Imagine a society in which journalists or publishers are threatened by the government with life in prison for reporting on massive war crimes. Actually, you don’t have to imagine this nightmarish scenario. This is now the reality in America 2019, with the May 23 indictment of Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, for working with Chelsea Manning to bring to light U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as troves of other information relating to treatment of detainees at Guantánamo, diplomatic cables with details about U.S. relations with its allies, and more.

Welcome Manning’s Scheduled Release from Prison — Condemn Her Outrageous Seven-Year Imprisonment

On January 17, President Obama announced that he was commuting the 35-year sentence of Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning.¹ Manning is scheduled to be released in May 2017, rather than 2045.

On the 5th Anniversary of the Release of Collateral Murder, Thank You Chelsea Manning!

Julian Assange knows the power of protest. “I still enjoy crushing bastards [illegitimate arbiters of state power]” the WikiLeaks founder recently told L’Espresso journalist Di Stefania Maurizi. Publication of a secret military video showing U.S. murder of civilians in Baghdad has irrevocably altered the lives of Assange and whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

Deb Vanpoolen | December 17, 2013

Although Private Manning vs. the United States was one of the most important trials in US history, no cameras were allowed inside the courtroom.  Without cameras in the courtroom, the world’s masses of people impacted by the Wikileaks releases could not be properly informed of the proceedings.  In the three years following the Wikileaks releases and Manning’s arrest, the mainstream US media provided miniscule coverage of anything to do with Private Manning, including her entire three-year pre-trial confinement and the two years of pre-trial hearings.

Amnesty International and the Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning Support Network initiated a petition on WhiteHouse.gov calling on Barack Obama to “grant clemency to Pvt. Bradley Manning.”  The petition requires 100,000 signatures by September 20 for the White House to have to comment on it, or it will die.  So far there are just over 24,000 signers.

We are almost 25% of the way to 100,000 signers, and must pick up momentum quickly.  On Monday September 16, #PardonManning Day, will you sign the peititon, and do the work to be sure that 5 of your friends, family, or colleagues do so?

On August 21, amilitary judge handed down an outrageous sentence of 35 years in prison to Bradley Manning. Manning was convicted on multiple charges for his release to Wikileaks of thousands of computer files that contained damning, irrefutable evidence of U.S. atrocities, cover-ups, and deceit—in short, war crimes.

We are on the eve of Judge Lind’s sentencing of Bradley Manning. Protests are planned after the verdict is announced. Details on this are at the end of this article.

For context we should not forget that Obama, the man who promised “hope” and “change,” decided to charge Manning and ordered him kept in solitary isolation for nine months, subjecting him to conditions that the UN special rapporteur on torture labeled “cruel, inhuman and degrading,” as The Guardian reported on March 12, 2012:

Dear Bradley,

I read your statement to the judge via an article I saw yesterday. I read it very carefully and a number of thoughts went through my mind about your apology… the most important thought being is that you have nothing to apologize for.

In your apology to the judge you mention the issues that you had to deal with at the time you decided to expose the crimes of our government. You mention you were going through a lot personally:

There is, and should be, serious debate and discussion of how Bradley Manning affected our world by transferring a trove of classified US documents revealing war crimes to Wikileaks in 2010, and of his apology for doing so yesterday, in the process of demanding that he do not one more second in prison.

Bradley Manning took courageous action aimed at stopping what were, and will always remain, war crimes in pursuit of unjust, immoral, illegitimate occupations of Iraq  and Afghanistan.  He did much more than that, as Dennis Loo recaps in Because of Bradley Manning:

Because of Bradley Manning, we have Edward Snowden, who was inspired to come forward by Manning’s example;

Because of Bradley Manning, we know that most of the prisoners held at Guantanamo are innocent or low-level operatives and we have the identities and pictures of the prisoners held at Guantanamo who are now hunger striking (BradleyManning.org);

The critical moment in the political trial of the century was on 28 February when Bradley Manning stood and explained why he had risked his life to leak tens of thousands of official files. It was a statement of morality, conscience and truth: the very qualities that distinguish human beings. This was not deemed mainstream news in America; and were it not for Alexa O’Brien, an independent freelance journalist, Manning’s voice would have been silenced. Working through the night, she transcribed and released his every word. It is a rare, revealing document*.