I have already written about Bradley Manning, in an editorial way; explaining why I don’t believe the gay community will embrace him as I think they should. He is, in my opinion, a real hero and an important whistleblower, bringing to light to grievous lies and affects of war to the American People.
WASHINGTON — Three years ago the transparency website WikiLeaks released a video of a U.S. Apache helicopter gunning down Reuters journalists on a Baghdad street.
It was just one chilling public revelation from a cache of 700,000 documents a young Army private first class named Bradley Manning gave the site. Soon after would follow sobering field reports from the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, and candid diplomatic cables from the U.S. Department of State.
To Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jónsdóttir, Manning is “an embodiment of what sort of person I would like to be.” An activist as well as a politician, she helped edit the so-called “Collateral Murder” gun cam video.
“I would like to have the same courage, the same sense of justice, the same integrity as Bradley Manning,” she said. “He in my opinion is in the exact category as [Pentagon Papers whistle-blower] Daniel Ellsberg and other fighters for freedom of expression.”
On Monday, Manning’s trial begins. The 25-year-old faces life in prison for his leaks. The potential implications of the proceedings on this sprawling military base outside Washington, D.C. go far beyond his fate alone.
What I’d add to my previous thoughts today, is that I think the Gay Activist mentality of a binary right and a wrong stands in the way of dissecting and understanding Manning and what is at stake in this case. I’d characterize this “right/wrong” mentality as the way we dilute issues down as if there is a single right way (our Full Equality, and anything else is unacceptable. A characterization I actually agree with in a big way. But, not every issue boils down quite so neatly, and that is where the characterization fails us. Manning disobeyed military orders and military procedure, which is wrong, and did it for all of the right reasons.
I wish I could adequately amplify Daniel Ellsberg’s sentiments about Manning. He, more than any other person grasps what is at stake here when it comes to the right of the People to know the truth. On the radio today, I heard him say that even the Military can not provide any evidence that anything that Manning did placed any American in danger. I am looking for a citation for that, because tat is the biggest objection raised for supporting Manning.
I am convinced that Gays and Lesbians will continue to fail to support Manning since his efforts appear as an attack on a Government and a President whom we (as a LGBT community) want to believe is on our side. We need so much from this President and this Government, and so much is hanging in the scales right now as we await the US Supreme Court decisions on same-sex marriage. How can we, as a group hope for affirmation from this very government which has been so wrong as illustrated in these leaks? That is a real conundrum.
This trial is expected to last most of the summer, so I know this will not be the last I write about this.
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