Ellsberg, CIA Analyst, Army Colonel to Speak at Bradley Manning Rally & March in SF; Sat

Ellsberg, CIA Analyst, Army Colonel Speak for Release of
Wikileaks “Whistleblower” Bradley Manning at
Rally & March in San Francisco on Sat. Sept 18, 2pm
outside the San Francisco War Memorial Building, 401 Van Ness Avenue


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
September 17, 2010

Daniel Ellsberg, US Army Col. Ann Wright (ret.), a former US diplomat to Afghanistan, and Ray McGovern, senior CIA analyst (ret.), will be the featured speakers at a public rally on Saturday Sept. 18, 2pm, outside the San Francisco War Memorial Building, 401 Van Ness Avenue. The rally will be followed by a 3pm march to Union Square. The Rally and march are part of a nationwide series of support events for Manning in 19 US cities calling for Manning’s release and for an end to violations of US and international law in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Wikileaks website posted on April 5, 2010, a video showing a US helicopter crew killing approximately 12 Iraqi civilians including Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and his driver Said Chmagh, 40. Wikileaks wrote that it had come from unspecified “military sources.” These “Collateral Murder” videos released by Wikileaks led to the arrest of Manning in May 2010, now held in Quantico, Virginia.

Reuters had filed a formal request, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), in 2007 to access the video and documents that might explain the death of its media workers. FOIA requires federal government agencies to release documents to all persons requesting them unless specifically exempted by the law. Reuters received no documents. Reporters Without Borders, an international journalists association, writes of Bradley Manning, “If this young soldier had not leaked the video, we would have had no evidence of what was clearly a serious abuse on the part of the US military.” The Iraq war over the last seven years has seen the heaviest death toll for journalists in a war since World War II; 230 murders of journalists and media workers since the US-led invasion in 2003. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 16 journalists and three media support workers have been killed by U.S. forces’ fire in Iraq, and another three media workers were killed by fire from the U.S. security contractor Blackwater Worldwide.

Ann Wright, a Colonel, US Army Reserves (Retired) and US Diplomat who resigned in March 2003 in opposition to the War on Iraq, says, "Manning should be supported for choosing to do the right thing. Bradley Manning is a patriot of our democracy, who stayed loyal to what is right, risking his own security."

Daniel Ellsberg, the whistle blower who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the press in 1970 helping to end the Vietnam War, says of alleged whistle blower Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, “Soldiers sworn oath is to defend and support the Constitution. Bradley Manning has been defending and supporting our Constitution."


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