Part 14 (1/2)
Treason, yes, perhaps, but with good cause.
History will judge by its own laws.”
27.
SHOCKWAVES.
”I've been so isolated so long... I just wanted to be nice, and live a normal life... but events keep forcing me to figure out ways to survive... smart enough to know what's going on, but helpless to do anything... no one took any notice of me...”
These are the first words Bradley Manning wrote on May 22, 2010 to a hacker who became his confidant. It was Adrian Lamo who went from confidant to denunciator by delivering Manning to the authorities a few days later. When they talked, Manning was very uncomfortable, tired, anxious and revolted. By then WikiLeaks had already released the film, Collateral Murder, on April 5, to the world.
Bradley Manning was born in 1987, and it was noticed early on that he was peculiar. His father was in the Navy, a very strict man, often away from home. His mother was Welsh and had difficulty adjusting to life in the United States. After his parents' divorce in 2001, his mother left with him to the United Kingdom, where Bradley continued his schooling at Tasker Milward in Wales. Tom Dyer, one of his school friends said: ”He's always had this sense that 'I'm going to right a big wrong.' He was like that at school. If something went wrong, he would speak about it. If he didn't agree with something, he said so. He would even have altercations with teachers if he thought something was not right.”
After high school, his mother sent him to his father in the United States, who, when he found out he was gay, threw him out of the house. Out on the street, he lived in his car, doing odd jobs where he was always getting into fights. At one point, he had a short stint at a software company. His boss remembers this young man with round cheeks and bright look being very good at programming, but with ”the personality of a bull in a china shop.”
Following the advice of a friend, Bradley joined the army in 2007, hoping to find somewhere he would fit in. He was recognized for his IT skills, and was posted in Iraq as an agent for the Intel section. Manning had a hard time hiding his h.o.m.os.e.xuality while expected to adhere to the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy. This law was enforced as of 1993, but was repealed by President Barack Obama in December 2010, allowing gay personnel to serve their country regardless of their s.e.xual orientation. Before then, legislation stopped anyone serving in the army from disclosing their h.o.m.os.e.xuality, bis.e.xuality or from even talking about marriage between two people of the same s.e.x or gay parenting. As for the army, it wasn't authorized to do any research into the private lives of its recruits, knowing that the law continued to refuse anyone who ”demonstrated a propensity or intent to engage in h.o.m.os.e.xual acts” from serving in the armed forces of the United States, because their presence would ”create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.”
At the barracks, Manning was the object of innuendo, mockery and bullying. In April 2010, he was dismissed due to a brawl with another soldier and was discharged from his duties with the Intel department. From that moment on, he felt very bad and wrote to Adrian Lamo, saying: Manning: I'm self-medicating like crazy when I'm not toiling in the supply office (my new location, since I'm being discharged, I'm not officially intel anymore) Manning: I just want the material out there... I don't want to be a part of it Manning: I can't believe what I'm telling you :( After releasing the video Collateral Murder online and after the shockwave it caused, two former American soldiers of the Bravo Company 2-16 wrote an open letter to the Iraqi people.
Ethan McCord was the soldier who got the children out of the van. In April 2010, he spoke about what he had witnessed in Iraq many times back in July 2007, following the helicopter attack: ”Myself and the team I was with were the first dismounted soldiers to arrive on the scene. I saw what appeared to have been three men in a corner. It was an extreme shock to my system. They didn't look human, I know they had to be at one time but the destroyed carnage that I was looking at didn't appear to be. Then there was the smell. The smell was unlike anything I've smelled before, a mixture of feces, urine, blood, smoke, and something else indescribable. I saw an RPG next to the men and an AK-47. Crying! I hear crying. Not cries of pain, but that of a small child who had woken up from a horrible nightmare. I saw that there was a minivan and the cries appeared to be coming from it. Myself and another soldier, a twenty-year-old private, walked up to the pa.s.senger side of the van. We looked inside, the private I was with reeled back, began to vomit, and quickly ran away.
What I saw was a small girl about four years old on the pa.s.senger side of the bench seat. She had a severe belly wound and was covered in gla.s.s.”
