Last June, the war in Afghanistan became the longest-running war in the United States’ history.
Combined with the current engagement in Iraq, more than 920,000 troops, civilians and journalists have been killed. More than 1.7 million have been injured. The U.S. government has spent more than 1.1 trillion dollars on both wars since 2001, even while we bailed out failing companies and pushed our external debt past 14 trillion dollars.
We continue to spend money and sacrifice human lives, and despite the empty rhetoric, a clear end does not appear to be in sight.
The fact of the matter is, entire industries in the U.S. profit from war. Military spending makes up more than 26 percent of government spending, which in turn composes more than a third of America’s gross domestic product. Engineers, programmers, plane and tank factories, and artillery manufacturers all rely on war to stay in business.
And let’s not forget our apparent “enemies,” who often fight Americans with American-made weapons.
Our economy thrives on war. If our government decreased military spending, our GDP and the value of our dollar would be weakened. So as far as the authorities have been concerned, a clear enemy must always be in the limelight and the U.S. must always come to the rescue.
So when Pvt. Bradley Manning threatened the status quo by submitting classified information to WikiLeaks, he wound up in solitary confinement.
Yes, it is true that Manning broke military law. He was entrusted with a large amount of access to military documents, and he hacked the system and released classified information to the public.
This information could have endangered American lives overseas during a time of war, it is crucial that information and military strategy stay clandestine. This is a law soldiers must obey when they join the U.S. military.
But there is also another law. It states, “It is the absolute responsibility of everybody in uniform to disobey an order that is either illegal or immoral and to make such orders known.”
Pvt. Bradley Manning made an illegal and immoral order known.
Releasing the truth about our engagements in the Middle East, the WikiLeaks documents detailed incidents of civilian torture and rape by Iraqis and Americans, prisoners being beaten at U.S. military checkpoints and Iran’s role in the Iraq war.
Manning, originally exposed to these documents, was in turn shown the truth behind some of the immoral and illegal acts carried out and ignored by the military. The very military whose mission statement is to “provide the military forces needed to deter war and protect the security of our country.”
Manning’s actions made it inherently clear that the U.S. was not in Iraq to protect our national security.
When Manning forwarded the documents to WikiLeaks, he effectively jeopardized public perception of military involvement in the Middle East. His exposure of military atrocities threatened the structure of American war itself, as well as the American industries which it economically benefits.
So they silenced him.
With heavy propaganda from the government and military alike, Pvt. Bradley Manning of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, was charged in July 2010 with the “unauthorized disclosure of classified information.” He has been detained since last May and is being held in “maximum custody” solitary confinement at the Marine Corps Brig in Quantico, Va.
His cell is 6 by 12 feet. It has a bed, a toilet and a sink. The lights are never turned off, and guards check on him every five minutes from 5 a.m. to 8 p.m. He often wakes up with carpet burns from the heaviness of the blankets, and he is held in his cell 23 hours a day. He is moved to an empty room for “exercise” one hour daily. There Manning walks in figure-eight circles, until he tells the guards he is tired of walking and is returned to his cell. He is allowed only one book or magazine at any given time, which must be approved by the confinement facility literary board.
After almost nine months in solitary confinement, Manning is currently under a mental health investigation to determine whether he can stand trial. While WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange remains on “house arrest” in a 600-acre manor in Suffolk, England, Manning rots in a 6 by 12 cell, kissing his sanity goodbye with each waking day. Right now, no evidence exists that his whistle-blowing has endangered the lives of American troops overseas. Although he followed one military law by making illegal orders known, he has been detained for essentially endangering the economic and social foundation of the United States Department of Defense.
Manning threatened the status quo. Now he is paying for it in a maximum-security prison cell.
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