WAKE UP UMMAH

SALUTE TO MANNING

Accept To Live Like A ‘Free Slave’ Or Else!

Salute To Bradley Manning

Whistle-blower Gets 35-Years Jail Term

For Telling The Truth

(Compiled by: M. Javed Naseem) 

“The best ‘Jihad’ is telling the truth in the face of a tyrant”

                                                                               ----- Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.)

وَٱلْعَصْرِ إِنَّ ٱلإِنسَانَ لَفِى خُسْرٍ

إِلاَّ ٱلَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ وَعَمِلُواْ ٱلصَّالِحَاتِ

وَتَوَاصَوْاْ بِٱلْحَقِّ وَتَوَاصَوْاْ بِٱلصَّبْرِ

“By (the token of) Time (through the ages),

Verily, Man is in loss, except such as have Faith, and

do righteous deeds, and exhort one another to Truth,

and exhort one another to patient perseverance.

(al-Quran 103:1-3)

The disciples of ‘Anti-Christ’ are gaining more and more power every day and they are very active in eliminating the danger – the Truth. Truth is the biggest danger to their existence. They have waged a war against humanity. Disbelievers have unleashed havoc and Believers are drowning in their own blood.

‘Land of Liberty’ needs to be liberated, once again, from the tyrants and oppressors.

The liberty has been taken hostage by the fascist forces. Freedom is controlled, once again, by the Slave Traders and they sell it or lease it, to whom they will, for a heavy price. You can only live as a ‘free slave’.

‘Land of Opportunity’ is being controlled by a few corrupt Opportunists and they bar others from living their peaceful dream. Now, you have to ‘buy’ opportunity and accept to live like a robot or else.

Bradley Manning has been sentenced to 35-years in prison for disclosing the truth. He just wanted to tell people, and warn them, about the state of their ‘freedom’ and ‘civil liberties’ guaranteed by the Constitution; how they were being fooled, watched and controlled. He paid a heavy price for telling the truth!

He released a statement through his lawyer last night, saying he acted “out of concern for my country” and asking President Obama to pardon him. “Sometimes you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society”, he said.

(Snowden (top left), Manning (bottom left) and Ellsberg)

Daniel Ellsberg:

(The Daily Beast)

Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971, says that the machinery of our democratic government is broken—and we need whistleblowers like Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden to inspire Americans to fight back against this invasion of privacy.

 “… I think there has not been a more significant or helpful leak or unauthorized disclosure in American history ever than what Edward Snowden shared with the Guardian about the NSA—and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers.”

“Bradley Manning, who put out the largest volume, simply did not have access to material of this degree of significance—although he did have daily access to material that was top secret or even higher, communications intelligence. He didn’t choose to disclose any of that highly classified material–what he shared was secret or less. I was frankly surprised there was so much evidence of criminality of the U.S. government’s in Manning’s secret material–I thought that would have been a higher level of classification. But apparently ordering people to be turned over to Iraqis knowing they would be tortured was so routine it didn’t require higher classification. And then when this was reported by American troops in over 100 different instances, in each case an illegal order was given to them: “no additional investigation.” That’s an illegal order. Under the Geneva Convention, not only can we not torture, but we cannot hand over anyone to another party we might expect to torture them. And if there are reasonable grounds to suspect that torture has occurred, there must be an investigation, so the orders not to investigate were clearly illegal. And that has not been prosecuted or investigated since Bradley Manning revealed it—that is a criminality that goes right up to the commander-in-chief, and that’s only at the secret level.” 

Alexa O’Brien

(The Daily Beast)

Manning’s lawyer Coombs was stunned. “I look at the sentence, and I can’t believe that was actually the sentence he received,” he told The Daily Beast. "There is a good young man who did what he thought was morally right and for the right reasons, and he was sentenced the way we would sentence somebody who committed murder—the way we would sentence somebody who molested a child. That is the sentence he received."

Embarrassing, but not damaging:

A congressional official who had been briefed by the State Department in late 2010 and early 2011 told Reuters: "The administration felt compelled to say publicly that the revelations had seriously damaged American interests in order to bolster legal efforts to shut down the WikiLeaks website and bring charges against the leakers.” The revelations, the congressional aide said, "were embarrassing, but not damaging."

