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| Petition Calls for Nobel Peace Prize to Bradley Manning |
| 2013-08-13 |
| [An Nahar] Supporters of Bradley Manning, the U.S. soldier convicted of espionage for leaking secret files to WikiLeaks, presented a petition to the Nobel Institute on Monday backing his nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize. The petition, launched by the online activist organization RootsAction, garnered more than 103,000 signatures. Awarding Manning the prize would, the organization said, clear "the cloud (that) hovers over the Norwegian Nobel Committee" for awarding the prestigious honor to U.S. President Barack Obama My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it... in 2009. Two months after the announcement and one week before Obama accepted the award, he decided to intensify the war effort in Afghanistan. "No individual has done more to push back against what Martin Luther King Jr. called 'the madness of militarism' than Bradley Manning," the petition read. "And right now, remaining in prison and facing relentless prosecution by the U.S. government, no one is more in need of the Nobel Peace Prize," it said. A U.S. military court found Manning, 25, guilty of 20 of the 22 charges of spying and disobeying orders lodged against him for having handed a large quantity of secret military reports and U.S. diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy website founded by Julian Assange. Manning faces up to 90 years in prison. According to U.S. journalist Norman Solomon, one of the organizers of the petition, awarding the soldier the Nobel would underline the important role played by whistleblowers in promoting peace and democracy. "Unless we can speak the truth, then peace-making becomes a hollow exercise of rhetoric rather than reality," Solomon told news hounds before handing over the 5,000-page document to the Nobel Institute. The chairman of the Institute, Geir Lundestad, has in the past said that such campaigns do not influence the Nobel Committee in its choice. The 2013 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on October 11 in Oslo. Denouncing what he called "a normalization of perpetual war", Solomon, a former Obama supporter, said giving Manning the Nobel would restore some of the prize's cachet after it was awarded to the U.S. leader. "The Nobel Peace Prize at this point needs Bradley Manning more than Bradley Manning needs the Nobel Peace Prize because there is no question of the firm commitment of Bradley Manning to human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... and peace," he said. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #7 Makes more sense than giving it to Obama. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2013-08-13 15:56 |
| #6 Bradley or Breanna Manning |
| Posted by: Frank G 2013-08-13 13:09 |
| #5 #4 Anyone can be nominated And anyone can win, judging by the list of winners. I like that the EU won in 2012 for "not starting another damn world war". |
| Posted by: SteveS 2013-08-13 12:32 |
| #4 Anyone can be nominated |
| Posted by: bernardz 2013-08-13 08:50 |
| #3 Given the drone kill orders signed by the Nobel Peace Prize holder in the White House, E0 Manning has a better record in the peace category. It's the consequences of his actions over the long run that make it questionable, sort of like the Rosenbergs. The judge at their trial pointed out that had the cabal not provided the Soviets the knowledge and means to achieve their bomb, the 'victims' of the Korean war may not have occurred because the incentive (versus the disincentive of being without a bomb) to engage in the war of opportunity provided by that possession would not have been there. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2013-08-13 08:45 |
| #2 Signatories include: Howie Feltersnatch, Mike Hunt, Heywood Jablome, Ben Dover, Harden Stuhl, Seymore Butts and Hugh Jass... |
| Posted by: Raj 2013-08-13 00:54 |
| #1 I wonder how many signatures are legitimate? Five? Ten? |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2013-08-13 00:46 |