Bradley Manning: Conscience

Bradley Manning, awaiting trial for allegedly sharing thousands of classified documents with the transparency website WikiLeaks, offered to accept responsibility for a narrow set of offenses within the currently charged offenses this week during a pre-trial hearing at Fort Meade, Maryland.
“PFC Manning is not pleading guilty to the specifications as charged by the Government,” noted PFC Manning’s attorney David Coombs on his blog. Nor is he “submitting a plea as part of an agreement or deal with the Government.”

“Like most supporters, I’ve backed Bradley Manning on the belief that he was the heroic whistle-blower in question,” explained Jeff Paterson of the Bradley Manning Support Network. “Now that Bradley appears to have acknowledged this in court, its reason to redouble efforts to support him leading up to his February court martial.”

If Bradley’s plea offer is accepted, the parties would likely be able to bypass weeks of forensics testimony that would be required to prove Bradley accessed and/or transmitted the classified documents at issue. The court martial proceedings might then focus on what Mr. Coombs has long contended: That the release of these documents brought little to no harm to U.S. national security, and that PFC Manning’s motives, if he did release them, were to expose crime, fraud, corporate malfeasance, and abuse...

Bradley Manning Support Network.

Good.
This means we can stop the silly sophistry of calling Bradley "the alleged whistle-blower", and fight for him as a prisoner of conscience.