In 2010, while serving as a private in the US Army, Manning discovered evidence of serious war crimes. The Bush administration had covered this up. She originally planned to deliver the evidence to the New York Times and the Washington Post, but neither paper’s reporters could get their act together to work with Manning:
She originally planned to deliver the data to The New York Times or The Washington Post, and for the last week of her leave, she dodged from public phone to public phone, calling the main office lines for both papers, leaving a message for the public editor at The Times and engaging in a frustrating conversation with a Post writer, who said she would have to know more about the files before her editor would sign off on an article. — www.nytimes.com/...
As a practical consideration, Manning opted to send the documents to Wikileaks.
xChelsea Manning is running for Senate. It's worth remembering what her leaks actually exposed, because it was a long time ago, and a lot of people have sort of moved on. But she showed unbelievable courage to do what was right. Here's an old video I did on her leaks. https://t.co/oXxrBnjcef
— Nando (@nandorvila) January 13, 2018Numerous publications reported major new-stories based on the documents provided by Manning. These included:
The first revelation came in 2010, from a video showing a US helicopter crew laughing as they launched an air strike killing a dozen people in Baghdad in July 2007, including a photographer and driver working for the Reuters news agency. The footage was recorded on one of two Apache helicopters which were hunting for suspected insurgents. They encounter a group of men on the ground, who do not immediately appear armed, and there is no sign of gunshots. But one helicopter crew opens fire, with shouts of "Hahaha. I hit 'em," and "Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards". As the wounded are helped, one of the helicopters opens fire again, with armour-piercing shells. — www.theguardian.com/...
The leaked documents disclosed several other matters, including serious war crimes. An incident in Jalalabad, Afghanistan in 2007 where US marines had fired indiscriminately, killing 19 unarmed civilians and wounding 50 more. The unit initially failed to report the killings. The documents revealed hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and murder by Iraqi police and soldiers which were systematically ignored by US authorities. The documents revealed that the US had collected a record of 100,000 deaths in Iraq, while denying such records existed.
The documents Manning leaked also showed that the US believed the Russian government under Vladimir Putin to be a “mafia state”. The documents contained disclosures that Putin’s government directs Russian mafia figures to carry out criminal activity such as arms smuggling. They also document an immense amount of secret, illicit wealth that Putin has amassed overseas.
Though it’s not clear why Trump hates Manning, perhaps it’s because of what she revealed about Putin. In any case, Trump thinks Chelsea Manning is an “ungrateful traitor”:
“Ungrateful TRAITOR Chelsea Manning, who should never have been released from prison, is now calling President Obama a weak leader. Terrible!” Trump wrote on Twitter on Thursday morning. — www.politico.com/…
The Op-Ed Trump is referring to is titled: Compromise does not work with our political opponents. When will we learn? In the Op-Ed Manning describes all the opposition Obama faced, and what it taught her about politics in America today. If you’ve never read it, the Op-Ed is well worth a read:
On domestic issues, his instinct, as former First Lady Michelle Obama explained at the Democratic national convention this past summer, was to “go high” when his opponents would “go low”. Unfortunately, no matter how “high” the former president aimed to be, his opponents aimed to undermine him anyway. There was absolutely no “low” that was too low to go. [...]
When it came to foreign policy, even though he was only carrying out the expanding national security policies of the previous administration, they would ceaselessly criticize him for being too weak, or too soft or too sympathetic. After months of comprise on his end, they never cooperated a single time. [...]
For eight years, it did not matter how balanced President Obama was. It did not matter how educated he was, or how intelligent he was. Nothing was ever good enough for his opponents. It was clear that he could not win. It was clear that, no matter what he did, in their eyes, he could not win. [...]
Now, after eight years of attempted compromise and relentless disrespect in return, we are moving into darker times. Healthcare will change for the worse, especially for those of us in need. Criminalization will expand, with bigger prisons filled with penalized bodies – poor, black, brown, queer and trans people. People will probably be targeted because of their religion. Queer and trans people expect to have their rights infringed upon.
In a very real sense, Manning’s first video-ad begins where that Op-Ed ends, charting out a course for a better politics.
xyup, we're running for senate 😎🌈💕 #WeGotThishttps://t.co/ynFv6w32np
— Chelsea E. Manning (@xychelsea) January 14, 2018 xChelsea Manning wrote serious draft cybersecurity legislation to abolish the FISA court WHILE SHE WAS IN PRISON and did not have access to the Internet or a word processor that could save documents. She had to call supporters to look up citations etc. Gtfo with "no experience"
— Evan Greer (@evan_greer) January 13, 2018The draft bill Chelsea Manning wrote is posted online. Chelsea has an Act Blue page set up for her campaign, if you’d like to make a donation.
Manning faces an uphill path in the Democratic primary if, as expected, Senator Ben Cardin chooses to run for re-election:
But Willis noted that notoriety, celebrity and even a strong grass roots following is not necessarily enough to compete against veteran political leaders.
For example, he said, the late entrance of Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson into the 2016 Democratic primary for Baltimore mayor caused a stir, but Mckesson finished sixth in the race.
Notably, Cardin was one of 30 Democratic senators who voted against cloture on a bill that would expand the Trump administration’s surveillance powers:
“A truly remarkable historical moment,” tweeted Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program. “If Dems had held firm, they could have blocked a bill to give the Trump administration unprecedented powers to spy on Americans. But they didn’t. So now, this president — and future ones — will almost certainly be handed that power.” — theintercept.com/…
Given Cardin’s vote against the motion, mass surveillance won’t be as big a wedge issue.
Manning’s is one of a number of ground-breaking campaigns by transgender candidates, seeking to make our legislatures look a bit more like America.