RT
As the White House weighs the possibility of taking military action in war-torn Iraq, WikiLeaks source Chelsea Manning is warning that it’s imperative that the American media demands unfettered access to any operations overseas.
Manning, 26, issued that call for action in an editorial published in the New York Times this weekend authored from the jail cell in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas where she is currently serving a 35-year prison sentence for leaking a trove of sensitive files to the anti-secrecy site. Before being arrested and charged with dozens of crimes related to the unauthorized disclosure of those documents, Manning was deployed outside of Baghdad and for months worked as an intelligence analyst for the United States Army.
According to Manning, her experience during the Iraq War has left her believing the Pentagon has a big problem with providing access to journalists, especially those who may portray America’s military actions in a way that Defense Department wouldn’t particularly like.
“As Iraq erupts in civil war and America again contemplates intervention, that unfinished business should give new urgency to the question of how the United States military controlled the media coverage of its long involvement there and in Afghanistan. I believe that the current limits on press freedom and excessive government secrecy make it impossible for Americans to grasp fully what is happening in the wars we finance,” Manning wrote.
Contrasting sharply the news articles authored by DOD-vetted journalists during the Iraq War, Manning wrote, was a more “complicated reality” that wasn’t being seen by reporters.
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As the White House weighs the possibility of taking military action in war-torn Iraq, WikiLeaks source Chelsea Manning is warning that it’s imperative that the American media demands unfettered access to any operations overseas.
Manning, 26, issued that call for action in an editorial published in the New York Times this weekend authored from the jail cell in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas where she is currently serving a 35-year prison sentence for leaking a trove of sensitive files to the anti-secrecy site. Before being arrested and charged with dozens of crimes related to the unauthorized disclosure of those documents, Manning was deployed outside of Baghdad and for months worked as an intelligence analyst for the United States Army.
According to Manning, her experience during the Iraq War has left her believing the Pentagon has a big problem with providing access to journalists, especially those who may portray America’s military actions in a way that Defense Department wouldn’t particularly like.
“As Iraq erupts in civil war and America again contemplates intervention, that unfinished business should give new urgency to the question of how the United States military controlled the media coverage of its long involvement there and in Afghanistan. I believe that the current limits on press freedom and excessive government secrecy make it impossible for Americans to grasp fully what is happening in the wars we finance,” Manning wrote.
Contrasting sharply the news articles authored by DOD-vetted journalists during the Iraq War, Manning wrote, was a more “complicated reality” that wasn’t being seen by reporters.
Read more
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