It’s been a long time coming, but US president Barack Obama’s decision to commute Chelsea Manning’s unduly severe prison sentence is hugely welcome.
When Manning, working as a US Army intelligence analyst in Kuwait, copied thousands of files onto a CD labelled “Lady Gaga” to avoid suspicion and smuggled them out of her military base, she set in train a series of momentous events that helped define the era of internet activism.
Within weeks, documents that Manning said showed “the true nature of 21st-century asymmetric warfare”, were released online to the public by WikiLeaks.
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Many files that the US military intended should remain secret showed in disturbing, unspun detail what was happening on the battlefield as well as behind the scenes as the US military machine attempted to keep a grip on events in Iraq and elsewhere.
Killing children
On the one hand, the “” lifted the lid on the mayhem unfolding in the country during some of the fiercest periods of sectarian violence and resistance to US occupation. .
On the other hand, the documents also showed how US military tactics were sometime as brutal as the militia groups terrorising the country.
One incident in 2007, and watched by millions because of Manning’s intervention, involved two US helicopters strafing people on the ground with gunfire in what appeared to be a disturbingly reckless fashion. Children were among the wounded and two Reuters journalists among those killed.
This and numerous other incidents were potential war crimes, incidents that were frequently sanitised in the retelling by US military officials, who routinely reported on engagements with “the enemy” and the killing of “insurgents”.
Shooting the messenger
The main US response to the Manning disclosures was to punish the messenger rather than listen to the message. Once Manning was identified as the leak’s source, the US military’s treatment of her was unremittingly punitive. She was kept in solitary confinement for nearly a year of her lengthy pre-trial detention (treatment a ).
At trial, Manning was prevented from presenting evidence that her actions were in the public interest. And the US military authorities went on to repeatedly deny Manning the treatment she needed to assist in her gender transition.
With Edward Snowden’s over the US’s vast – and hitherto almost completely secret – surveillance programme overlapping with Manning’s case, it’s not hard to see the harshness of this low-ranking data analyst’s sentence as a deliberate response from an angry US military-intelligence establishment.
Manning’s crushing 35-year jail term was clearly meant as a deterrent to others who might want to blow the whistle on state human rights abuse and other hidden crimes.
Perpetrators remain free
So Obama’s long-overdue decision is very welcome. I’m pleased that Amnesty played a part in this, mobilising thousands of people worldwide to send urgent online appeals to the White House via our .
But let’s not lose sight of the fact that the perpetrators of US war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere have been pursued with only a fraction of the vigour with which the US military went after Chelsea Manning.
For the most part, US military personnel or their contractors who unlawfully killed civilians in the streets of Baghdad or tortured detainees in in Iraq(and during the Afghanistan conflict) remain free and unworried about prosecution.
Meanwhile, until 17 May, Chelsea Manning will remain behind bars at the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Kansas.
