Manning: I Apologize to All Whom I Have Harmed

The second part of Bradley Manning’s trial is under way. The court has already recognized his guilt; the present stage of the proceedings will end with the pronouncement of the sentence. On Wednesday, Aug. 13, Bradley Manning made the following declaration to the military court:

“First, your honor, I want to start off with an apology. I am sorry that my actions hurt people. I’m sorry I hurt the United States.

At the time of my decisions, as you know, I was dealing with a lot of issues, issues that are ongoing and continuing to affect me. Although a considerable difficulty in my life, these issues are not an excuse for my actions.

I understood what I was doing and decisions I made. However, I did not fully appreciate the broader effects of my actions.

Those factors are clear to me now, through both self-refection during my confinement in various forms, and through the merits and sentencing testimony that I have seen here.

I am sorry for the unintended consequences of my actions. When I made these decisions I believed I was going to help people, not hurt people.

The last few years have been a learning experience. I look back at my decisions and wonder how on earth could I, a junior analyst, possibly believe I could change the world for the better […] on decisions of those with the proper authority.

In retrospect, I should have worked more aggressively inside the system, as we discussed during the […] statement. I had options, and I should have used these options.

Unfortunately, I can’t go back and change things. I can only go forward. I want to go forward. Before I can do that, I understand that I must pay a price for my decisions and actions.

Once I pay that price, I hope to one day live in a manner that I haven’t been able to in the past. I want to be a better person, to go to college, to get a degree and to have a meaningful relationship with my sister, with my sister’s family and my family.

I want to be a positive influence in their lives, just as my Aunt Deborah has been to me. I have flaws and issues that I have to deal with, but I know that I can and will be a better person.

I hope that you can give me the opportunity to prove, not through words, but through conduct, that I am a good person and that I can return to a productive place in society. Thank you, your honor.”[

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Reading Bradley Manning’s words makes one wonder if they reflect real or tactical remorse. If the remorse is tactical, he is fully entitled to it insofar as he may expect it to bring a somewhat lighter sentence. If his self-criticism is sincere, it is also a criticism of the system that has sentenced him. Let’s remember that the personal “flaws” and “issues” Manning admits to are, above all, his sexual orientation and the sense of loneliness he has had to deal with for many years.

It is pointless to debate to what degree his confession might be sincere or — perhaps — calculated. Bradley Manning is a prisoner of conscience, and he is being judged in a show trial whose primary purpose is to discourage any potential imitators. We must not demand anything more of Bradley Manning. We can, however, keep several important matters in mind.

Firstly, the fact is that in his present humility, Bradley Manning is wrong. Being an ordinary private and acting not under orders but guided by his own dilemmas and conscience, Bradley Manning has changed the world. Thanks to him we were able to see with our own eyes what death ordained from the skies in our name and with our silent consent looks like. Thanks to him we learned the fate of the Iraq War’s 100,000 victims, 66,000 of them civilians. Thanks to him we found out that the Barack Obama administration pressured the governments of Spain and Germany until they gave up their attempts to pursue those responsible for the kidnapping and torturing of terrorism suspects. Thanks to him we know that the president of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh, shielded the U.S. by claiming that it was Yemeni drones, not American ones, that attacked an “al-Qaida training camp” — 14 women and 21 children, to be more exact.

Thanks to Bradley Manning, the men and women of Tunisia learned the scale of corruption within the Ben Ali government and were able to consciously decide whether he should continue to run their country. Thanks to him, we know that even U.N. diplomats are not free of surveillance and pressure exerted in private — we can thus draw our own conclusions. The dispatches disclosed by Bradley Manning threw light on the coup d’état in Honduras, after that country’s democratically elected president, Manuel Zelaya, dared to increase the minimum wage, thus harming the interests of the banana giant Chiquita. Thanks to Bradley Manning, we also know that Pope Benedict XVI refused to cooperate with the Irish commission investigating cases of sexual abuse of children by the Irish clergy and that the Vatican was “outraged” by calls that clergymen sojourning in Rome appear to testify before the commission; and that maintaining the economy of the Gaza Strip on the edge of collapse — but in a way that precludes an all-out humanitarian catastrophe — is Israel’s conscious, if unofficial, policy.

Those facts — and thousands of others which we have overlooked or which will come to our attention in due time — help explain the world to us and provide strong evidence to the critics of the corporate-military order. Bradley Manning did not disclose them on a whim, out of spite or to settle accounts with his inimical surroundings. The following is what he wrote on an Internet chat at a time when he was so desperately looking for support that he revealed his deed to Adrian Lamo:

“If you had free reign over classified networks for long periods of time […], and you saw incredible things, awful things … things that belonged in the public domain, […] what would you do? […] God knows what happens now, hopefully worldwide discussion, debates and reforms […] I want people to see the truth […] because without information, you cannot make informed decisions …”

Lamo, a man with his own difficult past, was a hacker who posed as a journalist and clergyman and assured Manning of the discretion proper to both roles, after which, following the advice of acquaintances, he told everything to the FBI.

Bradley Manning, a soldier decorated with five exemplary service medals, spent the next three years in several military detention facilities. He spent a large portion of that time in complete isolation, in a 6.5’ x 13’ cell without windows. His clothing and glasses were taken away, and he was ordered to come out naked for morning inspection. President Obama himself publicly stated that Manning had “broken the law,” a fact that in the eyes of many commentators sealed the fate of the accused. When the trial began at long last in February of this year, Manning’s defense was denied the right to present its most important arguments: The court didn’t want to hear that international law obligates everyone who knows of war crimes to disclose such knowledge.

Manning’s counsel, David Coombs, was not allowed to show that WikiLeaks’ publications did not cause harm to anyone. Even the presentation of the motives that guided Manning’s actions was forbidden for the duration of the trial. While the prosecution called over 140 witnesses to the bench, the majority of the defense’s witnesses were not allowed to testify. In the end, when both sides had completed the presentation of their arguments, the judge, Col. Denise Lind, modified the indictment, changing the charge of “database” theft — which is easy to refute — to “information” theft, which is more general and more consistent with the facts. The ultimate charge was thus not the one that Coombs had been defending Manning against. The defense motioned for a mistrial, but the motion was reviewed — and rejected — by the same Judge Lind.

Bradley Manning has to go free. Today, he is entitled to do anything that he can to bring this about. Over 100,000 people have signed a petition to award him the Nobel Peace Prize, even as the observation is often made that the Nobel Peace Prize needs Bradley Manning more than he needs the prize.

As we read yesterday’s declaration made by Bradley Manning, let’s not hold it against him that he concedes to his critics. Instead, let’s recall Winston Smith as he leaves room 101.