FREE BRADLEY MANNING!
March to Oklahoma State Capitol tonight Defense fund established "Free Manning" campaign materials Photos of Bradley Manning (facebook.com/couragetoresist)
Quantico rally kicks off international effort
120 supporters rallied to "Free Bradley Manning!" in Quantico, VA, a small town within a US Marine Corps base. Pfc. Manning was transfer after two months in solitary confinement in Kuwait to Quantico only seven days earlier. Organized by CodePink and Courage to Resist in only five days, the rally was covered by CNN, ABC, New York Times, international and local media. Despite being declared off limits to all service members stationed at Quantico, a number of Marines stopped by to talk about the issues.
March to Support Alleged Whistle-blower, Oklahoma native Bradley Manning
Thursday, August 12, 8pm. The action is being organized locally by the Oklahoma Center for Conscience, with support from the Oklahoma Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. James M. Branum, an attorney that works with OCC on military law cases, calls the Pentagon’s treatment of Manning “extreme” and designed to set up the case “as an example of the punishment waiting for others who would consider exposing violations of military regs and international law.” “We are saying that exposing war crimes is not a crime,” he said. The whistle-blower behind the Vietnam era’s Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg, has called Mr. Manning a hero. ”I admire the courage of Bradley Manning for sacrificing himself to make the public aware of the futility of the war in Afghanistan,” says Ellsberg. “Blowing the whistle on war crimes is not a crime,” says former Marine Corporal Jeff Paterson of Courage to Resist, a group teaming up with the Bradley Manning Support Network to raise funds for Manning’s defense.
Bradley Manning defense fund established 
August 12, 2010 update - The Bradley Manning Support Network has accepted donations from 632 individuals for a total of $33,114 as of 1pm PST Aug. 11 for the defense of Private First Class Bradley Manning (photo right). The Network (bradleymanning.org), a grassroots initiative formed to defend and support accused whistle-blower Pfc. Bradley Manning, has partnered with Courage to Resist, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting military objectors to host the fund. "WikiLeaks confirmed late Tuesday it will split with Courage to Resist, an Oakland, Calif.-based group, the expected $100,000 cost of hiring a civilian defense attorney to supplement the military lawyers assigned to Manning's case," noted the Associated Press. As of this writing, Manning has not yet chosen a civilian attorney to defend him in the expected trial. "We have heard from the family and the military lawyers assigned to Bradley that the cost of his defense will be significant," said Mike Gogulski, an online activist and founder of the Bradley Manning Support Network. "We are also concerned that Bradley may choose his legal counsel based on his available funds. If he fears his family will absorb the cost of the trial, he might choose a less experienced, less expensive attorney. We're very concerned about the ramifications of such a decision." |
Quantico rally kicks off international effort
Private First Class Bradley Manning, a 22-year-old intelligence analyst
stationed in Iraq, stands accused of disclosing classified video
depicting American troops in Iraq shooting civilians from an Apache
helicopter in 2007. Eleven people were killed, including two Reuters
employees, and two children were critically injured. No charges have
been filed against the soldiers who did the killing. News sources have
also speculated about Manning's involvement in the leak of over 90,000
secret documents (collectively known as the Afghanistan "war logs") made
public by WikiLeaks on July 25. 
