Chelsea Manning

The following letter is to be sent to every independent candidate standing in the Federal Parliamentary election. A similar letter is to be sent to the candidates standing for the smaller parties. It is my hope that raising the profile of Julian Assange now may result in the election, on 18 May, of a Federal Parliament with at least a few members who are prepared to act to try to protect Julian Assange from those in the United States whose criminal conduct he helped expose to the world.

Dear Sir/Madam,

Firstly, thank you for standing as a candidate in the forthcoming election of 18 May.

Still from "Collateral Murder" video, leaked by Chelsea Manning (pictured opposite, below) to Julian Assange (opposite, top). The shorter version is embedded within this article.

I write to ask if you will use the election campaign to speak up for Julian Assange, an unjustly imprisoned Australian journalist, who faces extradition from Britain to the United States. Through the Wikileaks news service, established in 2006, Julian revealed to the world war-crimes that United States' rulers wanted to remain concealed. One of the most infamous of those incidents was the 12 July 2007 "Collateral murder" in Iraq by the US crew of an Apache helicopter.

On that day, at least 18 unarmed people, including two journalists employed by Reuters, were killed, and two children injured, by three consecutive attacks from a US Apache helicopter in Baghdad, Iraq. After the incident the Apache crew were heard laughing at the "12 to 15" bodies on the ground and at the sight of a Humvee running over one of the injured.

A subsequent inquiry by the US Army found that the actions of the Apache crew were justified, purportedly because all those killed were armed insurgents. The US Army refused to tell Reuters how two of their staff were killed on that day. Reuters attempted to obtain the video through Freedom of Information requests, but were unsuccessful.

This criminal coverup of murder was thwarted, however, when Private Chelsea Manning, who had viewed the 39 minute video of the incident, gave a copy to Wikileaks. The full version of that Video can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is9sxRfU-ik . A shorter 18 minute version can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0 and is also embedded below. For revealing this and other evidence of US war crimes to Wikileaks, Chelsea Manning was sentenced in 2013 to 35 years in prison.

Collateral Murder - Wikileaks - Iraq

As a consequence of "Collateral Murder" and other revelations, Wikileaks has drawn the ferocious enmity from those vested interests who wanted to keep that that knowledge from us. For example, on 10 August 2016, Hillary Clinton strategist Bob Beckel said, "The way to deal with this is pretty simple. We've got special ops forces. I mean a dead man can't leak stuff. ... The guy ought to be - and I 'm not for the death penalty, so, if I 'm not for the death penalty, there's only one way to deal with it - illegally shoot the son of a bitch." (see 1:14 minute video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rImgsRg-a-8.

All of Wikileaks' material has been republished in the mainstream news all over the world, again and again. No journalist other than Julian Assange has been pursued or punished for doing this. In 2010, an investigation by the Australian Federal Police found that Julian Assange has committed no crime. He did the world a courageous service and Australia should protect him. Unfortunately the ALP, the Libs, and the Greens, do not seem to have the courage to stand up to America or the UK on this matter. As mentioned above, the only party, of which I am so far aware, is standing in this election and is campaigning for Julian Assange, is the Socialist Equity Party.

Will you also stand up for Julian Assange?

It is my hope that, by raising the issue of Julian Assange to independents and small party candidates now, I might help make it possible to have a parliament elected on 18 May that will act to get Julian Assange back to Australia safely.

Yours sincerely,

James Sinnamon
/JamesSinnamon

#appendix1" id="appendix1">Appendix: Candidates who support Julian Assange

Use the 'special relationship' to stop Assange extradition: Greens Senator Richard Di Natale

Australian Greens Leader and Foreign Affairs spokesperson Dr Richard Di Natale has called upon the Australian Government to swiftly intervene to ensure that Julian Assange is not extradited to the United States.

Julian Assange and other whistleblowers including Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, have revealed much of what we now know about how and why America, Israel, Australia and their allies have waged bloody wars against the peoples of the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. As a result of these wars several millions have died since 1990. If the US-NATO aligned powers can get their way, they intend much of the same for the people of Latin America, Russia and East Asia. On these and related issues, the Wheeler Centre conducted a superb interview with Assange tonight 30 September 2015 and there seems to be a podcast there at http://www.wheelercentre.com/events/julian-assange. Check it out.

