On Wednesday , Private First Class Bradley Manning was handed a verdict on charges he faced in relation to leaking classified material – after 1,160 days of pre-trial detention. His crime was to release military documents to WikiLeaks.
Contained within this material was footage of a US military helicopter gunning down a father taking his children to school; evidence of a death squad operating in Afghanistan, and files showing that rather than containing just "the worst of the worst", Guantánamo held dementia patients, taxi drivers and prisoners of the Taliban.
Millions worldwide regard Manning as a hero, but he was always going to face prosecution for his actions. Not pursuing him would have been politically untenable given the national security climate in the US. Military leaders would have feared the repercussions of allowing a soldier to get away with such a large-scale leak.
But the Obama administration didn't merely go through the motions in pursuit of Manning. Military authorities imposed a charge that should have sparked far greater alarm than it did. They argued that by talking to the media, Manning had "aided the enemy" – a charge tantamount to treason, which can carry the death penalty (though this was not pursued in Manning's case). » | James Ball | Tuesday, July 30, 2013
