Bradley Manning charged with "Aiding the Enemy" facing possible death penalty. Free Bradley Manning

The US Army has filed 22 new  charges against Bradley Manning, the young soldier they have accused of downloading the thousands of cables and passing them on to Wikileaks.  One of the new charges and perhaps the most dangerous is "aiding the enemy".  This charge is  "a capital offense which carries a potential death sentence." according to an MSNBC report.

The guys that should be in jail, military and Pentagon brass, say that the cables contained names of informants and others who had cooperated with the US military in Afghanistan "endangering their lives.".  It's interesting that the folks that outed Valerie Plame, the CIA agent never faced the same assault. At very least, this heroic young man, assuming he is the one that released this information, is facing life in prison.  Numerous sources have said that the idea that the cables placed lives at risk is not substantiated. 

David Coombs, Manning's lawyer, has protested the treatment of Manning who is in maximum custody under a “prevention of injury” watch. He has been confined in a 6-by-12-foot cell with a bed, a drinking fountain and a toilet for about 23 hours a day.  He is allowed no pillow and has constant light and is repeatedly woken when he falls asleep according to some friends who have visited him. His captors have been torturing him basically in the hope that he will implicate Julian Assange, an individual the US war machine would like to assassinate.

Jail this war criminal

Many human rights organizations including Amnesty International have condemned the Obama Administrations treatment of Manning.  The reality is that the harsh treatment of Manning is being used as an example, as a warning to all military personnel to keep their mouths shut. The level of demoralization in the ranks of the US military must be quite severe but kept under wraps.  It was the breaking down of the military that played a major role in the ending of the Vietnam War. 

It is my firm belief that Pat Tillman, who also drew conclusions about the US government's role in these wars was assassinated by his own government and that it was not simply friendly fire.  The US military lied to his family all the way.  Make a special effort to see the film The Tillman Story.

 

Defend Wikileaks. Free Bradley Manning: an American Hero. Jail the war criminals Rumsfeld, Bush, Wolfowitz and others.