To help them plan to overcome domestic opposition to their plans for war, the United States' NSA and other spy agencies have been listening to all of our 'phone conversations and reading all our e-mails, at least since 2007, purportedly to fight 'terrorism'.

Curiously, the 'Islamist' terrorists the intelligence agencies claim to be protecting us from seem strikingly similar to the terrorists, armed and paid for by the United States and its allies, who have, according to our newsmedia, been fighting against the "hated Syrian dictator", President Bashar al-Assad, since March 2011. See Julian Assange’s Wikileaks Files, Chapter 10, “Syria”.

In the face of these lies about the Syrian President, Syrians have, in fact, rallied behind their government since March 2011.

According to Haaretz which can hardly be accused of bias towards the Syrian government, 88.7% of the 73.42% of eligible Syrian voters who voted in the Presidential elections of 4 June 2014, voted for President Bashar al-Assad. [1]
But for having stood by their government at the ballot box and with the Syrian Army in their neighbourhoods against the terrorists, the Syrian people have paid a terrible price. By one estimate as many as 250,000 have been killed and several millions have been displaced internally and externally.

Now, most conveniently for advocates of dragnet surveillance, the Western world also faces terrorism, if on a vastly smaller scale, from some of the same terrorists who have been fighting the people for Syria.

Those who have waged illegal wars against the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Yemen, and in previous generation against the people of Vietnam cannot be trusted with all our personal data. Dragnet Surveillance must be stopped.

Ask your local member of Parliament - or at election time - all candidates seeking your vote - what he/she has done and intends to do to stop the surveillance by the NSA of your emails and your 'phone conversations.

Also, ask your local member of the Federal Parliament or of the Victorian Parliament, how he/she intends to stand up for Julian Assange that courageous whistleblower and native of Victoria, Australia.

Appendix : Internet resources

/JulianAssange /Syria
https://candobetter.net

Footnote[s]

[1] See /SyriansVotedForPresidentBasharAlAssad

Updates (18/8/15) : 1. "Julian Assange and the Value of WikiLeaks: Subverting Illusions" (17/8/15) | Global Research republished from Roots Action, 2. Manning barred from legal library before solitary confinement hearing (17/8/15) | RT.

This article has been adapted from the original article which was published on RT on 10 Aug 2015. The fate awaiting Julian Assange should he be extradited to the United States is indicated by the treatment of fellow whistleblower Chelsea Manning at the hands of the United States Government. See Chelsea Manning faces indefinite solitary confinement, lawyer says (13/8/15) | RT.

Australian citizen Julian Assange is believed to have been 'victimized' by Swedish prosecutors following revelations that they interviewed 44 people in the UK, but refused to interview the WikiLeaks head in the Ecuadorian Embassy, where he has been for over three years. A Freedom of Information request submitted by the Hazel Press news organization has revealed that Sweden has granted 44 requests to interview witnesses or suspects in the UK since 2010, the Press Association reports. This has led supporters of the WikiLeaks founder to claim that Assange has been "singled out," as he has also agreed to be interviewed by Swedish prosecutors inside the embassy concerning sex allegations in the Scandinavian country.

A member of Assange's legal team, Jen Robinson, says that a number of important questions have been raised, adding that "Julian hasn't been charged, yet he is being punished."

"First, they refused to take his testimony while he remained in Sweden. Then they refused to hear it in the UK, saying it was illegal to come here. Five years later, after being rebuked by their own courts, they say they'll consider it," she told the Press Association.

"Instead of hearing what he had to say, the prosecutor chose to cast a shadow of suspicion over Julian by seeking his extradition. We offered his testimony from London before the arrest warrant was issued, and have continued to offer it since."

In March, the Swedish director of public prosecutions, Marianne Ny, agreed to question Assange on Ecuadorian embassy soil, as the sexual assault allegations reach the statute of limitations in August.

