By Elizabeth Cho, Contributor, Wellesley College
“Hypothetical question: If you had free reign over classified networks for long periods of time ... say, eight to nine months ... and you saw incredible things, awful things ... things that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC ... what would you do?”
Chelsea Manning, former US soldier and private, was convicted this July for violations of the Espionage Act. She received a 35 year prison sentence on Wednesday, August 21st and news of both the verdict and her gender have resulted in a revival of interest and discussion surrounding the case. Through it all, I still find myself captivated by the quote (above) taken from her original AOL chat confession and by what Chelsea Manning’s actions, intentions, and treatment mean for us as a nation.
The Manning case, spanning roughly four years, first began in 2009. While working in Baghdad as an intelligence analyst, Chelsea Manning contacted several media outlets, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, concerning materials with “enormous value to the American public.” She was rejected by all of them and decided to release the material to Wikileaks in February 2010. Among the leaks given is the infamous “Collateral Murder” video, in which US soldiers are seen shooting innocent Iraqi civilians, including two journalists and two children. Among the documents she gave was a diplomatic cable from a UN official stating that U.S. soldiers had “executed all of them.” After this leak, the Iraqi government refused to grant immunity to U.S troops, thus forcing the US to abandon its plans to keep several thousand US soldiers in Iraq permanently. Concerning this matter, Julian Assange said during a December address penned from London’s Ecuadorian Embassy, “It was WikiLeaks’ revelations — not the actions of President Obama — that forced the US administration out of the Iraq War… By exposing the killing of Iraqi children, WikiLeaks directly motivated the Iraqi government to strip the US military of legal immunity, which in turn forced the US withdrawal.”
Chelsea Manning, former US soldier and private, was convicted this July for violations of the Espionage Act. She received a 35 year prison sentence on Wednesday, August 21st and news of both the verdict and her gender have resulted in a revival of interest and discussion surrounding the case. Through it all, I still find myself captivated by the quote (above) taken from her original AOL chat confession and by what Chelsea Manning’s actions, intentions, and treatment mean for us as a nation.
The Manning case, spanning roughly four years, first began in 2009. While working in Baghdad as an intelligence analyst, Chelsea Manning contacted several media outlets, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, concerning materials with “enormous value to the American public.” She was rejected by all of them and decided to release the material to Wikileaks in February 2010. Among the leaks given is the infamous “Collateral Murder” video, in which US soldiers are seen shooting innocent Iraqi civilians, including two journalists and two children. Among the documents she gave was a diplomatic cable from a UN official stating that U.S. soldiers had “executed all of them.” After this leak, the Iraqi government refused to grant immunity to U.S troops, thus forcing the US to abandon its plans to keep several thousand US soldiers in Iraq permanently. Concerning this matter, Julian Assange said during a December address penned from London’s Ecuadorian Embassy, “It was WikiLeaks’ revelations — not the actions of President Obama — that forced the US administration out of the Iraq War… By exposing the killing of Iraqi children, WikiLeaks directly motivated the Iraqi government to strip the US military of legal immunity, which in turn forced the US withdrawal.”
"Collateral Murder," one of the many videos and documents released by Manning
On February 18th, 2010 Wikileaks first began to release the materials to the public. The most incriminating leak, the footage of the Baghdad airstrike, was released on April 10th. Fifteen days later, Manning wrote a letter to her sergeant concerning her gender dysphoria, and on May 7th army witnesses state she was found “curled in a fetal position in a storage cupboard; she had a knife at her feet and had cut the words ‘I want’ into a vinyl chair.” She reached out to two acquaintances before finally confiding in computer hacker Adrian Lamo via an online chat room of both her responsibility behind the leaks and her gender dysphoria. Lamo reported her to authorities and she was detained for 112 days without a trial at Quantico, where she was put on suicide watch and prohibited from wearing clothing. When UN Special Rapporteur on torture Juan Mendez investigated Manning’s detainment, he reported that the detention conditions were “cruel, inhuman and degrading”. These 112 days have been subtracted from Manning’s sentence of 35 years, all while those behind the acts like the Baghdad airstrike and the torture of Abu Ghraib face little to no time at all.
