Manning had access to SIPRNet, the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, used by the Defense Department and the State Department to transfer classified data, and to JWICS, the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System. In November he was promoted to the rank of specialist, when he began to learn the true meaning of success in his line of work.
We know this because by November, Manning had made internet contact with an American “gender counselor”: the soldier was considering gender transition. As momentous and potentially wrenching as this decision can be, it was not what troubled Manning. As the therapist told New York Magazine, what was upsetting the young intel analyst was his work: specifically, a targeting mission in Basra that turned ugly. “Two groups of locals were converging in this one area. Manning was trying to figure out why they were meeting,” said the counselor to New York journalist Steve Fishman. From the SCIF, Manning advised an Army unit to move in quickly; it did. “Ultimately, some guy loosely connected to the group got killed,” said the counselor, and Manning felt deeply complicit in the bloodshed.
Manning’s real Damascene moment came when he investigated the arrest of Iraqi civilian protesters for an act of faultless good citizenship. He later confided the whole story to someone he believed to be a friend:
(02:31:02 PM) bradass87: i think the thing that got me the most… that made me rethink the world more than anything
(02:35:46 PM) bradass87: was watching 15 detainees taken by the Iraqi Federal Police… for printing “anti-Iraqi literature”… the iraqi federal police wouldn’t cooperate with US forces, so i was instructed to investigate the matter, find out who the “bad guys” were, and how significant this was for the FPs… it turned out, they had printed a scholarly critique against PM Maliki… i had an interpreter read it for me… and when i found out that it was a benign political critique titled “Where did the money go?” and following the corruption trail within the PM’s cabinet… i immediately took that information and *ran* to the officer to explain what was going on… he didn’t want to hear any of it… he told me to shut up and explain how we could assist the FPs in finding *MORE* detainees…
(02:36:27 PM) bradass87: everything started slipping after that… i saw things differently
(02:37:37 PM) bradass87: i had always questioned the things worked, and investigated to find the truth… but that was a point where i was a *part* of something… i was actively involved in something that i was completely against…
The arrest of nonviolent civilians was of particular concern because torture, as Manning well knew, remained a common practice among the Iraqi authorities even six years into the American occupation. (The gruesome facts of Iraqi torture were amply documented by the US military in documents that were later released by Wikileaks.) True, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Peter Pace had in December 2005 publicly contradicted Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld by declaring that it was the duty of every US soldier in Iraq to stop torture if he or she saw it happening. (Pace’s tenure as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was not renewed for a second term.) But when it came to actually enforcing this rule, the whole chain of command in Iraq turned out to be remarkably easygoing. Pace’s mandate was hollowed out anyway by Rumsfeld’s own secret legal directives in the form of Fragmentary Order 242, which set forth a specific policy of noninterference in Iraqi torture. Deployment to the war zone taught Manning that military occupation is, by its very nature, less protective than predatory.
Gunsight videos of Iraqis getting blown away by AH-64 Apache gunships were ambient “entertainment” inside the SCIF. Like so many others, Manning watched one such video shot from over half a mile above the outskirts of Baghdad on July 12, 2007. In the video, a group of civilians mingling with insurgents is fired upon by a gunship. Wounded Iraqis crawling away are shot dead. A van comes by to retrieve the wounded, and the helicopter opens fire on it too. The van turns out to be full of children. Throughout the gunsight video, pilot and crew are cracking wise, nervously, gleefully, callously. “Look at all those dead guys.” “Well,it’s their fault for bringing their kids into a battle.”When the thirty-nine minute video is over, at least eleven people have been killed, most of them unarmed civilians. Two of the civilians killed turn out to be Reuters News Agency employees; the company files a FOIA request to find out about the death but is stonewalled. Washington Post reporter David Finkel gets a copy of the video and writes about it in his book The Good Soldiers—which Manning will read—but Finkel is unable or unwilling to release the video. This is just one incident in a war that has, by conservative estimates, killed over 100,000 Iraqi civilians.
Bradley Manning did not see this video as entertainment. He dug deeper.
(03:10:32 PM) bradass87: at first glance… it was just a bunch of guys getting shot up by a helicopter… no big deal… about two dozen more where that came from right… but something struck me as odd with the van thing… and also the fact it was being stored in a JAG officer’s directory… so i looked into it… eventually tracked down the date, and then the exact GPS co-ord… and i was like… ok, so thats what happened… cool… then i went to the regular internet… and it was still on my mind… so i typed into goog… the date, and the location… and then i see this http://www. nytimes.com/2007/07/13/world/middleeast/13iraq.html
Manning’s dreams of using his skills to safeguard human life died hard. He decided to do something about it.
(03:07:01 PM) bradass87: i just… couldnt let these things stay inside of the system… and inside of my head…
(03:07:26 PM) bradass87: i recognized the value of some things…
(03:11:07 PM) bradass87: i kept that in my mind for weeks… probably a month and a half… before i forwarded it to them
The “them” was Wikileaks.
It is not clear when Bradley Manning allegedly began transmitting documents to Wikileaks; the government in its charge sheet against the private claims it was November 2009. By then, the anti-secrecy group had already achieved celebrity in tech-libertarian and media circles by publishing the Yahoo email account of Sarah Palin and various 9–11 text messages sent from inside the burning towers. Founded in 2006, the website offers a place for whistleblowers around the world to post important revelations, with source anonymity protected by the latest encryption technology. The site’s content is backed up by mirror-sites around the world. Wikileaks is by no means the first such site; before it came Cryptome—and it will surely not be the last.
On April 5, 2010, Wikileaks premiered the helicopter video at the National Press Club in Washington DC, slapping the gratuitous title “Collateral Murder” on the clip. In days, millions of people around the world watched the video, and for the most part responded in horror and disgust. America’s international lawyers rushed to provide the disquieting assurance that the aerial assault was in perfect conformity with the laws of armed conflict. A few members of the helicopter crew stepped forward to apologize to the families of the Iraqi dead and wounded. America still had 98,000 troops in Iraq (not counting mercenaries and other contractors), and their purpose there was questioned anew. Bradley Manning saw all of this. He became Facebook friends with the American infantryman, Ethan McCord, who at the scene of the aerial attack went back to the shot-up van to retrieve two wounded children and rushed them to a hospital. Manning felt a loop had been closed:
(02:07:41 AM) bradass87: event occurs in 2007, i watch video in 2009 with no context, do research, forward information to group of FOI activists, more research occurs, video is released in 2010, those involved come forward to discuss event, i witness those involved coming forward to discuss publicly, even add them as friends on FB… without them knowing who i am
(02:08:37 AM) bradass87: they touch my life, i touch their life, they touch my life again… full circle
The “Collateral Murder” video is only the beginning of what Manning