BRADLEY/CHELSEA MANNING
AWARDED INTERNATIONAL
PEACE PRIZE:

US whistleblower, Bradley/Chelsea Manning has been awarded the Sean McBride
Peace Prize by the International Peace Bureau in Stockholm, Sweden:

 

 

 

PRESS RELEASE

 

 

International Peace Bureau awards the Sean MacBride Peace Prize 2013 to US whistleblower BRADLEY MANNING

 

19 JULY 2013, GENEVA.

 

The International Peace Bureau is delighted to announce that this year’s Sean MacBride Peace Prize is to be awarded to Bradley Manning, the US whistleblower whose case has attracted worldwide attention, for his courageous actions in revealing information about US war crimes. His trial is likely to be concluded in the coming days.

 

 

Manning was arrested in May 2010 after allegedly leaking more than 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables, 400,000 U.S. Army reports about Iraq and another 90,000 about Afghanistan, as well as the material used in the “Collateral Murder” video produced by WikiLeaks: videos of the July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike and the 2009 Garani airstrike in Afghanistan. At the time, it constituted the largest set of restricted documents ever leaked to  the public.  Much of it  was  published by  WikiLeaks or its  media partners between April and November 2010.

 

Manning has so far been detained for three years  — first in Kuwait, then in solitary confinement at the Marine Corps Brig in Quantico, Va., and finally at a medium-­‐security military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. — before being charged with 22 offenses, including communicating national defense information to an unauthorized source and aiding the enemy. He pleaded guilty in February 2013 to 10 of the 22 charges, which could carry a sentence of up to 20 years. A full life sentence is now also possible.

 

IPB's Co-­‐President Tomas Magnusson comments: “IPB believes that among the very highest  moral  duties  of  a  citizen  is  to  make  known  war  crimes  and  crimes  against humanity. This is within the broad meaning of the Nuremberg Principles enunciated at the end of the Second World War. When Manning revealed to the world the crimes being committed by the US military he did so as an act of obedience to this high moral duty”. It is for this reason too that Manning has also been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. In more general terms it is well known that war operations, and especially illegal ones, are frequently conducted under the cover of secrecy. To penetrate this wall of secrecy by revealing information that should be accessible to all is an important contribution to the struggle against war, and acts as a challenge to the military system which dominates both the economy and society in today’s world. IPB believes that whistleblowers are vital in upholding democracies -­‐    especially in the area of defense and security. A heavy sentence for Manning  would  not  only  be  unjust  but  would  also  have  very negative effects on the right to freedom of expression which the US claims to uphold. 

 

About the MacBride Prize

The prize has been awarded each year since 1992 by the International Peace Bureau (IPB), founded in 1892. Previous winners include: Lina Ben Mhenni (Tunisian blogger) and Nawal El-­‐Sadaawi  (Egyptian author) -­‐    2012, Jackie Cabasso (USA, 2008), Jayantha Dhanapala (Sri Lanka, 2007) and the Mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (2006). It is named after Sean MacBride, a distinguished Irish statesman who shared the 1974 Nobel Peace Prize, and is given to individuals or organisations for their outstanding work for peace, disarmament and human rights.

 

The (non-­‐monetary) Prize consists of a medal made in ‘Peace Bronze’, a material derived from recycled nuclear weapons components*. It will be formally awarded on Sept. 14 in Stockholm, at a special evening on Whistleblowing, which forms part of the triennial gathering  of  the  International  Peace  Bureau.        

 

Bradley Manning trial ends:

                                                       Bradley Manning, major threat to "US security"

BRADLEY MANNING
CONVICTED:

Punishment for those who
reveal crimes; immunity for
those who commit crimes:

Shame of US Military "Justice":

The verdict of the military judge in the Bradley Manning trial in convicting the

former Army officer on a long list of charges of "espionage" is another brazen example of the hypocritical stance of the criminal Washington elite in trying to cover up its war crimes by persecuting anyone who reveals these crimes to the American public and the world. Held for months in solitary confinement and harassed by brutal guards, Officer Manning, a slightly built and quiet individual, withstood the tortures of a criminal Empire and gave inspiration to many around the world who struggle daily for Peace, human rights and the ending of the aggressive wars waged by the US Military against the civilian populations of the countries it has invaded.

