Manning held in Quantico Brig, facing 52 years in prison, for exposing war crimes

• What: Rally in Support of Whistleblower Bradley Manning
  
  
• When: Sunday, August 8, noon
  
  
• Where: Quantico Marine Corps Base where Manning is being held in pre-trial confinement; we will meet at the Amtrak station in Quantico

Private First Class Bradley Manning, a 22-year-old intelligence analyst stationed in Iraq, stands accused of disclosing a classified video depicting American troops in Iraq shooting civilians from an Apache helicopter in 2007. Eleven people were killed, including two Reuters employees, and two children were critically injured. No charges have been filed against the soldiers who did the killing.

News sources have also speculated about Manning’s involvement in the leak of over 90,000 secret documents (collectively known as the Afghanistan “war logs”) made public by WikiLeaks on July 25.

“No top-level officials in the Bush and Obama administrations have been held accountable for their roles in dragging us into the Iraq war on the basis of lies or for potential war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. But whistleblower Bradley Manning sits in jail in Quantico, facing up to 52 years in prison,” says Medea Benjamin of CODEPINK: Women for Peace. “It’s totally unjust and that’s why we’re going to Quantico to call for Bradley’s release.”

The whistleblower behind the Vietnam era’s Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg, has called Mr. Manning a hero.  ”I admire the courage of Bradley Manning for sacrificing himself to make the public aware of the futility of the war in Afghanistan,” says Ellsberg.

“Blowing the whistle on war crimes is not a crime,” says former Marine Corporal Jeff Paterson of Courage to Resist, a group teaming up with the Bradley Manning Support Network to raise funds for Manning’s defense.

Private First Class Bradley Manning, a 22-year-old intelligence analyst stationed in Iraq, stands accused of disclosing a classified video depicting American troops in Iraq shooting civilians from an Apache helicopter in 2007. Eleven people were killed, including two Reuters employees, and two children were critically injured. No charges have been filed against the soldiers who did the killing.

News sources have also speculated about Manning’s involvement in the leak of over 90,000 secret documents (collectively known as the Afghanistan “war logs”) made public by WikiLeaks on July 25.

“No top-level officials in the Bush and Obama administrations have been held accountable for their roles in dragging us into the Iraq war on the basis of lies or for potential war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. But whistleblower Bradley Manning sits in jail in Quantico, facing up to 52 years in prison,” says Medea Benjamin of CODEPINK: Women for Peace. “It’s totally unjust and that’s why we’re going to Quantico to call for Bradley’s release.”

The whistleblower behind the Vietnam era’s Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg, has called Mr. Manning a hero.  ”I admire the courage of Bradley Manning for sacrificing himself to make the public aware of the futility of the war in Afghanistan,” says Ellsberg.

“Blowing the whistle on war crimes is not a crime,” says former Marine Corporal Jeff Paterson of Courage to Resist, a group teaming up with the Bradley Manning Support Network to raise funds for Manning’s defense.

Source: Bradley Manning Support Network