It's not enough to say Chelsea Manning is so brave - although she is. It's not enough to call her a hero. It's not enough to wish we could be like her.

We have to BE LIKE HER! We have to REFUSE TO COMPLY WITH INJUSTICE, secret courts, secret proceedings, war crimes, we must ACT

— Suzie Dawson (@Suzi3D) March 9, 2019

US Re-Imprisons Manning To Coerce Her To Testify Against WikiLeaks

After being imprisoned for seven years under draconian conditions which twice drove her to suicide, whistleblower Chelsea Manning has again been thrown behind bars for defending government transparency. Manning has been jailed in contempt of court after refusing to testify before a grand jury related to Assange and WikiLeaks, saying she “will accept whatever you bring upon me.”

“The judge said she will remain jailed until she testifies or until the grand jury concludes its work,” AP reports.

“Chelsea can be incarcerated for the remainder of the grand jury [up to 18 months], and the term of the grand jury can be extended by six months,” Manning’s attorney Moira Meltzer-Cohen told Business Insider.

“Note that Manning is not jailed as a ‘punishment’,” WikiLeaks tweeted. “She has formally been jailed to ‘coerce’ her into testifying against our journalists (including Assange) for publishing the truth about the US government. She will remain in jail until she breaks and complies or wins on appeal.”

Manning responded to all of the grand jury questions by saying, “I object to the question and refuse to answer on the grounds that the question is in violation of my First, Fourth, and Sixth Amendment, and other statutory rights.” Manning explained her decision in the following statement:

“I will not comply with this, or any other grand jury. Imprisoning me for my refusal to answer questions only subjects me to additional punishment for my repeatedly-stated ethical objections to the grand jury system. The grand jury’s questions pertained to disclosures from nine years ago, and took place six years after an in-depth computer forensics case, in which I testified for almost a full day about these events. I stand by my previous public testimony. I will not participate in a secret process that I morally object to, particularly one that has been historically used to entrap and persecute activists for protected political speech.”

Manning’s defense team further explained her objection to being forced to testify:

“Due to their secretive nature and limitless subpoena power, the government has utilized grand jury processes as tools for garnering information about movements by questioning witnesses behind closed doors. Since testimony before grand juries is secret, grand juries can create fear by suggesting that some members of a political community may be secretly cooperating with the government. In this way, grand juries can seed suspicion and fear in activist communities.”

“Really this isn’t about Chelsea Manning at all,” journalist Ben Swann told RT today. “It’s really about for the government to try and to create a concept, a narrative, in which they demonstrate that Assange and WikiLeaks assisted Manning in retrieving and obtaining classified documents, which WikiLeaks then published. And the reason that’s significant is because, under the Espionage Act, they want to charge Assange with having committed espionage against the United States.”

And of course the fauxgressives who’ve been shrieking about Trump’s “war on the press” for two years have nothing to say about this administration setting a horrifying precedent by throwing a whistleblower in jail in order to force a journalist’s source to testify against them. Of course the McResistance who’s been screaming bloody murder about Trump saying mean things about Jim Acosta has nothing whatsoever to say about this administration pursuing the arrest of a journalist in a precedent which would be devastating for press freedoms around the world.

Mad respect today for @xychelsea who showed greater toughness than anybody involved in the so-called Russiagate collusion case. She went back to jail rather than turn rat. That's the very definition of resolve. And it's in the face of the "Espionage Court."

— John Kiriakou (@JohnKiriakou) March 8, 2019

One of the files that Chelsea leaked was the Collateral Murder video that showed some military guys callously taking the lives of people who they were sent to protect as well as two journalists from Reuters.

[video:https://youtube.com/watch?v=HfvFpT-iypw]

In a statement by Manning made during her 2013 trial she outlined her motivations for the leak, stating (in relation to Collateral Murder) that one of the most disturbing aspects was the “bloodlust” exhibited by the US military. At one point we can hear members of the aerial weapons team begging a wounded Iraqi to pick up a weapon so that they would have a reason open fire on him once again. This, as Manning put it, was “similar to a child torturing ants with a magnifying glass.” The violence in the video is both dehumanizing and grotesque, and serves to remind viewers of the perversity of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, as well as the subsequent deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians.

