What Manning Revealed

[kpete]

"Much of the wrongdoing that Manning exposed hasn’t been dealt with nearly as harshly as he has," and quoting from a New Republic article arguing that Manning should be pardoned, offers a list of such incidents Manning is responsible for letting the world know about:

American troops killing civilians, including women and children, and then calling in an airstrike to destroy evidence; the video of an American Apache helicopter gunship shooting civilians, including two Reuters reporters; American military authorities failing to investigate reports of torture and murder by Iraqi police; and a “black unit” in Afghanistan tasked to perform extrajudicial assassinations of Taliban sympathizers that killed as many as 373 civilians.

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/08/21/bradley-mannings-harsh-sentence


Below is a list of 10 revelations disclosed by Manning’s leaked documents that offer insight into the breadth and scope of what he revealed, help explain his motivation for leaking, and provide context for the ongoing trial. The list, in no particular order, is far from comprehensive but encompasses some of the most significant information brought to light by the leaked documents.

During the Iraq War, U.S. authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape, and murder by Iraqi police and soldiers, according to thousands of field reports.

There were 109,032 “violent deaths” recorded in Iraq between 2004 and 2009, including 66,081 civilians. Leaked records from the Afghan War separately revealed coalition troops’ alleged role in killing at least 195 civilians in unreported incidents, one reportedly involving U.S. service members machine-gunning a bus, wounding or killing 15 passengers.

The U.S. Embassy in Paris advised Washington to start a military-style trade war against any European Union country that opposed genetically modified crops, with U.S. diplomats effectively working directly for GM companies such as Monsanto.

British and American officials colluded in a plan to mislead the British Parliament over a proposed ban on cluster bombs.

In Baghdad in 2007, a U.S. Army helicopter gunned down a group of civilians, including two Reuters news staff.

U.S. special operations forces were conducting offensive operations inside Pakistan despite sustained public denials and statements to the contrary by U.S. officials.

A leaked diplomatic cable provided evidence that during an incident in 2006, U.S. troops in Iraq executed at least 10 Iraqi civilians, including a woman in her 70s and a 5-month-old, then called in an airstrike to destroy the evidence. The disclosure of this cable was later a significant factor in the Iraqi government’s refusal to grant U.S. troops immunity from prosecution beyond 2011, which led to U.S. troops withdrawing from the country.

A NATO coalition in Afghanistan was using an undisclosed “black” unit of special operations forces to hunt down targets for death or detention without trial. The unit was revealed to have had a kill-or-capture list featuring details of more than 2,000 senior figures from the Taliban and al-Qaida, but it had in some cases mistakenly killed men, women, children, and Afghan police officers.

The U.S. threatened the Italian government in an attempt to influence a court case involving the indictment of CIA agents over the kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric. Separately, U.S. officials were revealed to have pressured Spanish prosecutors to dissuade them from investigating U.S. torture allegations, secret “extraordinary rendition” flights, and the killing of a Spanish journalist by U.S. troops in Iraq.

In apparent violation of a 1946 U.N. convention, Washington initiated a spying campaign in 2009 that targeted the leadership of the U.N. by seeking to gather top officials’ private encryption keys, credit card details, and biometric data.

MORE:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/06/04/bradley_manning_trial_10_revelations_from_wikileaks_documents_on_iraq_afghanistan.html



The story of Bradley Manning should be a source of inspiration for journalists, free speech advocates, and above all those in positions of power who might consider exposing uncomfortable truths. Instead, his harsh and unnecessary prison sentence sends a dangerous message that leaking information to the public will be punished beyond all reasonable bounds.

The public needs whistleblowers. Often at enormous personal sacrifice, whistleblowers serve as the ultimate check on otherwise unaccountable government secrecy. And Manning’s work in particular has shown that a single person can, when faced with knowledge of criminal acts, speak the truth and change the world.

Bradley Manning, who has been nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize, deserves our gratitude—not decades in prison. As defenders of press freedom, we know that today’s ruling could have dire consequences for future whistleblowers working with investigative journalists. We condemn today’s sentencing of Bradley Manning as an attack on freedom of the press.
https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/blog/2013/08/freedom-press-foundation-condemns-egregious-sentence-bradley-manning

[Cooley Hurd]

1. A good summary - wish it would go viral!

I will do my part - kick and rec!!

[MotherPetrie]

2. K&R

[PowerToThePeople]

3. REC

[Change has come]

4. K&R

[Cerridwen]

5. "...which led to U.S.troops withdrawing from [Iraq]."

A leaked diplomatic cable provided evidence that during an incident in 2006, U.S. troops in Iraq executed at least 10 Iraqi civilians, including a woman in her 70s and a 5-month-old, then called in an airstrike to destroy the evidence. The disclosure of this cable was later a significant factor in the Iraqi government’s refusal to grant U.S. troops immunity from prosecution beyond 2011, which led to U.S. troops withdrawing from the country.

That just kinda jumped out at me.

I'm glad we brought home the troops we brought home. The reason we did so might be a tad bit different than advertised.

[RobertEarl]

6. That ended our invasion

We'd still be there if that was not made public. Manning saved many lives by exposing that piece of info. No telling how many there or in in Pakghanistan.

[Cerridwen]

7. Yes, it did; but not for the reasons advertised.

Which was my point.

As I stated.

[Th1onein]

8. Why kill a five month old baby, for fuck's sake?

A leaked diplomatic cable provided evidence that during an incident in 2006, U.S. troops in Iraq executed at least 10 Iraqi civilians, including a woman in her 70s and a 5-month-old, then called in an airstrike to destroy the evidence. The disclosure of this cable was later a significant factor in the Iraqi government’s refusal to grant U.S. troops immunity from prosecution beyond 2011, which led to U.S. troops withdrawing from the country.

MONSTERS.

[mattclearing]

9. Worth noting:

I will remember that it was Bradley Manning, not President Obama, who was responsible for the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

A leaked diplomatic cable provided evidence that during an incident in 2006, U.S. troops in Iraq executed at least 10 Iraqi civilians, including a woman in her 70s and a 5-month-old, then called in an airstrike to destroy the evidence. The disclosure of this cable was later a significant factor in the Iraqi government’s refusal to grant U.S. troops immunity from prosecution beyond 2011, which led to U.S. troops withdrawing from the country.

[whttevrr]

10. This is all so mind numbingly sad...