Put Bradley Manning in Charge of Everything

Dear Mr. President,
After nearly 3 years in prison without a trial, Bradley Manning finally got to speak and what he spoke was righteous truth. The data he turned over to WikiLeaks was selected with care, only what he felt would cause no harm even though it might be embarrassing (today’s NYT, p. A1). Motivated by a post-World War I book on “open diplomacy” that argues the world would be a better place if states would not make secret deals with each other, he felt the diplomatic cables documented “back room deals and seemingly criminal activity;” war logs from Iraq and Afghanistan showed a reality different than that presented by the generals; the Guantanmo files revealed that many detainees were innocent, low level foot soldiers or possessed no useful intelligence; and the videos of air strikes—especially the “Permission to Engage” video of a helicopter gunship mowing down innocent civilians and those who came to their rescue, revealed war crimes. Manning is a true patriot with true American Values. He understands democracy and justice and rather than betray the U.S., he shed light on some dark and ugly secrets. He said at his hearing yesterday what he’s said from the beginning: that he “released the information to help enlighten the public about ‘what happens and why it happens’ and to ‘spark a debate about foreign policy.” He downloaded all that classified information onto a tiny SD card, stuck it in his pocket and flew home on leave. (So much for a trillion bucks spent on security.) He tried the Washington Post. Not interested. The New York Times. No one called back. Finally he went to the WikiLeaks web site. No one from WikiLeaks asked for it and no one asked for more, he said. He had no idea who he was contacting and still doesn’t. (So much for your case against Julian Assange.) Manning knows he’ll spend a long time in prison but he listened to his conscience and did what was right for the greater good. He could see the military “was obsessed with capturing or killing people on a list, while ignoring the impact of its operation on ordinary people,” something your generals—and you—still don’t get or don’t care about. He could see the harm our military and our foreign policy was doing. He could see that secrecy is the enemy of democracy and democracy is losing right now. He tried to tip the scales back. Pfc. Bradley Manning is smarter than all your advisers put together. Drop all charges, give him the Medal of Freedom and put him in charge of everything.