Bradley Manning statement after sentencing

A US Army Tribunal yesterday sentenced 25-year-old military intelligence analyst Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison. He was found guilty on multiple counts, including violation of the Espionage Act, disclosure of secret information, granting access to confidential documents to an outsider, etc.



In 2010, Bradley Manning gave Wikileaks more than 750 thousand documents, including a video of the execution by mistake of civilians from 30-mm automatic guns of Apache helicopters (with laughter of pilots), 500 thousand military documents from Iraq and Afghanistan, 250 thousand diplomatic US telegrams that show the "cuisine" of international diplomacy in the years 1966-2010.

Representatives of the prosecution asked the judge to plant Mannig for 60 years: “This is important for intimidation, your honor; the court must send a message to each soldier who is thinking of stealing classified information, ”military prosecutor captain Joe Morrow said in an address to the judge.
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Lawyer Bradley Manning published a statement of his ward, which he made after the sentencing (recorded with his words).

“The decisions I made in 2010 were made out of concern for my country and the world in which we live. After the tragic events of 9/11, our country is in a state of war. We were at war with an enemy who decided not to meet with us on the traditional battlefield, and therefore we had to change our methods of struggle and our way of life.

I first agreed with these methods and volunteered to defend my country. That was so until I had to read secret military reports daily in Iraq, which made me doubt the moral side of what we were doing. It was at this time that I realized that in trying to repel threats from our enemies, we forgot about our own humanity. We deliberately went to the devaluation of human life in Iraq and Afghanistan. When we fought with those whom we considered our enemies, we sometimes killed innocent civilians. Whenever we killed civilians, instead of taking responsibility for our actions, we chose to hide them behind a veil of national security and secret information in order to avoid any public exposure.

In our quest to kill the enemy, we internally discussed the definition of torture. We held some people in Guantanamo for several years without trial. We inexplicably turned a blind eye to the torture and execution of the Iraqi government. And we have endured countless other acts in the name of our war on terror.

Patriotism is often cited as an argument after dubious moral actions on the part of those in power. When these calls for patriotism drown out any of our logically grounded concepts [inaudible], it is usually the American soldier who becomes the carrier of the unhealthy mission entrusted to him.

Our people went through similar dark moments for the sake of democracy: the Road of Tears (forcible resettlement of American Indians), the disenfranchised situation of blacks, McCarthyism (persecution of mythical communists in the 40-50s), camps for interned Japanese-Americans are just some examples. I am sure that many of our actions after 9/11 will someday be viewed in the same light.

As Howard Zinn used to say, "There is not such a large flag to close the shame of killing innocent people."

I understand that my actions violate the law, and I regret if they caused harm to someone personally or to the United States. In my intentions there was never any harm to anyone. I just wanted to help people. When I decided to divulge secret information, I did it out of love for my country and a sense of duty towards others.

If you reject my petition for pardon, then I will postpone the due date with the understanding that sometimes you have to pay a heavy price for the opportunity to live in a free society. I will gladly pay this price if it helps us to return a country that is conceived free and committed to the principles that all men and women are created equal. ”