Tim Black (Spiked) dismisses Bradley and his contributions:
What’s odd, of course, is that in reality, it’s difficult to work out what exactly Manning revealed that was, well, revelatory. Yes, he did pass on footage of an American Apache helicopter crew shooting dead civilians in Iraq in 2007 - the one leak that Manning’s champions always mention. But did this really tell us anything new about the Iraq War, a conflict that many, spiked included, had criticised since before it even started in 2003? In fact, aside from the axis of delusion formed by ex-British prime minister Tony Blair and ex-US president George W Bush, who in 2010 did not think that the Iraq War was a brutal, calamitous mistake? The truth is that Manning’s leaked documents revealed very little in the way, well, of truth.
I have no idea about Tim Black -- he's a blowhard or what. But the e-mail noting Black's piece was thrilled to agree with it and insist that Bradley was a "loser" and so were those of us who supported him.
For those who do not know of Iraq War veteran and whistle-blower Bradley Manning . . .
Monday April 5, 2010, WikiLeaks released military video of a July 12, 2007 assault in Iraq. 12 people were killed in the assault including two Reuters journalists Namie Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. Monday June 7, 2010, the US military announced that they had arrested Bradley Manning and he stood accused of being the leaker of the video. Leila Fadel (Washington Post) reported in August 2010 that Manning had been charged -- "two charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The first encompasses four counts of violating Army regulations by transferring classified information to his personal computer between November and May and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system. The second comprises eight counts of violating federal laws governing the handling of classified information." In March, 2011, David S. Cloud (Los Angeles Times) reported that the military has added 22 additional counts to the charges including one that could be seen as "aiding the enemy" which could result in the death penalty if convicted. The Article 32 hearing took place in December. At the start of this year, there was an Article 32 hearing and, February 3rd, it was announced that the government would be moving forward with a court-martial. Bradley has yet to enter a plea. The court-martial was supposed to begin before the November 2012 election but it was postponed until after the election so that Barack wouldn't have to run on a record of his actual actions. Independent.ie adds, "A court martial is set to be held in June at Ford Meade in Maryland, with supporters treating him as a hero, but opponents describing him as a traitor." February 28th, Bradley admitted he leaked to WikiLeaks. And why.
Bradley Manning: In attempting to conduct counter-terrorism or CT and counter-insurgency COIN operations we became obsessed with capturing and killing human targets on lists and not being suspicious of and avoiding cooperation with our Host Nation partners, and ignoring the second and third order effects of accomplishing short-term goals and missions. I believe that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information contained within the CIDNE-I and CIDNE-A tables this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general as [missed word] as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan.
I also believed the detailed analysis of the data over a long period of time by different sectors of society might cause society to reevaluate the need or even the desire to even to engage in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations that ignore the complex dynamics of the people living in the effected environment everyday.
If you are or were a supporter of Bradley's and you're up to a little self-examination, now would be the time for you to admit how you failed him. Maybe you used to head the National Lawyers Guild and are a very smart attorney but you dashed off a piece without thinking recently that feeds into Spiked's argument? Maybe you were too lazy or too chicken s**t to note -- let alone speak to -- counter-insurgency?
And it wasn't just that one woman who failed him.
Counter-insurgency (and counter-terrorism -- which is much the same thing when carried out by a military) was what disgusted Bradley, what he wanted to spark a debate on.
But repeatedly you instead wrote and yacked about the attack that killed two Reuters journalists. Note above, we named the two, it's not that hard.
But it was too hard for you.
Repeatedly, you just said "two Reuters journalists" because you were too lazy to do the work required to find out their names.
And you were too lazy to do the heavy work required to call out counter-insurgency.
You were comfortable 'repackaging' (over and over) an event that the world knew and suspected long before most had heard of WikiLeaks.
By doing that over and over -- because you were lazy -- the end result was that to people like Spiked readers, Bradley really didn't do anything but release the video of that one (already well known) attack.
His hope that the US would have a conversation about counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism tactics being used?
That hope's as buried as Bradley's probably about to be with a lengthy sentence in a military prison.
At what poin, Marjorie Cohn and others, do you step up to the plate and admit you were wrong?
Barring that, could you just for one damn minute do what Bradley hopes would happen? Discuss counter-insurgency tactics and counter-terrorism tactics used in Iraq and Afghanistan?
He's going to be giving many years because he believed this was a discussion worth having. So you think you might, for even ten minutes, try addressing these issues?
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
iraq
spiked
tim black
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
iraq
