Activists Rally to Free Whistleblower Bradley Manning

Bradley Manning told the truth about war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a result, he may spend the rest of his life in prison.

Earlier this year, the 23-year-old Army private allegedly leaked a video to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks showing U.S. troops in Iraq killing a number of unarmed civilians, including a father of two young children who had stopped to help a pair of Reuters journalists who were also shot dead by American forces. Manning also reportedly leaked tens of thousands of raw intelligence reports showing the war in Afghanistan to be the quagmire much of the public suspects it is, but which the politicians leading it have been busy trying to cover up.

Despite its professed commitment to transparency, the Obama administration is rewarding Manning's commitment to exposing the truth about U.S. wars with the threat of a court martial and 52 years behind bars. Carrying out war crimes, it seems, is something to be rewarded with a shiny medal and lucrative pension. Exposing them? A prison term.

On Thursday, supporters of Manning gathered at the Humanist Hall in Oakland, CA, to draw attention to his case -- among them famed whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers in 1971 and helped hasten the end of the Vietnam war.

"I can only hope that his example will inspire others," Ellsberg said at the event, which was broadcast live on MichaelMoore.com. He was joined by Col. Ann Wright, a former State Department official who resigned to protest the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and former CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

Explaining his support in an interview with The Guardian earlier this week, Ellsberg noted that every soldier's sworn oath is "to defend and support the Constitution. Bradley Manning has been defending and supporting our Constitution."

However, since Manning was named as the leaker of classified information about the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan -- that is, information the military and White House (rightly) believe would undermine public support for their wars -- he has been subjected to solitary confinement and a campaign of smears. We've been told he was disgruntled. A socially awkward outcast. Mentally unbalanced. That he was gay.

What we haven't heard from the major media outlets or the Obama administration? The truth: that Manning is a hero. It would have been easy to for him to go along with a military culture that condones war crimes and abhors transparency. But he didn't -- he did what was right. He decided that the "incredible things, awful things" he came across as an Army private "belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington, DC.”

While not everyone is in a position to expose war crimes, we all have an opportunity -- over the next three days especially -- to support someone who has. In addition to raising funds for his legal defense, the Bradley Manning Support Network has organized rallies across the country this weekend to raise awareness of the case. Please do your part. And if you don't see an event listed in your town? Try organizing one yourself.

Photo Credit: Bradley Manning Support Network