However, the meeting planned for June 17 was called off at the last minute, as Ny said Sweden had not received official permission from Ecuador to enter its London embassy. Assange scorned Ny's decision, saying it was nothing more than "a public relations exercise."

Meanwhile, UK human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell_{#fn1" id="txt1"> 1}  said that by agreeing to interview 44 people in the UK, but not Assange, Sweden was "guilty of double standards and victimization," adding they are "making an exception of him."

"It is wrong to deny Assange the option to be interviewed in the UK, which has been extended to others and which he has been offering for five years," the Press Association cited him as saying.

"The Swedish authorities are not applying the law about overseas interviews consistently and fairly. They are acting in an exceptional and discriminatory way towards Assange. Julian Assange has been in various forms of detention for five years, without ever having been charged with any offence. This amounts to pre-trial punishment and is a gross abuse of his human rights and the legal system."

If Assange steps out of the Ecuador Embassy, he will be arrested and extradited to Sweden. Police officers are keeping a round the clock watch on the Australian's refuge, which has already cost the British tax payer more than £12 million ($18.6 million).

"Will the Cameron government spend another £12 million to detain a person who hasn't been charged, simply because Sweden refuses to make use of the mechanisms available to resolve Julian's case?" Robinson asked.

The 43 year-old sought asylum in the embassy because he fears that his extradition to Sweden on suspicion of rape and sexual assault will lead to his transfer to the US, where he could face trial over WikiLeaks' publication of classified US documents.

Assange denies Sweden's accusations, calling them politically motivated. He claims that the ultimate goal of this legal process is to transfer him to the United States.

Footnote[s]

#fn1" id="fn1">1. #txt1">↑  See Sweden's double standards on Julian Assange (10/8/15) | Peter Tatchell Foundation.

Whilst much of the content on Peter Tatchell's web-site, including his defence of Julian Assange, is laudable, other content on his site, unfortunately repeats the lying narrative of the mainstream media. Examples can be found in Iran nuclear deal: Why aren't we talking about Iranian human rights abuses? (23/7/15):

The country's rulers have ambitions to be a regional and, eventually global, power. Having nuclear weapons would give them leverage and a place at the top table in international affairs. Tehran calculates that the world would have to take them seriously, and would not be able to pressure them, if they had the bomb.

Iran's desire for expanded geo-political influence in the Middle East echoes the existing US and Saudi Arabian influence in the region. The ayatollahs are already projecting their power beyond their own borders; supporting Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and Assad in Syria.

Whatever may be the truth behind Peter Tatchell's claims that Iran persecutes gays in the above article and elsewhere, the scale of the alleged persecution seems trivial compared to mass killings in neighbouring Iraq since 1990 and Syria since 2011 at the hands of United States military and its proxy terrorists. See Former US Attorney General: US (& Australian) sanctions against Iraq are genocidal (Jan 2014).

I could find nothing about any of this on Peter Tatchell's web-site.

This article about fellow Australian Julian Assange has been adapted from the original Sputnik International article of 7 April 2015.

April 5 marked the five-year anniversary of the release of the Collateral Murder video by WikiLeaks (embedded within). The shocking footage showed the entire world the 2007 US Apache attack helicopter airstrike on Baghdad that killed 12 people - including two Reuters staff members - and injured two small children.

Ironically, the only ones imprisoned for the crime were those with the courage and compassion to attempt to bring the perpetrators to justice.

See also: l'Espresso interview | Julian Assange: 'I still enjoy crushing bastards' (2/4/15).

Assange took part in a Reddit AMA on Monday, along with journalist and Assange’s closest adviser Sarah Harrison, to discuss the many things the duo have been involved in.

Massive bust honouring Edward
Snowden appears in New York City

The Collateral Murder video was part of a massive trove of confidential evidence of US wrong-doing, collected and released by whistleblowing army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, in an attempt to show the world the “true costs of war.”  The collection was deemed the largest release of confidential documents ever leaked to the public.

