Michael Ratner is not only the president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights, but, more impressively for those of us outside the United States, he is the lawyer for none other than Julian Assange and Wikileaks. This is a man no doubt himself of great conscience and intellectual sincerity.
He has been attending the military court facility proceedings against Manning at Fort Meade, Maryland, and has clearly been quite overwhelmed by the Bradley Manning he has seen before him. In military legal terms, this is without a doubt 'the trial of the century,' if not all of US legal military history, given that Manning is accused of the biggest leak of classified military documents in US history. He could be sentenced to death for what he did.
Far from being a broken or emotionally fragmented young man, Manning has instead presented himself with tremendous poise and conviction of what he did. As quoted from Ratner's article, "Yet, facing life in prison, possibly execution (which the government says it will not request), and all but sealing his fate for at least a lengthy prison term by his guilty admission to 10 of 22 charges against him, Bradley Manning exhibited calm, collection, great intelligence and, yet again, incredible bravery. In fact, if there was any room for doubt about Manning acting from a powerful moral compass, and representing the best and bravest of our military, the plea into which Manning entered must remove it."
That in itself is remarkable, and as Ratner correctly observes, shows the character and moral rectitude of the man accused by many of some of the most 'heinous crimes' in recent United States history, and by possibly even more as surely being a 'traitor.'
Fundamentally, when all is said and done, Bradley Manning did what he did not for the glory, not for the infamy, not for anything but all the right reasons. As he himself stated in his plea statement before the court on February 28th:
“I believed that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information… this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general…”
The United States military and government have been unmasked for the hypocritical, lying bullies that they are, and they are assuredly hell-bent on making an example of Manning. They will almost certainly succeed. Bullies and hypocrites always succeed - in the short-term.
In the longer-term Bradley Manning will be vindicated and praised as the true American patriot for what he did.
For now, those of us with a conscience and with more open eyes and minds can only hope for the best outcome from this farcical trial that he must endure. And hope that his spirit and resolute sense of self will persevere.
What has happened and continues to happen to Bradley Manning is a slap in the face of every truth-seeking person on this planet. His torture, lack of due process and now mockery of a trial are a slap in all our faces.
Courtesy of OccupyLV
Ratner was wrong about one thing: Bradley Manning is not merely the conscience of America. He is the conscience of the world.
Do you get my point?
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