Bradley Manning, the prime suspect in the leaking of the Afghan war files, raged against his US Army employers and “society at large” on his Facebook page in the days before he allegedly downloaded thousands of secret memos, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.
Heidi Blake, John Bingham and Gordon Rayner
The Daily Telegraph [UK]
30 Jul 2010
Bradley Manning on a gay pride march.
The US Army intelligence analyst, who is half British and went to school in Wales, appeared to sink into depression after a relationship break-up, saying he didn’t “have anything left” and was “beyond frustrated”.
In an apparent swipe at the army, he also wrote: “Bradley Manning is not a piece of equipment,” and quoted a joke about “military intelligence” being an oxymoron.
Mr Manning, 22, who is currently awaiting court martial, is suspected of leaking more than 90,000 secret military documents to the Wikileaks website in a security breach which US officials claim has endangered the lives of serving soldiers and Afghan informers.
Supporters claim the war logs leak exposed civilian deaths in Afghanistan which had been covered up by the military, and Mr Manning’s family, who live in Pembrokeshire, said he had “done the right thing”.
The Pentagon, which is investigating the source of the leak, is expected to study Mr Manning’s background to ascertain if they missed any warnings when he applied to join the US Army. The postings on his Facebook page are also likely to form part of the inquiry.
Mr Manning, who is openly homosexual, began his gloomy postings on January 12, saying: “Bradley Manning didn’t want this fight. Too much to lose, too fast.”
At the beginning of May, when he was serving at a US military base near Baghdad, he changed his status to: “Bradley Manning is now left with the sinking feeling that he doesn’t have anything left.”
Five days later he said he was “livid” after being “lectured by ex-boyfriend”, then later the same day said he was “not a piece of equipment” and was “beyond frustrated with people and society at large”.
His tagline on his personal page reads: “Take me for who I am, or face the consequences!”
This article continues at The Daily Telegraph.
At NewsBusters.org, Was WikiLeaks Leaker Lashing Out Against ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’?
From Ace of Spades, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Leak: WikiLeaks Traitor Openly-Gay Activist Upset Over Treatment of Gays In the Military-American Media Blacking Out That Fact Utterly From Coverage”:
“The argument made by the military is that open homosexuality is bad for morale and discipline.
“Pfc. Bradley Manning is doing his all to prove that.
“I am less outraged by the gay angle here than the media suppression angle: I didn’t know this. Did you know this? I never heard a word of this.
“That’s what you call an embargo, my friends. If it doesn’t advance The Narrative, it never really happened…
“…And so set loose the Taliban on the heroic peasants cooperating with our military.…
“…Commenters said they wanted this guy hanged, and I dismissed that, saying “You know we don’t do that anymore.”
“I have changed my mind. Yes, it’s still true we don’t do that anymore; but I now think it’s important to set an example. He should be hanged. He set the Taliban wolves after good people, and he did it over… a break-up? Not feeling appreciated enough?
“Kill him. Make it a cause celebre, and make him an example to the next leaker.
“String him up and choke him until he is dead, dead, dead.
“And this ‘man’ too — or at least put him in a hole.”
Australian Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder
WikiLeaks is a brothel of self-promotion, Assange its puffed-up pimp. ~Tunku Varadarajan, The Daily Beast
Update: We also suggest How Communists Exploit WikiLeaks at American Power.
