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April 16, 2012
Book Review – Truth And Consequences: The U.S. vs. Bradley ManningBy Greg Mitchell and Kevin Gosztola
By John Iacovelli
Sinclair Books has published a book by Greg Mitchell of The Nation and Kevin Gosztola of FireDogLake entitled 'Truth And Consequences: The U.S. vs. Bradley Manning.' The detail and thinking that went into the work makes for extremely worthwhile political analysis.
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Though Bradley Manning's military hearings (and imprisonment) are far from over, books on his life, the materials he is accused of leaking, and his hearings are beginning to appear. Sinclair Books (New York) has published a book by Greg Mitchell of The Nation and Kevin Gosztola of FireDogLake entitled "Truth And Consequences: The U.S. vs. Bradley Manning." It is available at Amazon in e-book format for $3.99, $12.99, paperback. Though it shows some signs of being an "instant book," the detail and thinking that went into the work makes for extremely worthwhile political analysis. It provides a strong factual recounting of the Lamo affair, which helped "capture" Manning. It provides excellent context for the military hearings, and documents Manning's imprisonment and mistreatment by authorities as well as we can determine from the outside. It covers the damage assessment from the leaks well. It's very acessible; for example, by drawing attention to the moment when Daniel Ellsberg placed his hand on Bradley Manning's shoulder in the military courtroom, the authors brilliantly provide historical context and meaning that explains to the reader in a single image why Manning's story is so important. The one complaint this reviewer has is the book's failure to explain who Manning is. It contains the full recounting of the family problems and sexual identity questions, but doesn't seem to provide a context that ties neatly with the document release. The authors, of course, had no access to Manning, which makes such a discussion difficult.
Truth and Consequences - The U.S. vs Bradley Manning - cover by Sinclair Books
Instant History, Wikileaks Style
Both authors are columnists, Greg Mitchell is probably more widely read than Kevin Gosztola (though I dare say the very young Gosztola has an amazing future in front of him). Having read the columns of both on Manning before reading the book, I am pleased to report that the book does not read like they simply cut and pasted columns to make an instant book.
Mitchell wrote the first part of the book, covering Manning's life, arrest, imprisonment up to the hearings, and the beginning of the movement to demand his freedom. Gosztola wrote the second part, covering the hearings and Manning's continued imprisonment. Of the two, through an unscientific analysis (searching for large quoted text fragments with Google), Mitchell appears to have "re-used" the most text. It appears the method was to take whole paragraphs from The Nation columns, sometimes placing paragraphs from single columns in different chapters, and then writing text to tie it all together. This is not a complaint. It works well from an organizational stand point, because the book has been divided into chapters on "The Arrest," "The Leaks," and so forth, whereas the columns by necessity lumped everything together under the pressure of chronological occurrence. It's news vs. an organized story. Compare it to the day by day news releases as fresh Wikileaks cables were released, vs. political columns citing cables as footnotes months after the cable releases, with the added ability to quote cables across many daily releases. Gosztola appears to have done much more wordsmithing to his columns, mostly, I believe, to compress multiple days of courtroom proceedings stories into faster, distilled accounts.
There should be no concern that the quick release of this book makes it any less important than a book that might appear a year after the events. This book is definitely worth its very reasonable price, and its existence performs a vital function. The mainstream media, which has kept the state's secrets so well in recent years, cannot be trusted in matters such as this case.
The Lamo Affair and Manning's Arrest
Greg Mitchell covers the Lamo affair, which "caught" Bradley Manning well, though of course it was Glenn Greenwald that focused the world's attention to Lamo and the edited chat logs. Mitchell has some excellent insights, however. He focuses on the most significant fallout of the arrest in probably the most important passage of the first part of the book:
"Perhaps the most significant fallout, however, was this: The arrest suggested that leaking to WikiLeaks was a dangerous thing, despite the organization's vow of never compromising a source. In fact, it had not compromised a source in this case, but you'd only know that if you were following the story closely. In many ways, it was a dream come true for U.S. officials. WikiLeaks early that year had leaked that U.S. Counterintelligence Center report (also allegedly thanks to Manning) which discussed ways to destroy the group's reputation as a safe harbor for leakage. Now, to some extent, that had been accomplished in an unforeseen way."
Mitchell provides good context for Lamo's chat logs, noting that it's foolhardy to treat them as pure evidence, and pointing out that the military prosecution appears to depend upon them. He firmly points out that government sources have been quoted (anonymously, of course) as saying that the government still has no firm evidence of a Manning-Wikileaks leak. In fact the book notes the differences in cable releases in which it appears the publishing newspaper obtained a different release than the cables allegedly stolen by Bradley Manning (testimony of David Shaver, who did a forensic examination of Manning's computer).
There was a minor quibble I had with the section on the Lamo chats. In some of the chat log sections reproduced, Manning is attributed with his nickname, Bradass87, in other parts, as "Manning." Likewise, for "Adrian" and "Lamo." This was a minor annoyance, and could have been handled with a simple editing fix.
The remainder of the first part of the book does an excellent job of documenting the conditions in which the United States holds Bradley Manning, and the mistreatment he has suffered.
The Hearings
As the "bread and butter" of the book, Gosztola's account excels. From the very start, noting the decision to try in Ft. Meade, vs. Manning's original post, Ft. Drum, the book connects every small detail to the larger national issue. In the Meade vs. Drum issue, the book notes that Meade is part of the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, as well as containing the headquarters of the U.S. Cyber Command, the National Security Agency, and the Defense Courier Service.
The book makes a strong case for undue Executive branch influence upon the army hearings, noting, for example, that the presiding officer in the December pre-trial hearings had left the Department of Justice only two weeks before the trial. The denied witnesses and pre-judgments are covered thoroughly, and the 20,000 foot view was explained. A few outstanding points:
The Most Dangerous Man in America
In my opinion, the single best device of "Truth And Consequences: The U.S. vs. Bradley Manning" is Kevin Gostolza's use of the moment in the trial at which Daniel Ellsberg touched Bradley Manning's shoulder to say hello as an emblem of this trial's place in U.S. history"
"The hearing stopped for a short recess. During the recess, one of America's most well regarded whistleblowers, Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers, approached Manning and put his hand on his shoulder. He said, "Hello Bradley Manning," and just as the generation gap between two major whistleblowers in U.S. history was about to be momentarily bridged, military police officers swarmed him and he was removed."
So goes it with our right as citizens to know what our government does in our name. The book also makes note of Ellsberg's distinction between what was revealed in the Pentagon Papers, and the "field level war crimes" documented in the WikiLeaks war logs.
Bradley Manning the Man
I have left this for last purposely. If there is one weakness in "Truth And Consequences: The U.S. vs. Bradley Manning," it is that the book (in the first section) describes Manning's history without making clear why that is relevant. It describes his family problems and sexual identity issues. I still do not know whether those things are important and suspect only Manning can explain that. It provides a context for blaming the army for the release, but doesn't tell us anything about Manning. How could it? No one is able to see Manning, much less interview him and get to know him. I think the book would have been stronger had it de-focused on this, and left Manning as he is to most of us: a figure in the distance who may possibly have done a very important thing.
The very beginning pages cite the Karen Silkwood case, whose death in the town that Manning was born in, thirteen years previous to Manning's birth, is used to frame the book's central question: "Crescent residents still argue about Silkwood today: hero or political malcontent?" By the end of the book, that Manning is a hero for our times is made clear. "Truth And Consequences: The U.S. vs. Bradley Manning" is an excellent and thoughtful account well worth reading.
This article originally appeared at scribillare.com