McCord also pulled a seven-year-old child out of the van that he thought was dead at first glance. He ran toward the army truck that would transport the little girl to the hospital, praying for it not to take off. The boy fainted in his arms. He placed him as best as he could in the truck, when the platoon leader screamed: ”What the f.u.c.k are you doing McCord? You need to quit worrying about these f.u.c.king kids and pull security!” ”Roger that, sir,” he said immediately, and went to a rooftop to pull security.
Back at the base, alone in his room, Ethan tried to clean the child's blood from his uniform. He rubbed it vigorously, as if trying to erase the images from his memory. It was impossible: the blood had permanently stained his clothes. He was distraught. He went to his sergeant to ask for mental health help.
Then he exposed the response of his superior in Wired, a San Francisco magazine that focused on technological incidents in the field of culture, economy and politics: ”I was called a p.u.s.s.y and that I needed to suck it up and a lot of other horrible things. I was also told that there would be repercussions if I were to go get mental health care.
They're smoking you, they're making you tired. I was told that I needed to get the sand out of my v.a.g.i.n.a... So I just sucked it up and tried to move on with everything. I've had nightmares. I was diagnosed with chronic, severe post-traumatic stress disorder.”
His request for mental health was denied and that was when he realized that he was part of a system he could no longer accept. With his teammate Josh Stieber, he decided to write a letter to the Iraqi people that was published on the site of Iraq veterans against the war: To all of those who were injured or lost loved ones during the July 2007 Baghdad shootings depicted in the ”Collateral Murder” WikiLeaks video: We write to you, your family, and your community with awareness that our words and actions can never restore your losses.
We are both soldiers who occupied your neighborhood for 14 months. Ethan McCord pulled your daughter and son from the van, and when doing so, saw the faces of his own children back home. Josh Stieber was in the same company but was not there that day, though he contributed to your pain, and the pain of your community on many other occasions.
There is no bringing back all that was lost. What we seek is to learn from our mistakes and do everything we can to tell others of our experiences and how the people of the United States need to realize what we have done and are doing to you and the people of your country. We humbly ask you what we can do to begin to repair the damage we caused.
We have asked our fellow veterans and service-members, as well as civilians both in the United States and abroad, to sign in support of this letter, and to offer their names as a testimony to our common humanity, to distance ourselves from the destructive policies of our nation's leaders, and to extend our hands to you.
With such pain, friends.h.i.+p might be too much to ask. Please accept our apology, our sorrow, our care, and our dedication to change from the inside out.
Solemnly and Sincerely, Josh Stieber, former specialist, U.S. Army.
Ethan McCord, former specialist, U.S. Army.
Manning supplied the images of this tragedy to WikiLeaks in February 2010. On May 25, he kept chatting with his new friend Adrian: Manning: Event occurs in 2007, I watch video in 2009 with no context, do research, forward information to group of FOI activists, more research occurs, video is released in 2010, those involved come forward to discuss event, I witness those involved coming forward to discuss publicly, even add them as friends on FB... without them knowing who I am.
Manning: They touch my life, I touch their life, they touch my life again... full circle While Bradley Manning poured out his feelings, Adrian Lamo satisfied his curiosity. Bradley trusted him and answered: Lamo: *random* are you concerned about CID (*Criminal Investigation Department) looking into your Wiki stuff? I was always paranoid.
Manning: CID has no open investigation. State Department will be uber-p.i.s.sed... but I don't think they're capable of tracing everything... so, it was publicly damaging, but didn't increase attacks or rhetoric...
Lamo: Why does your job afford you access? Except for the UN Manning: Because I have a workstation Manning: I had two computers... one connected to SIPRNET (Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, where the cables are) the other to JWICS (Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System used by USDOD & US Dpt of State to transmit cla.s.sified info)...
Lamo: So you have these stored now?
Maninng: No, they're government laptops Manning: They've been zero-filled Manning: Because of the pullout Manning: Evidence was destroyed... by the system itself Manning: They were stored on a centralized server...
Lamo: What's your endgame plan, then?
Manning: hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms Manning: If not... than [sic] we're doomed Manning: I will officially give up on the society we live in if nothing happens Manning: the reaction to the video gave me immense hope Manning: I want people to see the truth... regardless of who they are... because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public Manning: If I knew then, what I knew now... kind of thing...
Manning: Or maybe I'm just young, naive, and stupid...
