Could History Determine Bradley Manning Was A Hero?
As the pre-trial of Pvt. Bradley Manning gets more complicated, it seems to increase the possibility he could be the Neil Aggett of South Africa and/or the Alfred Dreyfus of France.
The Dreyfus story is already well known. The world should know about Dr. Aggett, a white man who joined in the anti-apartheid campaign and died in prison. Security police claimed he hanged himself.
His family, friends and activists, and one fellow prisoner, said he probably died from torture. He was the 51st campaigner to die in detention, but the first white in almost 20 years. The “best guess” for his death is Feb. 5, 1982.
I will never forget his funeral. The death of this white do-gooder stunned the country. An Afrikaans newspaper published my interview with his family.
Fifteen thousand turned out for his funeral. I remember calling the bureau astonished that police stood back and let them march. It may have been the straw, or one of the straws, that broke apartheid’s back.
At this stage, Manning is finally in a court, after 17 months of imprisonment, much of it in solitary, a brief portion forced to sleep naked.
This denies him his constitutional right to a speedy trial. In general civilians must be tried within six months unless they request delays or the prosecution needs a witness who is not available. The U.S. Supreme Court has set no time limit but precedent holds that if the right is denied the only remedy is dismissal of charges with or without prejudice. A delay of more than a year has been ruled prejudicial in some cases.
For it to take this long, and for so much of the early days to focus on Manning’s apparent cross-sexual tendencies makes it appear more like the case is about a military RuPaul than treason. And it is another example of a soldier whose dangerous nature was ignored, though Manning killed no one with his own hands. Pontius Pilate would wash his hands of this one.
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