I can be a bit hyper-suspicious of the media, and though there well may not be some conspiracy against Manning, I still feel uneasy about the fact that recent news of Manning’s gender identity is receiving more mainstream coverage than “Corporate Murder,” the video Manning leaked, and I want to comment on this aspect of the case. Chelsea Manning being a woman is old news. What I’m almost sure has happened is that, with the trial coming to a close and an increase of publicity, Manning felt she could and should inform news outlets of her identity as a woman, though it was already information available to the public (Manning in fact went by the name of Breanna in 2010). Unfortunately, the media now has focused on this aspect of her trial more than the original matter behind it all. Instead of readers deciding whether or not Manning is guilty of aiding the enemy, or whether extreme military actions are justified in times of war, they have been guided by the media to evaluate Manning and her actions based on her gender identity. I don’t mean at all to say that she shouldn't have “come out”. I find it absolutely wonderful that more people are acknowledging that she is a woman, and I’m glad that Manning’s “outing” is creating more much needed dialogue concerning trans* issues, especially issues of healthcare and LGBTQ+ rights in the military. However, as the media critic I am, I can’t help but classify this as a typical switch tactic -because mainstream news sources can’t refute the whistle-blower’s cause, they refute the whistleblower themself. Attack the messenger, ignore the message. The emphasis on Manning being a woman has now become a distraction mechanism that very well may be aimed to divert attention from what it is that Manning stood for in the first place.
But this is not something we can disregard.
We live in a country where exposing war crimes is worse than actually committing them, where crime against the government is treated worse than crimes against citizens.
I’m aware that Manning released thousands of cables and documents that could have potentially endangered lives, and that there are consequences for breaking laws . Nonetheless, I believe there are times when we should look beyond the laws broken and recognize that in the case of United States vs Manning, we should scrutinize the United States just as strongly as Manning. This is, after all, what Manning originally intended to do in committing the leaks. We need people like Manning to keep our military and government in check and to remind us of the power of civil disobedience. If you hadn’t noticed, I feel immense respect and empathy for Manning. This is a person who gave away so much of her freedom so that we could be aware of crimes committed by our government, a person who suffered an immense amount of both physical and emotional abuse because of her decision to act upon moral duty rather than a lawful one. She has since released a request to be pardoned, where among other statements she quotes the late Howard Zinn, saying "There is not a flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people." She closes her request with the following:
I understand that my actions violated the law, and I regret if my actions hurt anyone or harmed the United States. It was never my intention to hurt anyone. I only wanted to help people. When I chose to disclose classified information, I did so out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to others.
If you deny my request for a pardon, I will serve my time knowing that sometimes you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society. I will gladly pay that price if it means we could have country that is truly conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all women and men are created equal.
The New Yorker released an article stating that despite whether this request is granted or not, in thirty years, history instead will pardon Manning. However, this is not the matter I find most concerning. Most of the world, for one, has already pardoned her. No, what I’m concerned about is if I will ever find it within myself to pardon the Obama administration and my country as a whole for the mass of human rights violations surrounding this affair, including, but not limited to the abuse of military power in Iraq, the inhumane detainment of Chelsea Manning, her absurdly harsh sentence, and the grotesque treatment both we and the US army have given her as a trans* woman. We advocate for movements that urge US citizens to never forget 9/11. I advocate, instead, that we never forget Chelsea Manning, and most importantly, that we never forget our humanity.
