Arun Rath, reporter for The World and PBS Frontline, says the court proceedings are not easy to follow, as documents and motions are not shared with the press.
“It’s easier to follow the military commissions at Guantanamo,” says Rath.
The report doesn't go in depth about the accusations against Manning. I was just thrilled to hear something on public radio about Manning.
When Manning was being held in solitary, National Public Radio was mum. It was as if it was not happening. Fox News Radio kicked NPR's ass all over the place when it came to coverage of Bradley Manning, which was bitter to me as it was happening. Of course Fox News Radio doesn't air Alan Colmes in Los Angeles, where he would probably find the largest sympathetic audience in the country. Which to me means Colmes's show serves as camoflage for them, legal or otherwise. I'm sure Mr. Colmes wouldn't appreciate my saying that, but if they're not going to promote his show where it would succeed, and it would--then what other conclusion can a reasonable person reach?
Anyway, that's not to say public radio has avoided Manning, because he has gotten support from Democracy Now. But public radio stations in L.A. haven't reported the very important story of Bradley Manning.
When you do see or hear reports about Manning, the issues get confused. What is it that he did, again? You always hear that he leaked the cables to Wikileaks. But, though the cables made an impression on a select audience, to the popular audience, they're meaningless. Too many issues, too confusing. The really simple and powerful thing that Manning is accused of doing is leaking the helicopter video, which can be seen at Collateralmurder.com. Ethan McCord, who was on the ground that day, speaks in a 17-minute video also listed on the page. He ties it all together after the fact, and he has important things to say.
When I ask around, people have more often heard about the helicopter video than they have the cables. And as to the importance of the cables, I'm really not sure, and haven't looked them over. Gordon Duff says at Veterans Today:
As for anything else, embassy cables? My friends at the Pentagon who have security clearances that Manning could never dream of say they have never seen an embassy cable in their lives.
“You want that stuff, you have to run over to State. Hillary wipes her #@%* with them. We ain’t got em, can’t get em, don’t care, don’t want em, those folks over there are a pack of (frigging) morons. We don’t meet with them, we don’t read their mail and they don’t listen to us, especially when they should.”
The PBS documentary on Manning doesn't spend much time on the helicopter video, though they do show a few brief shots of it. The video itself isn't shocking--it's the audio, the sounds of the soldier's voices. It's the sound of another world in which men are tasked with killing other men. It's another mindset, and what's revealed in the voices of the men speaking is one of the most heartbreaking things I've ever heard. It doesn't take much, just this one powerful video, to show the reality of what war is, and what it does to people. Manning has never expressed a wish for prosecution of anyone who committed war crimes; only a wish that the public would talk about it and hopefully put a stop to the machinery of war that makes this tragedy possible.
This tragedy, and every other. On the radio last night, and again it was public radio---Talk of the Nation I believe---the guest said there's a suicide a day among active military. She also said, and it's reported here, that 18 vets a day commit suicide.
Who is putting our troops in danger? Those who would ignore the situation and allow it to go on unchecked---or those who want discussion of it?
Discussion, conversation, recognition, acknowledgement---without these there is no healing, and no truth.
“The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the State.”
– Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Ephesians 6:12
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder