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Over 10K Sign Bradley Manning Thank You Card
In less than 24 hours of PFC Bradley Manning pleading guilty Thursday to actions that fulfilled his moral obligations, over 10,000 Americans have signed a Thank You card that will be sent to him.
“We’re going to thank him, and you can add your name to the card, said organizers of the Thank You card, Roots In Action in a written statement emailed Friday.
Manning revealed Thursday that he had contacted the Washington Post and the New York Times, but got nowhere.
(Read the Manning full for the Providence Inquiry statement here.)
Only after getting nowhere with the Washington Post and The New York Times did he decide to give his news to WikiLeaks, from which it would ultimately reach those two newspapers and many more.
Manning said Thursday that he released only information that he was certain would not harm the United States.
“There’s no evidence he was wrong,” Roots iIn Action stated. “He released evidence of crimes, as anyone able to do should do.”
Manning did so out of an actual belief in democracy (as distinct from “democracy” as a justification for bombings).
“We were obsessed with capturing and killing human targets on lists and ignoring goals and missions,” Manning said Thursday of his time in Iraq with the U.S. Army.
“I believed if the public, particularly the American public, could see this it could spark a debate on the military and our foreign policy in general as it applied to Iraq and Afghanistan. It might cause society to reconsider the need to engage in counter terrorism while ignoring the human situation of the people we engaged with every day.”
In similar spirit as Aung San Suu Kyi receiving the Nobel Peace Prize while under house arrest, Manning was awarded The Guardian newspaper’s Person of the Year Award in December in a landslide win.
Text inside of the custom made Thank You card for Manning reads:
TO BRADLEY MANNING:
We write to express our gratitude for the risks you took to inform us of the criminal and immoral actions of our government and to create a public debate about those policies. We know that you have suffered for your actions, and we consider that an additional offense by a government that is failing to represent us.
We also know that you were successful. People have been informed, and a debate is underway. We won’t let it die. We will continue to advance the debate until our government begins respecting human life. We won’t forget your remarkable contribution.
Stay strong.
The reader can sign the card here.
___________________
See more articles by human rights reporter Deborah Dupré here.
As of Friday evening, 14742 people have signed the card tot hank Manley.