SOURCES
1 http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/07/manning-lamo-logs/
2 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-moore/what-bradley-mannings-sen_b_3679015.html
3 http://www.vice.com/read/the-torture-of-bradley-manning?utm_source=vicetumblrus
4 http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/who-is-wikileaks-suspect-bradley-manning/2011/04/16/AFMwBmrF_print.html
5 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/12/bradley-manning-cruel-inhuman-treatment-un
I can be a bit hyper-suspicious of the media, and though there well may not be some conspiracy against Manning, I still feel uneasy about the fact that recent news of Manning’s gender identity is receiving more mainstream coverage than “Corporate Murder,” the video Manning leaked, and I want to comment on this aspect of the case. Chelsea Manning being a woman is old news. What I’m almost sure has happened is that, with the trial coming to a close and an increase of publicity, Manning felt she could and should inform news outlets of her identity as a woman, though it was already information available to the public (Manning in fact went by the name of Breanna in 2010). Unfortunately, the media now has focused on this aspect of her trial more than the original matter behind it all. Instead of readers deciding whether or not Manning is guilty of aiding the enemy, or whether extreme military actions are justified in times of war, they have been guided by the media to evaluate Manning and her actions based on her gender identity. I don’t mean at all to say that she shouldn't have “come out”. I find it absolutely wonderful that more people are acknowledging that she is a woman, and I’m glad that Manning’s “outing” is creating more much needed dialogue concerning trans* issues, especially issues of healthcare and LGBTQ+ rights in the military. However, as the media critic I am, I can’t help but classify this as a typical switch tactic -because mainstream news sources can’t refute the whistle-blower’s cause, they refute the whistleblower themself. Attack the messenger, ignore the message. The emphasis on Manning being a woman has now become a distraction mechanism that very well may be aimed to divert attention from what it is that Manning stood for in the first place.
But this is not something we can disregard.
We live in a country where exposing war crimes is worse than actually committing them, where crime against the government is treated worse than crimes against citizens.
I’m aware that Manning released thousands of cables and documents that could have potentially endangered lives, and that there are consequences for breaking laws . Nonetheless, I believe there are times when we should look beyond the laws broken and recognize that in the case of United States vs Manning, we should scrutinize the United States just as strongly as Manning. This is, after all, what Manning originally intended to do in committing the leaks. We need people like Manning to keep our military and government in check and to remind us of the power of civil disobedience. If you hadn’t noticed, I feel immense respect and empathy for Manning. This is a person who gave away so much of her freedom so that we could be aware of crimes committed by our government, a person who suffered an immense amount of both physical and emotional abuse because of her decision to act upon moral duty rather than a lawful one. She has since released a request to be pardoned, where among other statements she quotes the late Howard Zinn, saying "There is not a flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people." She closes her request with the following:
I understand that my actions violated the law, and I regret if my actions hurt anyone or harmed the United States. It was never my intention to hurt anyone. I only wanted to help people. When I chose to disclose classified information, I did so out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to others.
If you deny my request for a pardon, I will serve my time knowing that sometimes you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society. I will gladly pay that price if it means we could have country that is truly conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all women and men are created equal.
The New Yorker released an article stating that despite whether this request is granted or not, in thirty years, history instead will pardon Manning. However, this is not the matter I find most concerning. Most of the world, for one, has already pardoned her. No, what I’m concerned about is if I will ever find it within myself to pardon the Obama administration and my country as a whole for the mass of human rights violations surrounding this affair, including, but not limited to the abuse of military power in Iraq, the inhumane detainment of Chelsea Manning, her absurdly harsh sentence, and the grotesque treatment both we and the US army have given her as a trans* woman. We advocate for movements that urge US citizens to never forget 9/11. I advocate, instead, that we never forget Chelsea Manning, and most importantly, that we never forget our humanity.
SOURCES
1 http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/07/manning-lamo-logs/
2 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-moore/what-bradley-mannings-sen_b_3679015.html
3 http://www.vice.com/read/the-torture-of-bradley-manning?utm_source=vicetumblrus
4 http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/who-is-wikileaks-suspect-bradley-manning/2011/04/16/AFMwBmrF_print.html
5 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/12/bradley-manning-cruel-inhuman-treatment-un