We Can Handle the Truth – Stop Trying to Hide the Truth from Us from Information Clearing House:
The Peace Movement Should Stand With Military Whistleblower Bradley Manning
By Kevin Zeese
July 22, 2010 “Information Clearing House” — The peace movement needs to stand with Bradley Manning and Wikileaks in their efforts to let Americans see the truth about what the military is doing in our name. We can handle the truth! Indeed, we need to hear the truth, not propaganda about how great the U.S. military is performing, in order to be responsible citizens.
The news from Afghanistan and Iraq is not good, but Americans are not even told all the news – especially when it includes abuses, even war crimes, committed by the U.S. military. The U.S. is supposed to have civilian control of the military, as President Obama recently demonstrated when he fired General McChrystal, but the people are supposed to be ultimately in charge in a representative democracy. We need to know the truth in order to do our job as citizens and hold elected officials responsible.
Those who oppose war and militarism need to stand with Bradley Manning, the 22-year old Army private, who believed he saw war crimes being committed by the U.S. military and shared the information so the American public could know what the armed forces were doing. The most famous leak from Manning was the “Collateral Murder” video shared on the Wikileaks.org website. The video he reportedly leaked showed an Apache Helicopter attack by the U.S. military killing a dozen civilians and wounding two children.