Manning, sentenced to 35 years today by an Army Judge, Col. Denise Lind, will be eligible for parole in about 9 years when he is 33, with credit for time served and more credit for harsh treatment.
Several years ago, the Pentagon ignored Freedom of Information Act requests to release the video of U.S. soldiers laughing as journalists and children were shot from an Apache helicopter, so Wikileaks and Bradley Manning released the video above.
Other Wikileaks documents revealing outrageous secret U.S. government behavior are summarized here, not including the shocking extent of collusion between the Clinton State Department and TransCanada during its attempts to construct a tar sands oil pipeline across the environmentally vulnerable Ogallala Aquifer in the sandhills of western Nebraska, resulting in eminent domain condemnation of the land of farmers and ranchers even in the absence of a pipeline permit, which still has not been granted to TransCanada.
In a statement, Ben Wizner director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy & Technology Project, wrote:
The emails released today are a smoking gun that show how oil industry lobbying money has corrupted the State Department’s review of Keystone XL. They come out just after it was revealed that the State Department relied on a major TransCanada contractor to conduct its environmental review and public hearings on Keystone XL, and Wikileaks cables showed that other officials at the department gave the company tips on how to get the pipeline approved.
“When a soldier who shared information with the press and public is punished far more harshly than others who tortured prisoners and killed civilians, something is seriously wrong with our justice system. A legal system that doesn’t distinguish between leaks to the press in the public interest and treason against the nation will not only produce unjust results, but will deprive the public of critical information that is necessary for democratic accountability.”
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