The U.S. Army announced on Friday that Bradley Manning will be tried by a military court, where he could receive the death sentence. Manning is the Army Private First Class who released some 700,000 classified diplomatic dispatches, along with a secret video from the Iraq war, to the WikiLeaks internet platform.
Manning is a soldier who revealed secrets, an offense that carries the severest punishment in every nation of the world. Nonetheless, he did not reveal the secrets directly to the enemy, nor did he do it for personal gain. He disclosed the documents, and above all the video, because he was unable to reconcile them with his own conscience. He explained this to an internet chat partner who later reported him to the FBI. The video shows a U.S. helicopter gunship attacking a minivan solely because the occupants were trying to help the wounded.
The Army tried to cover the matter up. Manning now sits in a tiny cell totally isolated from other prisoners. It is doubtful that this is what the founding fathers of the “Land of the Free” originally had in mind.
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