Manning equated actions she witnessed in the video to “children torturing ants with a magnifying glass,” except these ants were human beings, who simply happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Manning was charged with 22 offenses, including aiding the enemy, a charge that  could have lead her to death row over an act of conscience. She was ultimately acquitted of that charge, but was found guilty of 17 others, and is currently serving a 35-year sentence in a maximum security military prison.

Meanwhile, WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange remains under investigation by the US government for publishing their criminal secrets, and has been granted political asylum by Ecuador. Unable to safely travel to South America, he has remained in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since 2012.

The city has had officers from the Metropolitan Police Service continuously stationed outside the building, prepared to arrest him should he ever try to leave ever since.  The total cost for the first two years of this patrol has cost the city £6.5 million.

But an undeterred Assange has remained active even from inside the embassy. The publisher has continued to release information and has helped to raise money and support for political prisoners and whistleblowers through the Courage Foundation.  Manning has also been writing — and now tweeting — from prison.

During an AMA with Sarah Harrison, Renata Avila, Andy Müller-Maguhn of the Courage Foundation and Julian Assange on Reddit Monday evening, Reddit user Josiah_Bartlet1 asked Assange: “do you think that the work you have done will lead to a radical shift slowly in the government and society as we know it, or do you think the instruments of the government are enough to throttle any such efforts (based on your personal experiences)?”

Assange responded saying, “These are cascading effects with geometric amplifiers in both directions. It's hard to say, but at least we can say we fought and gave people a choice to know themselves and their civilization.”

Another user, Militaria, asked, “What would you say to people like my parents, who believe that leakers and whistleblowers are dangerous traitors who are supporting ‘the enemy?’”

“This propaganda happens a lot. What is very important here is to explain that throughout the whole of the Manning trial the US government was desperate to prove that some "harm" had come. In fact if could prove none. What did happen, is that the US troops began to withdraw from Iraq. What has happened since Snowden's revelations is that citizens around the world began to protect their communications. And still not one reported "harm". In fact we still get bombs by known person's of suspect. It is a matter of US interests the government is protecting, not US security,” Harrison responded.

WikiLeaks Exposes Most Controversial
Part of Obama-Led Trade Agreement

“What legal protections would you recommend for intelligence whistleblowers?” another user asked.

“The reality of the situation is that alleged journalistic sources like Snowden and Manning will rarely, if ever, be fully protected regardless of domestic laws. At the very least all cases of whistleblowing, publishing and journalistic sources should have the ability to have a public interest defence. I think the real solutions in such cases will always rely on international measures though. However, these will always also still rely on the reality of international politics — few countries have the balls to stand up to the US,” Harrison wrote.

When asked what the average citizen can do to stop illegal breaches of individual privacy by the US government, Julian responded with, “Nothing. There's nothing you can do. As soon as you do something you'll no-longer be average. Do that. Don't be average.”

“How has Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning's whistleblowing affected other potential whistleblowers? Do you get a sense that they are emboldened by their efforts, or more apprehensive after seeing the response to it?” user raihan42 asked.

“Edward Snowden has said that he was inspired by Chelsea Manning. The US government wanted to publicly destroy Manning, in a grotesque way, as a warning. They did not succeed but I realised we can do even better! This is part of the reason why we put a lot of resources and risk into getting Edward Snowden asylum. He is now mostly free, living a fulfilling life of respect, an inspirational symbol for whistleblowers world wide and not a general deterrent suffering in a US prison unable to defend himself or promote his cause in public,” Assange wrote.

“Obama and the US government generally have tried to offer each truthteller as an deterrent. Manning was sentenced to 35 years, Hammond to 10 years, Brown to 5 years, WikiLeaks secret Grand Jury is ongoing in its 5th year. Yet, their deterrent method is clearly failing. Snowden came forward,” Harrison continued. “I look forward to when the next truthteller comes forward. Courage is building the safety nets for when they do.”

Related

Assange Demands Full Access to Swedish Investigation Materials on Rape Case
Whistleblower Chelsea Manning Joins Twitter
Whistleblower Chelsea Manning Scores a Legal Victory
Assange To Stay in London Embassy as Long as US Pursues WikiLeaks Probe
Mexico Launches Own Wikileaks to Fight Corruption

by Jamison Maeda. First published on Clare Daly's web site (http://claredaly.ie) on 7 Sep 2013. (Emphasis not in Original.)

