It is nothing new to note the fanaticism with which
the Barack Obama administration classifies even the most innocuous pieces of
information that might enlighten Americans as to the nature of things it is
doing with their money and in their name.
Mr. Obama, once a zealous advocate for openness and transparency in
government (when he was not in a position to do anything about it), has proved
more sedulous in perpetuating government secrecy than was his predecessor.
The Espionage Act has rarely been used over the
years for the scandalous purpose of punishing government
"whistleblowers." The reason
is obvious to those who value openness and transparency in government. Mr. Obama, only a few years ago, was an
avowed member of this latter faction. He
once referred to the act of whistleblowing in glowing terms, calling it courageous
and patriotic. But as has often proved
the case with this president, there is a great divide between sentiment and
action. Since ascending to office, he
has used the Espionage Act to prosecute more whistleblowers than all previous
presidents combined. What was once
courageous and patriotic has apparently become so dangerous that it must be
combated more aggressively than ever before.
Barack Obama is no stranger to this kind of
prevarication, demagogy, and misrepresentation.
One could accurately say he has made a career of it (more on this in the
coming weeks). But there are few issues
with which he has demonstrated so clearly not just insouciant disregard for the
truth, but actual scorn for it. There
are those who say one thing and do another.
Then there are those who say one thing and consistently do the exact
opposite. Our president fits nicely in
the latter camp.
One of the hapless victims of Obama's whistleblower
ambivalence is PFC Bradley Manning.
Motivated by disgust for what he had witnessed during the devastating
U.S. occupation of Iraq, Manning aided Wikileaks in publishing the largest ever
set of restricted documents to the public.
Among the material Manning dared expose was video footage of a 2007 U.S.
airstrike in which U.S. occupation forces casually murdered several
innocent Iraqis. Audio recording of the
soldiers carrying out the atrocity reveals a callous indifference to the value
of human life as it is being destroyed.
Predictably, the footage was called into question by
some dutiful apologist groups. Fox
News, ever the purveyor of jingoistic, authoritarian propaganda, reported
that "[t]he problem, according to many who have viewed the video, is that
WikiLeaks appears to have done selective editing that tells only half the
story." Just who are these
"many who have viewed the video," whose qualms Fox faithfully recounts? The answer to this question, like the
journalistic integrity of the propagandists posing it (who audaciously call
themselves a news organization), is nowhere to be found. I will forgo further elaboration on this
topic and instead merely ask that readers view the video for themselves. That it depicts the casual murder of innocent
people is simply beyond question. If
there is another "half of the story" one need not
know it.
Led by our cowardly president, the U.S. government
claimed for itself the right to classify and restrict public access to the
video, and to other information exposing the many prevarications and
misrepresentations which it committed throughout the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The Pentagon
also rejected freedom of information requests by Reuters to gain access to
the video footage. Bradley Manning
thought this intolerable, and risked his reputation--maybe even his life--to
perpetrate an "act of courage and patriotism" by leaking this
information to the American public.
Swift and terrible was President Obama's
response. Manning was apprehended and
held in military custody for 917 days, under conditions
of confinement which were deplorable in the extreme. Among other horrors, he was held in a 6 ft 8
inch cell and subjected to daily "shakedowns," in which his guards
would terrorize him mercilessly; he was isolated for 23 hours of every day; and
he was forced to defecate in view of his guards. The U.N. special rapporteur on torture
accused the U.S. government of "cruel, inhuman and degrading
treatment" of Mr. Manning, which is a clear violation of the spirit and
purpose of the Convention
Against Torture. The ennui and
isolation of his captivity apparently led Manning to suicidal contemplations,
culminating in his fashioning
a noose for himself. This is the
manner in which President Obama elected to treat a man whose only crime was to
commit an act he once lavishly praised.
Manning has already admitted to his crime. He will likely be convicted of "aiding
the enemy,"
which carries the death penalty. A more fascist-sounding crime could scarcely be conceived. Manning's only hope now is that the American public will demonstrate sufficient outrage at this injustice that he might mount a successful legal defense or be pardoned. Advocacy groups have formed which are trying to raise awareness to these ends.
In conclusion, suffice it to state the obvious: the public should call on Barack Obama to act on his words and defend acts of "courage and patriotism." Bradley Manning should be freed.
