Chelsea Manning to Be Freed

by Stephen Lendman

Manning was wrongfully arrested, imprisoned, horrifically treated, and sentenced to 35 years of brutalizing confinement for courageously exposing US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Whistleblowers revealing government wrongdoing deserve high praise, not police state prosecution. Manning revealed important information all Americans have a right to know, including:

the Collateral Murder video, exposing the killing of unarmed Iraqi civilians by a US Apache helicopter crew;

the Afghan War Diary, revealing uninvestigated civilian casualties and private military contractor abuses;

the Iraq War Logs, revealing civilian casualties and uninvestigated reports of torture; along with

US diplomatic cables, explaining corporate interests and espionage in international diplomacy.

Manning received numerous honors and awards, including three Nobel Peace Prize nominations. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), military personnel are entitled to fair, speedy proceedings if charged with an offense.

In April 2010, Manning was arrested, viciously treated, held in brutalizing pre-trial confinement for over three years before trial proceedings began - a flagrant 8th Amendment violation, prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment for any reason.

On January 17, Obama commuted Manning's sentence, effective May 17. He waited nearly seven years to do the right thing instead of intervening right away responsibly.

He's done nothing to free countless other wrongfully held US political prisoners. They continue languishing under gulag conditions at home and abroad.

He didn't drop wrongful charges against whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, no clemency for wrongfully convicted Leonard Peltier, Mumia abu-Jamal, and dozens of other US political prisoners I've written about in detail.

Freeing Manning doesn't change mass incarceration in America, or shut down its global network of torture prisons - domestically alone holding far greater numbers than any other country, including China with over four times the US population.

America's gulag prison system is the shame of the nation and high crime against humanity. Obama perpetuated an obscenity no just society would tolerate.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. 

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. 

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