Bradley Manning was a 25 year old intelligence analyst in the US Army, who was arrested in 2010 for leaking hundreds of thousands of confidential, government and military documents to the public via Wikileaks. Manning claimed his objective was to remove "the fog of war and reveal the true nature of 21st century asymmetric warfare." Manning accomplished much more. Manning was believed to be responsible for the Wikileaks release of 38 minutes of cockpit gun sight footage of an American airstrike in Baghdad in 2007. The video shows a United States Army AH 64 Apache helicopter killing a group of men including a Reuters journalist and photographer, and a civilian man who stopped to assist the wounded. That man's two children were also wounded in the attack. (Preventing those who attempt to assist wounded in battle is a violation of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions and considered a war crime.)

Also, Manning was believed to have provided Wikileaks with video of the Granai Airstrike of a B-1 Bomber in 2009, also known as the Granai massacre. Between 86 and 147 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed during the strike in the Farah province of Afghanistan. (Deliberately directing an attack on a civilian population or on individual civilians not taking part in direct hostilities is considered a war crime.)

Nearly 780 formerly secret documents known as the Guantanamo Bay File Leak, also attributed to Manning, revealed the detention of over 150 innocent Afghani and Pakistani farmers, drivers, cooks, and a 14 year old boy held for several years without being charged of a crime. There was also evidence of sexual abuse and torture. The UK Court of Appeal ruled former prisoner, Binyam Mohamed, a citizen of the United Kingdom, was the victim of "cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment by the United States authorities" and awarded him compensation in the amount of £1 million.

Documents known as the War Logs also allegedly provided to Wikileaks by Manning showed much larger civilian casualties than previously reported by the United States. The reports from the Iraq War Log recorded the deaths of 66,000 civilians. The Afghan War Log reported the deaths of over 91,000 civilians.

In addition to the videos, the Guantanamo Bay Files and the War Logs, 251,287 diplomatic cables were leaked, exposing US spying on the United Nations as well as allied nations from 1966-2010. It was also revealed that the US State Department backed giant corporations like Nike and Nautica who blocked a proposed increase in the Haitian minimum wage in 2009, a country long ravaged by poverty and famine.

But arguably the most horrifying of the crimes leaked by Manning was the alleged involvement of US contractor DynCorp in child trafficking and providing children as entertainment for a sex party for Afghan security recruits. In multiple reports, boys between the ages of 8-15 were forced to dance for men and afterward were purchased for sex. The Guardian reported that two Afghan policemen and nine others were arrested for "purchasing services from a child." Dyncorp faced similar allegations in 1999 in Bosnia when whistle blower, Kathryn Bolkovac, a UN Police Monitor accused Dyncorp employees in Bosnia of selling and having sex with minors. She was fired by DynCorp but filed an unfair dismissal case in Great Britain and won.

Manning was convicted on July 30, 2013 of 17 charges including espionage and theft, but acquitted of aiding the enemy. Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison.

On August 22, 2013, Manning released a statement saying that she is a transgender person and considers herself to be a woman. She requests that she be referred to as Chelsea Manning going forward.

Within minutes American mainstream media, in an obvious attempt at sensationalism and ratings grabbing began asking people on the street if they thought taxpayers should have to pay for Chelsea's hormone therapy. Not a single person was asked their opinion on tax payer funded torture, the detention and massacre of innocent civilians, or the sex trafficking of children. Instead, the mainstream media chose to focus on the personal life of Chelsea Manning, who as one of the over 700,000 transgender Americans now finds herself in possibly the most vulnerable group in America, second only to whistle-blowers it seems.

It is incorrigible for politicians and so-called journalists to distract the world with Chelsea Manning's personal situation when Americans urgently need to address the issues Chelsea brought to light, and to consider the fate of the whistle-blowers whose sacrifices do not endanger, but ensure our freedom. She gave up her freedom to expose horrible atrocities upon human beings that demand investigation. And for that, she is a hero.