The sentencing phase of the Bradley Manning trial begins today.
NORMAN SOLOMON, solomonprogressive at gmail.com, normansolomon.com
Solomon wrote “Manning deserves Nobel Peace Prize,” just published by USA Today. The piece states: “Tuesday’s verdict from a military judge does not diminish the huge moral stature of whistle-blower Bradley Manning. Next month, I will be proud to deliver a petition to the Nobel Committee in Oslo with a simple message from more than 100,000 signers: ‘I urge you to award the Peace Prize to Bradley Manning.’
“Thanks to Manning, vast troves of information have become public knowledge, making possible more informed debate about war and peace. For instance, he leaked the now-infamous ‘collateral murder‘ video, with a soundtrack of chilling banter as U.S. servicemen in a pair of gunships fired on civilians in Baghdad.”
Solomon is founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy and author of War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. He is the co-founder of RootsAction.org, which organized the petition at: ManningNobel.org.
MAIREAD MAGUIRE, mairead.home at btinternet.com
Nobel Peace Laureate Maguire, who has done peace work based in Northern Ireland for decades, recently wrote the piece “Bradley Manning Should Win the Nobel Peace Prize” for the Guardian, which states: “For this year’s prize, I have chosen to nominate US Army Pfc Bradley Manning, for I can think of no one more deserving. His incredible disclosure of secret documents to WikiLeaks helped end the Iraq War, and may have helped prevent further conflicts elsewhere.
“… Burmese politician Aung San Suu Kyi and Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo were each awarded the prize in recent years while imprisoned by their home countries.
“Manning is the only one on trial, yet what of those who committed the atrocities he revealed? The United States, the most militarized country on earth, should stand for something better than war. Its government must be open to ‘debates, discussions and reforms’ concerning its foreign policy, to use Manning’s own words. By heeding Pfc Bradley Manning’s message on the importance of transparency, America’s government can once again rebuild its image in the eyes of the world, and spread democracy not through foreign invasions, but through setting a strong example.” Maguire is founder of the group Peace People.
