Bradley Manning, the disgraced Army Private facing a general court marital on 22 counts, including aiding the enemy, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by a member of Iceland's Parliament.
Birgitta Jónsdóttir wrote on her blog that "the entire parliamentary group of The Movement of the Icelandic Parliament nominated Private Bradley Manning for the Nobel Peace Prize."
She continued by posting the entire letter that was sent to the Nobel Peace Prize committee:
We have the great honor of nominating Private First Class Bradley Manning for the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize. Manning is a soldier in the United States army who stands accused of releasing hundreds of thousands of documents to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. The leaked documents pointed to a long history of corruption, war crimes, and imperialism by the United States government in international dealings. These revelations have fueled democratic uprising around the world, including a democratic revolution in Tunisia. According to journalists, his alleged actions helped motivate the democratic Arab Spring movements, shed light on secret corporate influence on our foreign policies, and most recently contributed to the Obama Administration agreeing to withdraw all U.S.troops from the occupation in Iraq.Bradley Manning has been incarcerated for well over a year by the U.S. government without a trial. He spent over ten months of that time period in solitary confinement, conditions which experts worldwide have criticized as torturous. Juan Mendez, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Torture and Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment, has repeatedly requested and been denied a private meeting with Manning to assess his conditions.The documents made public by WikiLeaks should never have been kept from public scrutiny. The revelations – including video documentation of an incident in which American soldiers gunned down Reuters journalists in Iraq – have helped to fuel a worldwide discussion about America’s overseas engagements, civilian casualties of war, imperialistic manipulations, and rules of engagement. Citizens worldwide owe a great debt to the WikiLeaks whistleblower for shedding light on these issues, and so I urge the Committee to award this prestigious prize to accused whistleblower Bradley Manning.
The entire idea of Birgitta Jónsdóttir nominating Manning would be chock full of irony on its own merit, but when we take into account the specific reasons she gives for his meritorious nature, it simply becomes laugh-out-loud funny. Let’s stop and consider this for a moment. She is asking the organization to award the prize to Manning based on the fact that he exposed not only “war crimes” taking place in Iraq, but on his heroic suffering as he remains “incarcerated for well over a year by the U.S. government without a trial.” She goes on to describe his treatment as having been, “criticized as torturous.”
Well.. that just sounds awful. I wonder who is responsible for that horrible treatment? Oh wait… isn’t it your 2009 winner of the same prize? Honestly, lady… do you even read the things you write before you publish them?
----------------------------------------------------------------
If you like this article, you can follow Joe on Twitter @jnewby1956, visit his Facebook page, or click the Subscribe button to receive email updates when a new article is published.
Be sure to check out Joe's other columns:
Comments