Still on May 25, Manning came back to the fact that would later push him to supply images to WikiLeaks: Manning: Was watching fifteen detainees taken by the Iraqi Federal Police... for printing ”anti-Iraqi literature”... the Iraqi federal police wouldn't cooperate with US forces, so I was instructed to investigate the matter, find out who the ”bad guys” were, and how significant this was for the FPs... it turned out, they had printed a scholarly critique against PM Maliki... I had an interpreter read it for me... and when I found out that it was a benign political critique t.i.tled ”Where did the money go?” and following the corruption trail within the PM's cabinet... I immediately took that information and *ran* to the officer to explain what was going on... he didn't want to hear any of it... he told me to shut up and explain how we could a.s.sist the FPs in finding *MORE* detainees...
Manning: Everything started slipping after that... I saw things differently Manning: I had always questioned the way things worked, and investigated to find the truth... but that was a point where I was a *part* of something... I was actively involved in something that I was completely against...
It was with a different outlook on life that Bradley Manning continued his work. It was very easy to get data outside the base. Co-workers at his office would come with piles of music CDs. You could just show up with a rewritable CD labeled 'Lady Gaga' for example, erase it and burn some data onto it. You wouldn't be searched. The door had a five-digit code, but you just needed to knock for someone to open it. Most people sat down at their desks to watch videos, car chases, build explosions and copy them on CDs and DVDs.
The most difficult and most controversial part was copying the secret data. Manning knew this, but he felt like he had no other choice. He was emotionally bothered. Intel officers would leave unprotected data on servers.
He was worried about possible reprisals and he ”even asked the NSA guy if he was able to find any suspicious activity coming out of local networks... he shrugged and said 'it's not a priority.'” Manning's opinion on the security system was: ”weak servers, weak logging, weak physical security, weak counter-intelligence, inattentive signal a.n.a.lysis... a perfect storm.”
It was really easy for someone like him. He explained it to Lamo: ”If I were someone more malicious, I could have sold to Russia or China and made bank.” When Lamo asked him why he didn't, he answered: ”Because it's public data [...] I mean the cables,” Manning specified. ”It belongs in the public domain. Information should be free.”
As for the helicopter images, at first he thought it was just the usual, ”but something struck me as odd with the van thing... and also the fact it was being stored in a JAG (Judge Advocate General) officer's directory... so I looked into it... eventually tracked down the date, and then the exact GPS co-ord... and I was like... OK, so that's what happened... cool... then I went to the regular Internet... and it was still on my mind... so I typed into goog... the date, and the location... and then I see this /2007/07/13/world/middleeast/13iraq.html”
He saw the article of The New York Times dated mid-July 2007 reporting the van explosion, with a photo to support it. The article read: ”The American military said in a statement late Thursday that 11 people have been killed: nine insurgents and two civilians. According to the statement, American troops were conducting a raid when they were hit by a small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. The American troops called in reinforcements and attack helicopters. In the ensuing fight, the statement said, the two Reuters employees and nine insurgents were killed.”
”There is no question that coalition forces were clearly engaged in combat operations against hostile force,” said Lt. Col. Scott R. Bleichwehl, a spokesman for multinational forces in Baghdad.
Manning was still deeply bothered by this article, and so he decided to send the images he had to WikiLeaks. Manning eventually got rid of any original 'material': the images of the helicopter attack in Baghdad, diplomatic cables, information on prisoner detention in Guantanamo as well as the images of a raid in Afghanistan referring to a military attack that killed one hundred forty civilians.
What pushed Manning to tell all to Adrian Lamo? He felt alone. He saw information go by that he couldn't keep to himself and his action, which could be judged as treason by the government, was also a heavy burden to bear.
Lamo already knew a lot about Manning's plans and how he felt about it all. But after chatting for two days, had he already contacted the authorities?
Lamo was very quickly interested in Manning's relations.h.i.+p with a.s.sange. The young soldier told him that it took him four months to figure out that the person he was sharing information with was Julian himself. His contact didn't give up much about himself. He said that he was being watched by a team of North European diplomats. He was trying to figure out who was following him and why. Manning asked him about this. His followers were trying to discover how he had received a diplomatic telegram from Reykjavik, which cost Icelandic amba.s.sador to the United States his position. It was in fact the first leak-test sent by Manning.