I recently inadvertently
and fortuitously ended up at a meeting with a U.S. State
Department-sponsored group of young professionals from the Middle East
who were brought to the United States to learn more about our country. I
mentioned that I was attending the hearings for the alleged WikiLeaks
whistleblower Bradley Manning.
The
reaction of the group was stunning. Immediately hands for questions
went up. The questions began with a comment: Without WikiLeaks, I would
never have learned what my own governments was doing, its complicity in
secret prisons and torture, in extraordinary rendition, in cooperation
in the U.S. wars in the region. WikiLeaks exposed what our politicians
and elected officials are doing. Without WikiLeaks, we would never have known!
And
that is what Bradley Manning's trial is all about and what the charges
against six other government employees who face espionage allegations
for providing information the government classified to protect its own
wrongdoings -- to silence other potential government whistleblowers.
-- Ann Wright, "Government seeks to silence those who would expose wrongdoing" (Daily Progress).