review determined that
the publication of the Iraq War Logs and the Afghan War
Diary had “not revealed any sensitive intelligence sources
and methods.” In the trial, however, the government must
prove only that the “disclosure could be potentially
damaging to the United States” and need only provide
“independent proof of at least potential harm to the
national security” beyond mere security classification,
writes law professor Geoffrey Stone. MORE
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