Manning was held in pretrial confinement at Marine Corp Base Quantico Brig for nine months. U.N. special rapporteur on torture Juan Ernesto Méndez called his treatment at the Quantico Brig “cruel, inhuman, and degrading.” Manning was forced to strip and remain on a suicide-risk regime against the recommendations of Brig mental-health professionals. Judge Lind ruled that a portion of his time at Quantico was unlawful.

The Washington Post reported recently that Judge Lind was recently promoted to the Army Court of Criminal Appeals, where Manning’s case will automatically be appealed.

When asked if Manning received a fair trial, lawyer Coombs said, “The perception is no. He didn't receive a fair trial and that should be problematic for people. That should be problematic for our military, and hopefully that will be problematic for the president of the United States, and he should do something about it.”

(Courtesy: The Daily Beast)

Amy Davidson

(The New Yorker)

AUGUST 21, 2013

MANNING’S SENTENCE, MIRANDA’S DETENTION 

Bradley Manning has been sentenced to thirty-five years in prison. Military prosecutors had asked for sixty years, out of a possible ninety; his lawyer, David Coombs, had asked for “a sentence that allows him to have a life.” Manning is twenty-five years old now. A thousand two hundred and ninety-four days, about three and a half years, will be subtracted from his sentence—time served plus a hundred and twelve days to penalize the government for treating him in an illegally abusive way while he was in detention. These numbers are out of proportion; this sentence, given all we know about Manning and what he did (and what was done to him), is a strikingly harsh one.

His sentence could and should have reflected the way the military had also let him down, badly. “This is a young man who is capable of being redeemed,” Coombs said at the sentencing hearing. “We should not rob him of his youth.” Some of that had already been stolen. He joined the Army after having not much more of a home than the couch in his married older sister’s one-bedroom apartment. That sister, Casey Major, testified at his sentencing hearing that, when she was eleven and he was a newborn, she would get up at night to care for him when he woke up, because both of their parents would be passed out drunk. When he was twelve and she had to drive their mother, who had tried to kill herself with an overdose of valium and alcohol, to the hospital, he was the one who had to sit in the backseat with her, to make sure she was still breathing.

That is the human part of the equation. There’s more, and all in directions that ought to have tended toward a little mercy for Manning. The WikiLeaks files have been a useful and important part of what had been about a dozen under-developed debates about our wars and foreign policy. The prosecutors, despite using words like betrayal frequently, had trouble, at the sentencing, showing specific harm, as opposed to diffuse embarrassment. And against thirty-five years, a hundred and twelve days seems like a paltry penalty for Manning’s extreme solitary confinement and his abuse. Where is the deterrent for that?

Was the deterrent meant to be the number of years—because twenty is already a lot—or the threat of the Espionage Act itself? There are laws against giving away classified files, including those Manning offered to plead guilty to. Why was it so important to call him a spy? An answer is that we have reached a point where our government, and allies like Britain, can’t tell the difference between leak investigations and espionage and terrorism.

It is also on that score that the detention of David Miranda, the partner of Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who received files from Snowden, is so dangerous. Miranda, a Brazilian citizen, was held for nine hours while in transit at Heathrow Airport under a section of Britain’s Terrorism Act. He was on his way from Berlin, where he had stayed with Laura Poitras, the documentary filmmaker who is also on the Snowden story; he was carrying some files from her for Greenwald. His computer, memory cards, and a video game he was carrying were all seized by British officials. Some observers have argued that the British were within their rights, since Miranda may have had secrets with him. Shouldn’t it be clear that this would have been a gross overreach even if Greenwald had been the one detained? The Terrorism Act is bad and broad—but it’s not that broad. It does say that these detentions are supposed to be about terrorism. Either the law was abused, as even many British politicians seem to believe, or the definitions of investigative journalism and being involved with terrorism have been horrendously conflated, which amounts to the same thing.

