Yesterday Bradley Manning was convicted on all but two of the charges against him. I wasn't relying on a much better result, and I feared even worse. (If he'd been convicted on the "aiding the enemy" count, it would have been a disaster for the press.)
At such times I go to the Huffington Post forums and mouth off a lot. When people say Manning betrayed his country, I'm quick to say, "He betrayed his government, not his country." Why does this issue mean so much to a Canadian like me. I guess that with his one act of revelation he did more to make the world a better place than I've ever done.
I'm glad to see that people are already petitioning the White House to pardon Manning. I know that Obama's launched a war on whistleblowers, in stark contrast to the rhetoric of his 2008 platform. (He's even been using the Espionage Act, which goes back to World War I and the accompanying assault on American civil liberties.) But I'm hoping that if the pressure for a pardon gets big enough he'll take the path of least resistance. Some people say he'll wait till he's about to leave office, but I say demand it now! Manning's American supporters should sign a petition promising not to vote for any federal candidate who doesn't publicly support the pardon. And I don't care what the Nader-haters say.
No comments:
Post a Comment