Bradley Manning and the Charges Against WikiLeaks

Yesterday, the U.S. Army announced that they were filing 22 additional charges against Bradley Manning, who's accused of leaking thousands of documents to WikiLeaks. The most serious of these 22 charges being aiding the enemy, which is a capital offense. Now this charge, which can be used only for a member of the military, is pretty broad. But the definition of the crime, as described under Article 104, describes the offense as the accused gives intelligence to or communicates or responds with or holds any intercourse with the enemy either directly or indirectly. So I guess that leads us to ask the question, who exactly is the enemy that Bradley Manning is accused of aiding? Is WikiLeaks now an official enemy of the United States? Joining me to answer this question is Jane Hampshire, founder of FireDogLake. Jillian, thanks so much for being here. Thank you, Jillian. Thank you, Jillian. Thank you, Jillian. Thank you, Jillian. Thank you, Jillian. Thank you, Jillian. Thank you, Jillian. Thank you, Jillian. Thank you, Jillian. Thank you, Jillian. Thank you, Jillian. Thank you, Jillian. Thank you, Jillian. Thank you, Jillian. Thank you, Jillian. Thank you, Jillian. Thank you, Jillian. Thank you, Jillian. Thank you, Jillian. Thank you, Jillian. Thank you, Jillian. Thank you, Jillian. Thank you, Jillian. Thank you, Jillian. Thank you, Jillian. Thank you, Jillian. Thank you, Jillian. Thank you, Jillian. the bradley manning is accused of aiding is wikileaks now an official enemy of the united states joining me to answer this question is jane hampshire founder of fire dog lake jane thanks so much for joining us again this week so let's get this straight um who's the enemy here are they officially declaring wikileaks an enemy well you know the interesting thing is that 24 hours after this news came out no journalist who has questioned jeffrill, the Department of Defense spokesperson, or anybody involved has asked that question. Who are they talking about when they say the enemy? They all kind of chuff and as if, oh, well, everybody knows who the enemy is. It's al-Qaeda. But what does that mean? If Bradley Manning, you know, sort of if he gave files to somebody with the knowledge that they put it on the Internet and that qualifies as giving it to al-Qaeda, then how does that differ from anything that the New York Times does on a daily basis? I mean, we should all be really concerned with that. That's truly Nixonian. If, on the other hand, he means WikiLeaks, then they should say that, too, because that's pretty earth-shaking. WikiLeaks is now, you know, the enemy. I'm with you there. Suddenly either WikiLeaks is the enemy. And, you know, as we mentioned, of course, this charge only goes towards members of the military. But the New York Times, The Guardian, every newspaper out there prints this information that could get in the hands of al-Qaeda or the Taliban. So essentially they would be, you know, just as guilty too. But I'm happy that you mentioned Jeff Morrell, because he has been doing a bit of a media tour with this, and he's been on TV today, and it seems to me that he was denying everything. He denied the fact that Bradley Manning is being held in solitary confinement. He said that he's not being treated differently than anyone else at Quantico, and Jeff Morrell even said that he personally visited with Bradley Manning, but are any of those things true? Well, I'm going to go by Bradley Manning's attorney, David Coombs, who wrote a blog post today saying that Morrell is not telling the truth when he says he met with Manning, that that did not happen, and that is clearly what they indicated this morning on Morning Joe when he was speaking with Savannah Guthrie on MSNBC. It sounds like he went to the brig, went to this dog and pony show that they put on for him, and came away thinking that the place is really superbly run. Evidently, nobody told him that they fired the brig commander a couple of weeks ago, and Bradley Manning was actually put on suicide watch as a punitive measure, which is strictly against military code, according to Jim Migosefsky of NBC. So I think that he's a master dissembler here, Ben. He clearly has it in for far-left bloggers who care about the civil liberties of someone who has not actually yet been not actually yet been tried and convicted. Oh, how horrible of people, right, to care about someone that is still supposed to be innocent at this point. But you know what else is so interesting? And you've mentioned this in what you've written as people like Joe Biden, you know, we've had other defense officials as well who've all said that none of the documents released by WikiLeaks have actually caused any real harm, that they were just embarrassing for the U.S. And yet now they want to charge Bradley Manning with something that is a capital offense. The charge sheet itself said that, you know, it reflects poorly on the military. He leaks things that reflected poorly on the military. So basically, we're going to throw him in life, you know, throw him in jail for life because he leaked things ostensibly that were embarrassing to the military. I mean, that's absolutely Nixonian. You know, Nixon called Daniel Ellsberg, accused Daniel Ellsberg of aiding and abetting the enemy. And that is, in effect, what the Obama administration is saying about Bradley Manning. They don't like people who leak things that are embarrassing to them. And I don't think they've even proven that Bradley Manning did these things, but the way that people are talking about him, the way that he is being charged, they are attempting to try him in the press before he has the chance to have a fair trial in a courtroom. And I just don't think that's un-American as far as I'm concerned. And why would they, eight months later, add 22 additional charges? I mean, to use that as some kind of a sign that perhaps they're getting desperate here, because before, you know, it was coming out that they couldn't find any type of a connection between Bradley Manning and Julian Assange. And that's being reported again today, that the Justice Department has been unable to find any connection between Assange and Bradley Manning. So they're evidently upping the ante and trying to accuse Manning of spending the rest of his life in prison for these things. And they seem to want to squeeze a confession out of him against Julian Assange, because otherwise they not Assange. It's real banana republic, you know, tin pot dictatorship stuff here. And it really is beneath the United States to be engaging in tactics like this. Now you mentioned that Richard Nixon once called or said that Daniel Ellsberg was also aiding the enemy. So let's think about how Bradley Manning might be seen a few decades from now, because now Daniel Ellsberg is looked upon as a hero. Do you think that things could change for Bradley as well? Well, I know I was on a conference call with Ellsberg today and he said, you know, back, I find that sort of late in life rehabilitation of my image to be really interesting and it's all being done to disparage Bradley Manning because people are trying are trying to say oh well what daniel ellsberg did in his time was great but bradley manning that's not the same thing and daniel ellsberg said no it's almost exactly the same thing and the only reason anybody's saying anything nice about me is because we've got a democratic president who's doing this and they're trying to find a distinction between something that you know the left has traditionally found to be respectable, heroic even, and what Bradley Manning is doing so it can justify the way he's being treated. And there is no justification. Ellsberg is right. All right, Jane, I want to thank you very much for joining us. And, of course, we'll continue to watch the case of Bradley Manning here. Thanks so much.