On Wednesday, the day after the conviction of Bradley Manning was handed down by the military judge, the Washington Post published an article under the headline, “Manning’s Conviction Seen as Making Prosecution of WikiLeaks’ Assange Likely.” The Post noted that the prosecutors—that is, the Obama administration—specifically tailored their case against Manning to implicate the founder of WikiLeaks.

“Military prosecutors in the court-martial portrayed Julian Assange as an ‘information anarchist’ who encouraged Manning… And they insisted that the anti-secrecy group cannot be considered a media organization that published the leaked information in the public interest,” the Post wrote. The prosecution continually sought to present Assange as a co-conspirator.

Other articles sounded a similar theme, including one by the Associated Press stating that Manning’s conviction “gives a boost to the Obama administration’s aggressive pursuit of people it believes have leaked national security secrets to the media.” In addition to Assange, the AP noted that “the government’s case against National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden” will likely be “similar to the Manning prosecution.”

This is further evidence that the kangaroo-court trial of the young whistle-blower Manning is part of a ruthless government campaign to criminalise all exposures of government criminality. The prosecution of Manning, who faces a maximum sentence of 136 years in prison, is intended as an example and a precedent. Whistle-blowing, the government is declaring, amounts to espionage and treason.

The Obama administration has already opened up a grand jury investigation into Assange and WikiLeaks, and there are reports that a secret indictment has been filed. It has submitted charges against Snowden under the Espionage Act for his actions in exposing illegal government spying programs. If either Snowden or Assange is captured by the United States, there is no doubt that he will face a fate equal to, or worse, than Manning’s. Obama, along with top officials in the military and intelligence apparatus, is acutely aware that the actions taken over the past decade violate innumerable laws and constitutional

provisions.

Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, under the pretext of the “war on terror,” the American ruling class, first under Bush and then under Obama, has engaged in wanton criminality, only a small portion of which has been exposed by the revelations of Manning and Snowden. Washington is responsible for torture centers all over the world, domestic spying on an unparalleled scale, illegal rendition, the assassination of US citizens, and secret anti-democratic laws drawn up by secret courts.

On Wednesday, the  British "Guardian" reported on yet another surveillance program, XKeyscore, that allows NSA analysts—contrary to the testimony of government and intelligence officials—to comb through “vast databases containing emails, online chats and browsing histories of millions of individuals” without a court order.

All of these crimes flow from the illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Manning himself was moved by the atrocities he witnessed in Iraq in a war based on outright lies. Hundreds of thousands have been killed. Entire cities have been destroyed. The wars against Afghanistan and Iraq have been followed by other war crimes, with the US government now operating a fleet of drones that rain death on peoples throughout the world. Manning is to spend decades in jail, if not his entire life, for helping to expose these crimes, while those who carried them out walk free or occupy plush offices in the White House.

Of particular concern to the ruling class is that individuals like Manning and Snowden, utilizing the power of the Internet, have been able to bypass the stranglehold of the American media, which has aided and abetted every government conspiracy against the population. The New York Times in particular played an indispensable role in propagating the lies used to launch the war in Iraq and has utilised its pages to carry out a smear campaign against Assange and Snowden. In a two-faced editorial Wednesday, the Times declared, “There is no question that Private Manning broke laws.” This—a cowardly statement worthy of scoundrels—was published as Manning faces life in prison for exposing government illegality!

Manning, Assange and Snowden have put their lives at risk to expose to the American people the secret actions of a military-intelligence apparatus that operates without constraint and above the law.

In its contempt of legal norms, the attitude that prevails in the corridors of power in the United States is not fundamentally different from that of Hitler’s Germany. Laws exist solely for the purpose of advancing the interests of the ruling class that controls the state. They can be violated by the executive at will, receiving, if it is convenient, the endorsement of the courts and a servile Congress. Exposure of these violations, carried out in the public interest, is by definition illegal because it violates the secrecy demanded in the name of “national security.” The crimes of the Hitler regime—including the mass internment and execution of political dissidents—have yet to be replicated in the United States. However, the logic of dictatorship is the same—a logic that is driven by the irreconcilable antagonism between the interests of a parasitic financial aristocracy and the vast majority of the population.

There is immense popular sympathy for Manning, Snowden and Assange. The measures that they have exposed are unpopular, which is why the ruling class must conceal them. This sympathy must be translated into a conscious political movement, one that connects the defence of democracy with the overthrow of the corrupt economic and political system that prevails in the United States and around the world.