……………. T O T A L I T A R I A N I S M ……………..
……………………… FREE BRADLEY MANNING ……………………………… Save Bradley Manning page : ………..…………….. https://www.facebook.com/savebradley …..
Many people do not know that he has a dual American-British citizenship!
“I believed that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information contained within the [Iraq and Afghan War Logs] this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general as well as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan.”
-PFC Bradley Manning, who faces life in prison on a politically-charged ‘Aiding the enemy’ allegation, despite the military failing to show evidence of damage done to the national security of the U.S. (Full audio of his Feb 28, 2013 in-court statement available here: http://bit.ly/10HoctH)
…………… https://www.facebook.com/savebradley …..
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^^^^^ Finally: hear Bradley Manning in his own voice ^^^^
A full audio recording of the whistleblower is released today despite a court prohibition on such recordings
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/12/bradley-manning-tapes-own-words
bradley manning statement(FILES)PFC Bradley Manning is escorted by military police as he departs the courtroom at Fort Meade, Maryland in this April 25, 2012 file photo. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
(updated below)
The court-martial proceeding of Bradley Manning has, rather ironically, been shrouded in extreme secrecy, often exceeding even that which prevails at Guantanamo military commissions. This secrecy prompted the Center for Constitutional Rights to commence formal legal action on behalf of several journalists and activists, including myself, to compel greater transparency. One particularly oppressive rule governing the Manning trial has barred not only all video or audio recordings of the proceedings, but also any photographs being taken of Manning or even transcripts made of what is said in court. Combined with the prohibition on all press interviews with him, this extraordinary secrecy regime has meant that, in the two-and-a-half years since his arrest, the world has been prevented, literally, from hearing Manning’s voice. That changes today.
The Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), the group I recently helped found and on whose board I sit, has received a full, unedited audio recording of the one-hour statement Manning made in court two weeks ago, and this morning has published that recording in full.
Hear the full audio here or in excerpts below: audio: https://s3.amazonaws.com/pressfreedom/bradley_manning_statement/full_statement.ogg
In that statement, Manning details at length what he did and, more important, the reasons he chose to do it. I’m personally unaware of who made the recording and am not aware of how it was made, but its authenticity has been verified. Last week, the superb independent journalist Alexa O’Brien, who has covered the proceedings from start to finish, created the best transcript she could of Manning’s statement, which was published, among other places, in the Guardian. But this audio recording provides the first opportunity to hear Manning, in his own voice, explain his actions; that, presumably, is why whoever recorded Manning’s statement risked violating the court-martial rules to do so.
Earlier this morning, the FPF, along with the full audio, published a statement of why it chose to publish this along with some brief analysis. I’m posting below some of the most significant excerpts of Manning’s statement. The first excerpt is in the form of a 5-minute video produced by the documentarian and FPF Board Member Laura Poitras, highlighting Manning’s explanation of how he reacted when he first saw the video of the Apache helicopter gunning down Reuters journalists in Baghdad and then those who showed up to rescue the wounded, including a van with children in it.
The US government and its military has carefully ensured that people hear about Manning from the government, but do not hear from Manning himself. It is way past time for Manning’s voice to be heard:Manning on the Apache helicopter video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L79wWAFUqg&feature=player_embedded
In April, 2010, WikiLeaks made major news around the world when it published its “Collateral Murder” video, showing US soldiers in Baghdad gleefully celebrating as they gunned down civilians, including two Reuters journalists, and then showered their rescuers with bullets. Here, in Poitras’ video, is Manning, in his own words, explaining his reaction when he first saw that video and the process that led him to leak it to the world:Manning on the Iraq and Afghanistan War logs
In July, 2010, WikiLeaks began publishing tens of thousands of war logs detailing various episodes in both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Among other things, these documents revealed 15,000 Iraqi civilian deaths than had been uncounted, a US policy expressly barring US troops from investigating human rights abuses by the Iraqi forces they were training, previously unknown civilian deaths in Afghanistan at the hands of Nato, and definitive proof that US government and military officials had knowingly lied to the public about these wars. Here is Manning explaining his reaction when he first saw these documents and why he decided to leak them; listen on the player above.
Manning on what caused him to question the Iraq War – audio: https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/sites/default/files/excerpt5.ogg
In his chats with the government informant who turned him in, Manning – who had been promised confidentiality by the informant who claimed to be a journalist and a pastor – described what first made him disillusioned about the Iraq war in which he was serving. Specifically, he described how he had discovered that many of the Iraqis whom he was helping to detain were not insurgents at all, but simply critics of the Malaki government. But when Manning alerted his superiors to this fact, he was dismissed away, and realized then that using the formal whistleblowing channels would result in nothing other than his own punishment. Here is Manning elaborating on those events and explaining why this led him to leak to WikiLeaks; listen on the player above.
Manning on the diplomatic cables – audio: https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/sites/default/files/excerpt6.ogg
Here is Manning explaining his first reaction to reading various US diplomatic cables, and what led him to read more and eventually release them; listen on the player above.
Manning on the due diligence he performed over the cables – audio: https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/sites/default/files/excerpt7.ogg
To impugn Manning’s conduct, it is often claimed – by people who cannot possibly know this – that he failed to assess the diplomatic cables he was releasing and simply handed them over without having any idea what was in them. Here is Manning explaining the detailed process he undertook to determine their contents and ensure that they would not result in serious harm to innocent individuals; listen on the player above.
Manning on contacting other media outlets-audio: https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/sites/default/files/excerpt2.ogg
Here is Manning describing how he first contacted traditional news outlets about what he found; listen on the player above.
Yesterday, former New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller published a column which, while partially praising Manning’s leaks, insinuated that the claims Manning made in his in-court statement about his motives and actions may be unreliable because they are not found in the logs of the chats in which he engaged with the government informant. That is factually false. As both Nathan Fuller and Greg Mitchell conclusively documented yesterday, Manning’s descriptions match perfectly what he said in those chats when he thought nobody would ever hear what he was saying. That’s what makes Manning’s statements about his motives and thought process so reliable: they not only are consistent with his actions, but with everything he said when he thought he was speaking in private.
Whatever else is true, Bradley Manning is responsible for the most significant and valuable leaks since Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers. It is a cause for celebration that the US government’s efforts to silence his voice, literally, have now been thwarted. Now, people can and should hear directly from Manning himself and make their own assessment. Whoever made this illicit recording (as well as the FPF in publishing it) acted in the best spirit of Manning himself: defying corrupt, unjust and self-protecting government secrecy rules in order to inform the world about vital matters.UPDATE
Extreme amounts of traffic has taken down the FPF site at times today and may be causing problems with the embedded players I’ve posted. Things appear to have stabilized now, but if you’re having problems listening to them here (or seeing them), just wait a bit and they should be working shortly.
In the meantime, the prior generation’s greatest whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg (who is also an FPF board member), today hails this generation’s greatest, Bradley Manning, in an Op-Ed at the Huffington Post. Writes Ellsberg: “After listening to this recording and reading his testimony, I believe Bradley Manning is the personification of the word whistleblower.” He also makes clear how similar is Manning’s treatment to the treatment to which Ellsberg was subjected. I can’t encourage you strongly enough to read what he has to say.