{"id":17026,"date":"2012-01-23T12:00:26","date_gmt":"2012-01-23T12:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=17026"},"modified":"2012-01-21T22:03:46","modified_gmt":"2012-01-21T22:03:46","slug":"blood-on-whose-hands-bradley-manning-washington-and-the-blood-of-civilians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2012\/01\/blood-on-whose-hands-bradley-manning-washington-and-the-blood-of-civilians\/","title":{"rendered":"Blood on Whose Hands? Bradley Manning, Washington, and the Blood of Civilians"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who in their right mind wants to talk about, think about, or read a short essay about… civilian war casualties<\/em>?\u00a0 What a bummer, this topic, especially since our Afghan, Iraq, and other ongoing wars were advertised as uplifting acts of philanthropy: wars to spread security, freedom, democracy, human rights, gender equality, the rule of law, etc<\/em>.<\/p>\n

A couple hundred thousand dead civilians have a way of making such noble ideals seem like dollar-store tinsel.\u00a0 And so, throughout our decade-long foreign policy debacle in the Greater Middle East, we in the U.S. have generally agreed that no one shall commit the gaucherie of dwelling on (and \u201cdwelling on\u201d = fleetingly mentioned) civilian casualties. Washington elites may squabble over some things, but as for foreigners killed by our numerous wars, our Beltway crew adheres to a sullen code of omert\u00e0.<\/em><\/p>\n

Club rules do, however, permit one loophole: Washington officials may bemoan the nightmare of civilian casualties — but only if they can be pinned on a 24-year-old Army private first class named Bradley Manning.<\/p>\n

Pfc. Manning, you will remember, is the young soldier who is soon to be court-martialed for passing some 750,000 military and diplomatic documents, a large chunk of them classified, to the website WikiLeaks.\u00a0 Among those leaks, there was indeed some serious stuff about how Americans dealt with civilians in invaded countries.\u00a0 For instance, the documents revealed that the U.S. military, then the occupying force in Iraq, did little or nothing to prevent Iraqi authorities from torturing prisoners<\/a> in a variety of gruesome ways, sometimes to death.<\/p>\n

Then there was that gun-sight video<\/a> — unclassified but buried in classified material — of an American Apache helicopter opening fire on a crowd on a Baghdad street, gunning down a dozen men, including two Reuters employees, and injuring more, including children.\u00a0 There were also those field reports about how jumpy American soldiers repeatedly shot down civilians at roadside checkpoints<\/a>; about night raids gone wrong both in Iraq<\/a> and Afghanistan<\/a>; and a count of thousands<\/a> of dead Iraqi civilians, a tally whose existence the U.S. military had previously denied possessing.<\/p>\n

Together, these leaks and many others offered a composite portrait of military and political debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan whose grinding theme has been civilian casualties, a fact not much noted here in the U.S.\u00a0 A tiny number of low-ranking American soldiers have been held to account<\/a> for rare instances of premeditated murder of civilians, but most of the troops who kill civilians in the midst of the chaos of war are not tried, much less convicted<\/a>.\u00a0 We don\u2019t talk about these cases a lot either.\u00a0 On the other hand, officials of all types make free with lusty condemnations of Bradley Manning, whose leaks are luridly credited with potential (though not actual) deaths.<\/p>\n

Putting Lives in Danger<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201c[WikiLeaks] might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family,\u201d said<\/a> Admiral Mike Mullen, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on the release of the Afghan War Logs in July 2010.\u00a0 This was, of course, the same Admiral Mullen who had endorsed<\/a> a major escalation of the war in Afghanistan, which would lead to a tremendous \u201csurge\u201d in casualties among civilians and soldiers alike.\u00a0 Here<\/a> are counts — undoubtedly undercounts, in fact — of real Afghan corpses that, at least in part, resulted from the policy he supported: 2,412 in 2009, 2,777 in 2010, 1,462 in the first half 2011, according to the U.N. Assistance Mission to Afghanistan.\u00a0 As far as anyone knows, here are the corpses that resulted from the release of those WikiLeaks documents: 0.\u00a0 (And don\u2019t forget, the stalemate war<\/a> with the Taliban has not budged in the period since that surge.)\u00a0 Who, then, has blood on his hands, Pfc. Manning — or Admiral Mullen?<\/p>\n

Of course the admiral is hardly alone.\u00a0 In fact, whole tabernacle choirs have joined in the condemnation of Manning and WikiLeaks for \u201ccausing\u201d carnage, thanks to their disclosures.<\/p>\n

Robert Gates, who served as secretary of defense under George W. Bush and then Barack Obama, also spoke sternly of Manning\u2019s leaks, accusing<\/a> him of \u201cmoral culpability.\u201d\u00a0 He added, \u201cAnd that’s where I think the verdict is \u2018guilty\u2019 on WikiLeaks. They have put this out without any regard whatsoever for the consequences.”<\/p>\n