How was Miranda involved in terrorism, even putatively? Saying that the public revelations about surveillance made it harder for the NSA to continue on as before is not an adequate answer. For one thing, it could apply to almost any act of journalism that brings about change. The role of the press is to challenge the government’s practices. Couldn’t one just as easily say that, by imposing more of a cost on, for example, work habits that include almost three thousand rule-breaking incidents a year, investigative journalism might make the agency operate better? There are other laws that might have been used, and the British don’t get a pass for this being the most convenient one for them. (Or for us: the Obama Administration was informed about Miranda’s detention beforehand.) 

If Miranda could be pulled off with the word “terrorist,” what journalist who has written about classified information—or their colleagues or relatives—couldn’t be? Some will be more or less isolated, politically or emotionally. (“I knew my country would protect me, and I believe in my husband and knew that he would do anything to help me,” Miranda told the Guardian.) But the turning point, both for freedom of the press and for privacy and unlawful search and seizure, is one we’re all at.

Miranda’s detention was joined with an extraordinary incident (which my colleague John Cassidy has written about) that ended with British intelligence officers standing in the Guardian’s offices while computer equipment holding files from Snowden were smashed into small pieces. There are other copies, including, perhaps, at the paper’s offices in New York. We are, as Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian, has written, lucky in this country to have a press with a better shot at avoiding prior restraint. But both the Manning and Snowden cases show why that is at risk. They also show why it’s worth pushing back, and fighting.

Raf Sanchez

(The Telegraph, London)

After a 20-month court martial, a military judge took less than two minutes to sentence the 25-year-old soldier and order him to be dishonorably discharged from the Army for passing thousands of classified files to the anti-secrecy website.

Although Manning’s jail term was condemned as an “outrage that flies in the face of America’s essential ideals” by his supporters, it was only a third of the possible 90 years he faced after being convicted of espionage and a host of other crimes.

Under military law he will be eligible for parole after serving 10 years, or a third of his sentence, whichever is sooner.

Having served three and a half years, and with 112 days taken off by the judge because the Army broke the law by keeping him in solitary confinement for nine months, Manning could in theory be released in around seven years.

The ruling, by Colonel Denise Lind, the judge who presided over the trial, is a blow to the US government prosecutors who had asked her to imprison the young soldier for at least 60 years.

WikiLeaks hailed the sentencing as a “significant strategic victory”. The website founded by Julian Assange tweeted that Manning would be “eligible for release in less than nine years”.

Manning himself showed no emotion as he stood in the sparse military courtroom at Fort Meade, a base outside Washington that is home to the National Security Agency (NSA).

Around a half dozen of his supporters, dressed in black T-shirts adorned with the word “Truth”, began shouting “We love you Bradley” and “You’re our hero” as the sentence was read out.

Manning was convicted in July on 20 of the 22 charges against him, including six counts of espionage. However, the judge cleared him of the most serious charge of aiding the enemy, which could have carried a life sentence with no chance of parole. Col Lind also demoted him from private first class to private and ordered him to forfeit all pay and benefits.

The Bradley Manning Support Network, which funded his defense, said the sentence was “an outrage that flies in the face of America’s essential ideals of accountability in government”.

Last night, Manning’s British-based family said he was a “hero” who should not have been given jail time. His mother Susan Manning, 60, who lives in Haverford West in Wales, sat next to her brother Kevin Fox, 61, as they heard his sentence. Mr. Fox said: “It was less time than I thought – that’s got to be a good thing. I hope it will be reduced (in the future). But to be honest, he shouldn’t have been given any time at all. In my eyes he is a hero.”

The Obama administration has brought prosecutions against seven alleged leakers, more than all previous US administrations combined. Among them is Edward Snowden, the fugitive former NSA contractor who has been granted temporary asylum in Russia.

Manning’s sentence will be reviewed by the Army Court of Criminal Appeals and could go before the US Supreme Court. President Barack Obama or any of his successors could issue a pardon.

Manning released a defiant statement through his lawyer last night, saying he acted “out of concern for my country” and asking President Obama to pardon him. “Sometimes you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society,” he said.

Manning spoke at length in court only three times during his trial. In February of this year he admitted being responsible for the leaks and read a lengthy statement, saying he had “a clear conscience”.

