Another Victim of Wikileaks

Wikileaks already has another victim. It does not concern any of the politicians who did one thing while saying something else, as the State Department cables demonstrate. Neither does it concern any of the American soldiers, who, according to a video that was distributed by Wikileaks, machine-gunned from a helicopter an unarmed group in a Bagdad street, killing 12 of them. No, the new victim of the informative transparency is a retired colonel of the U.S. Army called Phillip J. Crowley, who until Sunday was the spokesperson for the State Department. His big sin, the reason for which he has resigned, was to say that the prison conditions soldier Bradley Manning endured are counterproductive and stupid. Manning is the one that supposedly leaked all the documents that have made Wikileaks famous; the one who revealed secret documents on the Afghanistan war, the Iraq war, and on American diplomacy.

It is not evident that the Pentagon has investigated any of the abuses that the leaks revealed. But yes, Manning was detained last May and imprisoned at the Quantico (Virginia) base prison, in a 64.5-square-foot cell without natural light, which he leaves only an hour a day for exercise in another solitary room. Manning has not admitted to knowing any of the 22 charges against him; among other things, collaborating with the enemy, which can cost him a life sentence.

Crowley is a veteran of the Bill Clinton administration that says things as sensible as this: “The exercise of power must be prudent and consistent with our laws and values.” His boss, Hilary Clinton says that she regretted having to accept his resignation. Clinton’s boss, Barack Obama, who not only has not been able to close the illegal Guantanamo prison as promised, but has had to resume military judgments on his prisoners. He split himself into three ways in order to ensure the belief that the Pentagon is providing Manning with “humane and dignified treatment that the White House was expecting from him.” If that is so, then Obama is the one who is not behaving as the world was expecting him to.*

* Editor’s Note: This quote, correctly translated, could not be verified.