This was, of course, the same Robert Gates who pushed for escalation<\/a> in Afghanistan in 2009 and, in March 2011, flew to the Kingdom of Bahrain to offer his own personal \u201creassurance of support<\/a>\u201d to a ruling monarchy already busy shooting<\/a> and torturing<\/a> nonviolent civilian protesters.\u00a0 So again, when it comes to blood and indifference to consequences, Bradley Manning — or Robert Gates?<\/p>\n

Nor have such attitudes been confined to the military. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused<\/a> Manning\u2019s (alleged) leak of 250,000 diplomatic cables of being \u201can attack on the international community\u201d that \u201cputs people\u2019s lives in danger, threatens our national security, and undermines our efforts to work with other countries to solve shared problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a senator, of course, she supported<\/a> the invasion of Iraq in flagrant contravention of the U.N. Charter.\u00a0 She was subsequently a leading hawk<\/a> when it came to escalating and expanding the Afghan War, and is now responsible for disbursing<\/a> an annual $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt\u2019s ruling junta whose forces have repeatedly opened fire<\/a> on nonviolent civilian protesters.\u00a0 So who\u2019s been attacking the international community and putting lives in danger, Bradley Manning — or Hillary Clinton?<\/p>\n

Harold Koh, former Yale Law School dean, liberal lion, and currently the State Department\u2019s top legal adviser, has announced<\/a> that the same leaked diplomatic cables \u201ccould place at risk the lives of countless innocent individuals — from journalists to human rights activists and bloggers to soldiers to individuals providing information to further peace and security.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the same Harold Koh who, in March 2010, provided<\/a> a tortured legal rationale for the Obama administration\u2019s drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, despite the inevitable and well-documented civilian casualties they cause<\/a>.\u00a0 So who is risking the lives of countless innocent individuals, Bradley Manning — or Harold Koh<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Much of the media have clambered aboard the bandwagon, blaming WikiLeaks and Manning for damage done by wars they once energetically cheered on.<\/p>\n

In early 2011, to pick just one example from the ranks of journalism, New Yorker<\/em> writer George Packer professed his horror<\/a> that WikiLeaks had released a memo<\/a> marked \u201csecret\/noforn\u201d listing spots throughout the world of vital strategic or economic interest to the United States.\u00a0 Asked by radio host Brian Lehrer whether this disclosure had crossed a new line by making a gratuitous gift to terrorists, Packer replied with an appalled yes<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Now, among the \u201csecrets\u201d contained in this document are the facts that the Strait of Gibraltar is a vital shipping lane and that the Democratic Republic of the Congo is rich in minerals. Have we Americans become so infantilized that factoids of basic geography must be considered state secrets?\u00a0 (Maybe best not to answer that question.)\u00a0 The \u201cthreat\u201d of this document\u2019s release has since been roundly debunked<\/a> by various military intellectuals.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Packer\u2019s response was instructive.\u00a0 Here was a typical liberal hawk, who had can-canned to the post-9\/11 drumbeat of war as a therapeutic wake-up call from \u201cthe bland comforts of peace<\/a>,\u201d now affronted by WikiLeaks\u2019 supposed recklessness.\u00a0 Civilian casualties do not seem to have been on Packer\u2019s mind when he supported the invasion of Iraq, nor has he written much about them since.<\/p>\n

