Portrait of whistleblower Bradley Manning by Robert Shetterly.
face=Arial>The sun rose with a moral verdict on Bradley Manning well before the
military judge could proclaim his guilt. The human verdict would necessarily
clash with the proclamation from the judicial benchstyle=”mso-bidi-language: FA” dir=rtl lang=FA>dir=rtl>.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =
“urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” />
style=”mso-bidi-language: FA” dir=rtl lang=FA>
face=Arial>
face=Arial>In lockstep with administrators of the nationdir=rtl>dir=rtl>’s war services, judgment day arrived on Tuesday to exact
official retribution. After unforgiveable actions, the defendantdir=rtl>dir=rtl>’s culpability weighed heavystyle=”mso-bidi-language: FA” dir=rtl lang=FA>dir=rtl>.
style=”mso-bidi-language: FA” dir=rtl lang=FA>
face=Arial>
face=Arial>“Our
apologies, good friends, for the fracture of good order, the burning of paper
instead of children, the angering of the orderlies in the front parlor of the
charnel houseâ€‌, another defendant,
Fr. Daniel Berrigan, wrote about anotherstyle=”mso-bidi-language: FA” dir=rtl> action that
resulted in a federal trial, 45 years earlier, scarcely a dozen miles from the
Fort Meade courtroom where Bradley Manning faced prosecution for his own
fracture of good order.lang=FA>
style=”mso-bidi-language: FA” dir=rtl lang=FA>
face=Arial>
dir=ltr>face=Arial>“We could not, so help us God, do
otherwiseâ€‌, wrote Berrigan, one of
the nine people who, one day in May 1968 while the Vietnam War raged on, removed
several hundred files from a US draft board in Catonsville, Maryland, and burned
themdir=rtl> with napalm in the parking lotstyle=”mso-bidi-language: FA”>. “For we are sick at heartstyle=”mso-bidi-language: FA”> …â€‌lang=FA>
style=”mso-bidi-language: FA” dir=rtl lang=FA>
face=Arial>
face=Arial>On the surface, many differences protrude between those nine
draft-files-burning radical Catholics and Bradley Manning. But I wonder. Ten
souls saw cruelties of war and could no longer just watchdir=rtl>dir=rtl>.
style=”mso-bidi-language: FA” dir=rtl lang=FA>
face=Arial>
face=Arial>“I prefer
a painful truth over any blissful fantasyâ€‌,
Manning wrote in an online chat. Minutes later he addedstyle=”mso-bidi-language: FA”>: “I think Istyle=”mso-bidi-language: FA” dir=rtl lang=FA>’ve
been traumatized too much by reality, to care about consequences of shattering
the fantasyâ€‌. And he also wrotestyle=”mso-bidi-language: FA”>: “I want people to see the truthdir=rtl>dir=rtl> … regardless of who they arestyle=”mso-bidi-language: FA” dir=rtl lang=FA> …
because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a
publicâ€‌.lang=FA>
style=”mso-bidi-language: FA” dir=rtl lang=FA>
face=Arial>
face=Arial>Those words came seven weeks after the world was able to watch
thedir=rtl> style=”mso-bidi-language: FA”>“Collateral
Murderâ€‌ video that Manning had
provided to WikiLeaks. And those words came just days before military police
arrived to arrest him on May 29, 2010style=”mso-bidi-language: FA” dir=rtl lang=FA>dir=rtl>.
style=”mso-bidi-language: FA” dir=rtl lang=FA>
face=Arial>
face=Arial>Since then, huge numbers of people around the world have come to see
Bradley Manning as personification of moral courage. During the last several
months Ilang=FA>’ve read thousands of moving comments online
at ManningNobel.org, posted by signers of the petition urging that he receive
the Nobel Peace Prize. The comments are often stunning with heartfelt intensity
of wounded idealism, anger and hopestyle=”mso-bidi-language: FA” dir=rtl lang=FA>dir=rtl>.
style=”mso-bidi-language: FA” dir=rtl lang=FA>
face=Arial>
face=Arial>No verdict handed down by the military judge can change the moral
verdict that has emerged from people all over the world, reciprocating what
Bradley Manning expressed online a few days before his arreststyle=”mso-bidi-language: FA”>: “I canstyle=”mso-bidi-language: FA” dir=rtl lang=FA>’t
separate myself from others.â€‌
And: “I feel connected to
everybodylang=FA>… like they were distant familystyle=”mso-bidi-language: FA”>â€‌.lang=FA>
style=”mso-bidi-language: FA” dir=rtl lang=FA>
face=Arial>
face=Arial>The problem for the US government was not that Bradley Manning felt
that way. The problem came when he acted that way. Caring was one thing. Acting
on the caring, with empathy propelling solidarity, was anotherstyle=”mso-bidi-language: FA”>.lang=FA>
style=”mso-bidi-language: FA” dir=rtl lang=FA>
face=Arial>
face=Arial>Days ago, in closing argument, the prosecutor at Fort Meade
thundered: dir=rtl lang=FA>“He was not a whistleblower,
he was a traitorâ€‌.lang=FA>
style=”mso-bidi-language: FA” dir=rtl lang=FA>
face=Arial>
face=Arial>But a “traitorstyle=”mso-bidi-language: FA”>â€‌ to what? To the United Statesdir=rtl>dir=rtl>… only if the United States is to be a warfare state,
where we “cannot make informed
decisions as a publicâ€‌. Only if we
obey orders to separate ourselves from the humanity of others. Only if
authoritative, numbing myths are to trump empathy and hide painful truthstyle=”mso-bidi-language: FA”>.lang=FA>
style=”mso-bidi-language: FA” dir=rtl lang=FA>
face=Arial>
face=Arial>AGBlang=FA>/DBdir=rtl lang=FA>
style=”FONT-SIZE: 11pt”>
face=Arial>
Republished from: Press TV