“I wanted the American public to know that not everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan was a target that needed to be engaged and neutralized but people struggling to live in the pressure cooker of asymmetric warfare,” Manning said.

But last week, as he spoke during the sentencing phase of the trial, he struck a more conciliatory note and apologised for the first time.

“I’m sorry that my actions hurt people. I’m sorry that it hurt the United States,” he said. “When I made these decisions, I believed I was going to help people, not hurt people.”

Manning’s defense team used the proceedings to put the US military itself on trial, arguing that the Army missed multiple warning signs that the soldier was struggling with gender identity issues and was in emotional turmoil.

The court heard how Manning sent his superiors an anguished email where he explained he thought should be a woman and attached a photograph of himself as his female alter-ego “Breanna”, wearing make-up and a blonde wig.

Russia called Manning’s sentence “unjustifiably harsh” and accused the United States of double standards. The Russian foreign ministry’s human rights representative argued that “when US interests are at stake, as was the case with Bradley Manning, the American justice system adopts unjustifiably harsh decisions ... without any regard for human rights.”

Matt Sledge

(The Huffington Post)

FORT MEADE, Md. -- Bradley Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison on Wednesday for handing WikiLeaks a massive cache of sensitive government documents detailing the inner workings of America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Manning, 25, was not allowed to make a statement when his sentence was handed down by military judge Col. Denise Lind. Guards quickly hustled him out of the courtroom, while at least half a dozen spectators shouted their support.

"We'll keep fighting for you, Bradley," one exclaimed.

Manning was also dishonorably discharged and demoted from the rank of private first class to private. He was ordered to forfeit all pay and benefits.

Manning was convicted on July 30 on 19 of the 21 contested charges in his trial, including six Espionage Act violations, for his role in the largest leak of classified information in U.S. history. The charges carried a maximum sentence of 90 years, and the prosecution had requested Manning serve 60. His sentencing brings to a close a three-year saga in which he endured nine months in solitary confinement and saw himself transformed into a symbol of one individual's potential in the Internet age to roil the world's sole superpower.

Yochai Benkler, a Harvard professor who has studied WikiLeaks and testified in Manning's defense, said those reductions (in sentence) in time served would certainly be a "relief" for Manning.

But "the bottom line is it's 35 years, that's what everyone will know," he said. "Basically the decision has done more damage to the American Constitutional order than all of the disclosures put together did to any other kind of American interest."

Amnesty International immediately called on President Barack Obama to commute Manning's sentence to time served.

“Bradley Manning acted on the belief that he could spark a meaningful public debate on the costs of war, and specifically on the conduct of the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan," Widney Brown, senior director of international law and policy at Amnesty International, said in a statement. "The US government should turn its attention to investigating and delivering justice for the serious human rights abuses committed by its officials in the name of countering terror.”

The sentencing phase of Manning's trial revealed that contrary to the claims of pundits and politicians, Manning had no blood on his hands – the Departments of Defense and State were unable to tie his releases to the deaths of any U.S. informants.

Manning's small but vocal contingent of supporters, many in the anti-war movement, have argued that his massive document dump accelerated the pullout of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and helped spark the Arab revolutions in 2010 and 2011.

His leaks included a video of an Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad that killed civilians including two Reuters journalists.

Manning also faces a spartan, monotonous life in prison. He will also not be allowed to grant interviews to the media, according to a Fort Leavenworth spokesperson.

Manning's sentence is one year longer than that given to a man who offered to sell secrets to Iraq during the first Gulf War, and five years longer than that of a man who passed "sophisticated defense secrets to communist East Germany.”

Speaking on Monday before the sentence was handed down, Andrea Prasow, senior counterterrorism counsel and advocate in Human Rights Watch's U.S. Program, told HuffPost that the massive investigation involving hundreds of State and Defense Department employees into Manning's leaks stood in stark contrast to the government's unwillingness to prosecute those involved in torture and abuse at places like Abu Ghraib.

"It's hard to look at the aggressive prosecution of someone so young, who is clearly troubled, and probably did have a fair bit of concern about the public interest ... and compare that to people who authorized a regime of torture and abuse and will remain free," Prasow said.

(Courtesy: Huff Post – www.huffingtonpost.com)

***********