This brings me to the second reason why the video is so important.

In the film we see two Reuters staffers killed by US military cannon-fire, and the symbolism of this act is striking. The lead-up to the US occupation of Iraq was marked by a high level of government propaganda and disinformation, as well the failure of mainstream journalism in the United States to engage (in a critical fashion) with the claims made by the Bush administration that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. So, to me, when those two Reuters employees are blown to bits on the ground in the suburb of New Baghdad, their deaths symbolized all state violence committed against those who search for the truth. In addition to the tragedy of human death, there is also the tragedy of what is symbolically destroyed. Transparency. Democracy. Knowledge. Critical thinking.

Finally, what makes Collateral Murder such a powerful video is not only what it shows, but also the knowledge of how it was obtained. This was classified material, seen by a US citizen who felt that it violated the things for which her country was supposed to stand, and so she leaked it (aware of what this might entail at the personal level) for all the world to see. If the content of the video illustrates the violent arrogance of power, then the leak of the video illustrates the potential power of dissent and courage. As we now know, such dissent is not taken lightly as Chelsea Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison as thanks for her act of conscience.

'A testimony of evil': How Manning’s 'Collateral Murder' revelation changed history

On the day whistleblower Chelsea Manning is released from prison, RT looks back on ‘Collateral Murder,’ the most explosive revelation from Manning’s leaked documents – a haunting video depicting US military killing Iraqi civilians.
The ‘Collateral Murder’ video shows an aerial attack carried out by US Apache helicopters in East Baghdad in 2007, which killed more than a dozen people.

Two Reuters staff – journalist Namir Noor-Eldeen and camera assistant Saeed Chmagh – were killed in the attack, along with driver Saleh Matasher Tomal, whose two children Sayeed and Doha were injured when the US opened fire as their father attempted to help the injured.

“The official statement on this incident initially listed all adults as insurgents and claimed the US military did not know how the deaths occurred,” WikiLeaks reported at the time.

Kristinn Hrafnsson, an Icelandic investigative journalist who worked with WikiLeaks to investigate the ‘Collateral Murder’ video, told RT his “jaw dropped” when he saw what he described as “a testimony of evil.”

Hrafnsson was sitting in a Reykjavik cafe with WikiLeaks Editor Julian Assange in 2010 when he first watched the footage. “You have to see this,” Assange told him.

“I instantly saw that this would probably be the biggest news story I had worked on,” Hrafnsson recalled.
....
The footage not only shows the US military knew the dead were not all insurgents, but reveals the callous attitudes of the soldiers.

After initially engaging and shooting around eight people, including Eldeen and Chmagh, the footage shows the helicopters open fire again, targeting a van driven by Matasher, who was attempting to help the wounded Chmagh.

The Apache crew are later heard laughing at the “12 to 15 bodies,” on the ground and the sight of a Humvee running over one of the injured. “I think they just drove over a body,” one says. “Really, haha!” another replies. “Look at those dead bastards,” another crew member is heard saying during the video.

The footage shows that, after the military realized children had been injured in the attack, a medic wanted to take them to a military clinic. However, they were ordered to give the children to police to be taken to a local hospital.

“Well it’s their fault for bringing their kids into a battle,” one of the Apache soldiers is heard saying. “That’s right,” another agrees.
....
Manning “is one of the most important people in modern times, in my opinion,” Hrafnsson said. “She did a great service, that she was wrongfully sentenced for.”

“I absolutely believe if it had not been for her courageous acts in 2010 we would not have seen Edward Snowden step forward, we could not have seen other important leaks like the Panama Papers.”

I share Hrafnsson's opinion and tonight Chelsea Manning is once again facing time in prison for sticking to her beliefs.