John Pilger,
Truthout
(Photo: Eric Wagner / Flickr)The
critical moment in the political trial of the century was on February
28, 2013, 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.
Describing the attack by an Apache helicopter crew who
filmed civilians as they murdered and wounded them in Baghdad in 2007,
Manning said: "The most alarming aspect of the video to me was the
seemingly delightful bloodlust they appeared to have. They seemed not to
value human life by referring to them as 'dead bastards' and
congratulating each other on the ability to kill in large numbers. At
one point in the video there is an individual on the ground attempting
to crawl to safety [who] is seriously wounded … For me, this seems
similar to a child torturing ants with a magnifying glass." He hoped
"the public would be as alarmed as me" about a crime which, as his
subsequent leaks revealed, was not an aberration.
Bradley Manning is a principled whistleblower and
truth-teller who has been vilified and tortured - and Amnesty
International needs to explain to the world why it has not adopted him
as a prisoner of conscience; or is Amnesty, unlike Manning, intimidated
by criminal power?
"It is a funeral here at Fort Meade," Alexa O'Brien told
me. "The US government wants to bury Manning alive. He is a genuinely
earnest young man with not an ounce of mendacity. The mainstream media
finally came on the day of the verdict. They showed up for a gladiator
match - to watch the gauntlet go down, thumbs pointed down."