In an enthusiastic 2006 New Yorker<\/em> essay<\/a> on counterinsurgency warfare, for example, the very words \u201ccivilian casualties\u201d never come up, despite their centrality<\/a> to COIN theory, practice, and history<\/a>.\u00a0 It is a fact that, as Operation Enduring Freedom shifted to counterinsurgency tactics in 2009, civilian casualties in Afghanistan skyrocketed.\u00a0 So, for that matter, have American military casualties.\u00a0 (More than half of U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan occurred in the past three years<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Liberal hawks like Packer may consider WikiLeaks out of bounds, but really, who in these last years has been the most reckless, Bradley Manning — or George Packer and some of his pro-war colleagues at the New Yorker <\/em>like Jeffrey Goldberg<\/a> (who has since left for the Atlantic Monthly<\/em>, where he\u2019s been busily clearing a path<\/a> for war with Iran) and editor David Remnick<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Centrist and liberal nonprofit think tanks have been no less selectively blind when it comes to civilian carnage. Liza Goitein, a lawyer at the liberal-minded Brennan Center at NYU Law School, has also taken out after Bradley Manning.\u00a0 In the midst of an otherwise deft diagnosis of Washington\u2019s compulsive urge to over-classify everything — the federal government classifies<\/a> an amazing 77 million documents a year — she pauses just long enough to accuse<\/a> Manning of \u201ccriminal recklessness\u201d for putting civilians named in the Afghan War logs in peril — \u201ca disclosure,\u201d as she puts it, \u201cthat surely endangers their safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth noting that, until the moment Goitein made this charge, not a single report or press release issued by the Brennan Center has ever so much as uttered a mention of civilian casualties caused by the U.S. military.\u00a0 The absence of civilian casualties is almost palpable in the work of the Brennan Center\u2019s program in\u00a0 \u201cLiberty and National Security<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 For example, this program\u2019s 2011 report \u201cRethinking Radicalization<\/a>,\u201d which explored effective, lawful ways to prevent American Muslims from turning terrorist, makes not a single reference to the tens of thousands of well-documented<\/a> civilian casualties caused by American military force in the Muslim world, which according to many scholars is the prime mover of terrorist blowback.\u00a0 The report on how to combat the threat of Muslim terrorists, written by Pakistan-born Faiza Patel, does not, in fact, even contain the words \u201cIraq,\u201d \u201cAfghanistan,\u201d \u201cdrone strike,\u201d \u201cPakistan\u201d or \u201ccivilian casualties.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is almost incredible, because terrorists themselves have freely confessed that what motivated their acts of wanton violence has been the damage done by foreign military occupation back home or simply in the Muslim world.\u00a0 Asked by a federal judge why he tried to blow up Times Square with a car bomb in May 2010, Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad answered<\/a> that he was motivated by the civilian carnage the U.S. had caused in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.\u00a0 How could any report about \u201crethinking radicalization\u201d fail to mention this?\u00a0 Although the Brennan Center does much valuable work, Goitein’s selective finger-pointing on civilian casualties is emblematic of a blindness to war\u2019s consequences widespread among American institutions.<\/p>\n

American Military Whistleblowers <\/strong><\/p>\n

Knowledge may indeed have its risks, but how many civilian deaths can actually be traced to the WikiLeaks revelations?\u00a0 How many military deaths?\u00a0 To the best of anyone\u2019s knowledge, not a single one.\u00a0 After much huffing and puffing, the Pentagon has quietly denied<\/a> — and then denied again<\/a> — that there is any evidence at all of the Taliban targeting the Afghan civilians named in the leaked war logs.<\/p>\n

In the end, the \u201cgrave risks\u201d involved in the publication of the War Logs and of those State Department documents have been wildly exaggerated.\u00a0 Embarrassment, yes.\u00a0 A look inside two grim wars and the workings of imperial diplomacy, yes.\u00a0 Blood, no.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, the grave risks that were hidden in those leaked documents, as well as in all the other government distortions, cover-ups, and lies of the past decade, have been graphically illustrated in aortal red.\u00a0 The civilian carnage caused by our rush to war in Iraq and by our deeply entrenched stalemate of a war in Afghanistan (and the Pakistani tribal borderlands) is not speculative or theoretical but all-too real.<\/p>\n

And yet no one anywhere has been held to much account: not in the political class, not in the military, not in the think tanks, not among the scholars, nor the media.\u00a0 Only one individual, it seems, will pay, even if he actually spilled none of the blood.\u00a0 Our foreign policy elites seem to think Bradley Manning is well-cast for the role of fall guy and scapegoat.\u00a0 This is an injustice.<\/p>\n

Someday, it will be clearer to Americans that Pfc. Manning has joined the ranks of great American military whistleblowers like Dan Ellsberg<\/a> (who was first in his class at Marine officer training school); Vietnam War infantryman Ron Ridenhour<\/a>, who blew the whistle on the My Lai massacre; and the sailors and marines who, in 1777<\/a>, reported the torture of British captives by their politically connected commanding officer.\u00a0 These servicemen, too, were vilified in their times. Today, we honor them, as someday Pfc. Manning will be honored.<\/p>\n

______________________<\/p>\n

Chase Madar is the author of <\/em>The Passion of Bradley Manning<\/a>, to be published by OR Books in February.\u00a0 He is an attorney in New York, a <\/em>TomDispatch regular<\/em><\/a>, and a frequent contributor to the <\/em>London Review of Books, <\/em>Le Monde Diplomatique, <\/em>American Conservative Magazine, and <\/em>CounterPunch.\u00a0 (To listen to Timothy MacBain\u2019s latest Tomcast audio interview in which Madar discusses the coming trial of Bradley Manning, click\u00a0here<\/a>, or download it to your iPod\u00a0here<\/a>). <\/em><\/p>\n

Copyright 2012 Chase Madar\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 tomdispatch.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who in their right mind wants to talk about, think about, or read a short essay about… civilian war casualties? What a bummer, this topic, especially since our Afghan, Iraq, and other ongoing wars were advertised as uplifting acts of philanthropy: wars to spread security, freedom, democracy, human rights, gender equality, the rule of law, etc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-whistleblowing-surveillance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17026\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}