Bradley Manning: Whistleblower par excellence
MANILA - March 5, 2013 - One of the perplexities of our modern judicial system is why no
American servicemen have ever faced a war crimes tribunal in spite of the overwhelming and
documented evidence against them.
Obviously the law does not apply to the world's superpower otherwise a number of them
would be sitting in the dock by now at The Hague War Crimes Tribunal. Instead, Bradley
Manning, the plucky young whistleblower, now faces a lifetime in prison for making public
Pentagon documents and videos, among them a secret video of a cold-blooded killer spree by
American soldiers in Iraq.
The Hague has convicted soldiers and officers from the Balkan and African conflicts on
far flimsier evidence.
The video Manning passed to WikiLeaks, among other material, was shot from a U.S.
helicopter as it blasted away at civilians, among them two Reuters news agency journalists,
walking in a street in Iraq. The language recorded from the commander of the 'raid' was
chilling. "Light them up" and "Hit the bastards" he shouted to the helicopter crew,
demonstrating an absolute disregard for human life. Worse when a van stopped to help the
injured the helicopter is ordered to' light up' its passengers and the wounded as well. Among
the dead in the van is a child. The dead are referred to as 'those bastards.'
The language and the action are so shocking that Pcf Manning, a 22 year old, felt it
was his duty to show the American public the horror of a war that had dehumanized 'our boys'
and brought out the worst traits in many officers. Manning obviously felt disclosure of material
considered 'secret' was in the interests of the public and superseded his oath to the Armed
Forces.
Facing a life sentence as 'traitor' for passing on classified information Manning told the
U.S. military tribunal this month he tried in vain to pass on the information to the Washington
Post and New York Times newspapers which obviously shied away from receiving or
publishing material to undermine a war launched with their own complicity under the faked
premises that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and had ties to Al Qaeda.
In his zeal to show the injustice not only of the war but the callousness of U.S.
diplomacy around the world Manning also passed to WikiLeaks thousands of classified
documents, many of them coarse and arrogant assessments of what American diplomats
really thought of the countries Washington called its allies.
In the hue and cry and the embarrassment that followed the leaked material U.S.
authorities claimed their publication had endangered the lives of U.S. officials (presumably
those who wrote the scurrilous remarks). But no such retribution has yet occurred.
Manning's whistle-blowing is reminiscent of the heroic stand of Daniel Ellsberg whose
leaks of the Pentagon Papers showed the murderous nature of the U.S. bombings of civilians
and helped end the war in Vietnam. But Manning's leak of documents and videos is more
embarrassing because it includes graphic footage of atrocities committed by American GIs,
atrocities that would land the commanders in any other country in the dock at The Hague
War Crimes tribunal.
Nothing of the sort will happen, of course. The U.S does not recognize the Tribunal,
another anomaly in a world dotted with hundreds of U.S military bases on foreign soil. But the
host countries of these bases have no jurisdiction over crimes committed by U.S. servicemen
on their sovereign
territory.
Meanwhile Manning faces a U.S. military tribunal after nine months in isolation and
alleged torture while in military custody.
But the spirit of this courageous young whistleblower has not been broken as he gives
evidence at his trial, which, like all such trials, will and must condemn him if the secretive and
corrupt systems that dominate global life today wish to survive unpunished. Therefore they
must discourage similar future acts of bravery to expose their vile activities.
Uli Schmetzer is a former foreign correspondent for Reuters News agency and the Chicago
Tribune. He is the author of four books available on
www.amazon.com. He can be contacted on ulischmetzer@gmail.com