README.txt review for Future Intelligence
by Jane Whyatt
Whether you think she was a traitor or a prisoner of conscience, in this book you will find new insights and justifications for your view of Chelsea Manning.
The US Army intelligence analyst who leaked massive amounts of classified data to the WikiLeaks whistleblowing platform is a complex and fascinating character. Much misunderstood by pacifists and human rights activists who tried to make common cause with her, she insists throughout that she is a patriot, a transparency activist and not a peacenik. On the contrary, she was proud to serve in the armed forces – right up to the moment when she realised that the American people were being conned and lied to about the wars in the Middle East.
From growing up gay in a small town in Wales to coming out as transgender, she had a hard time.
Manning’s parents divorced when she was young and her Welsh mother returned to her homeland with the two children, already weakened by the alcoholism that would eventually claim her life. As a highly-intelligent pupil who excelled at sports, Chelsea was able to defend herself against anti-American and anti-gay bullying at school. But as soon as she could, she returned to the USA.
From car home to parade ground
Drifting, exploring the gay scene, making friends online through Anonymous and 4Chan and living in a car, she found a new independence but no real direction. Following her American father into the armed forces seemed like a natural next step.
Yet the deployment to Iraq put an unbearable strain on the young analyst who was already struggling against a false gender identity or dysmorphia, to give it the clinical name. At the time, the US Army had a policy towards homosexuality that was defined as Don t Ask, Don t Tell. It meant that lesbian and gay service personnel were forced to suppress their true feelings and hide their relationships. Some chose to marry a member of the opposite sex to provide cover and ensure that they would be promoted. A culture of macho violence and bullying prevailed.
Added to this personal suffering, Private Manning also experienced Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The role of analysts in Iraq involved close covert surveillance of potential resistance fighters against the allied occupation. Across the computer screen, drone footage of air strikes on civilian targets, the intimate private lives of Iraqis and atrocities committed by American troops formed a daily torrent of deeply troubling footage.
Disturbing images
Manning decided to act. Downloading thousands of classified files onto CDs, labelled as music downloads. Noting in the book that the cybersecurity was inadequate, Manning comments that computers in the top-secret listening base often had their passwords displayed on Post-It notes stuck to the screen. So, it was easy to smuggle out the data. Far more difficult was the quest to expose the damning videos. After trying to leak them to several mainstream media outlets, Manning was running out of time.
Stuck in a snowstorm in a small town, the only available access to the internet was at a Barnes and Noble bookstore. Patiently, Manning uploaded the huge files to the WikiLeaks website, spending the last day before the end of the leave period on this fateful attempt to expose the truth about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The rest is history – a history that we now know, thanks to Manning s courage.
Caged in a tent
It cost the 22 year old dear. The Military Police showed no mercy ahead of the court-martial, with imprisonment in a cage inside a tent, sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, shackles and other torture methods deployed in an attempt to prove that Manning was not acting alone and to incriminate the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange.
WikiLeaks published one of the atrocities as an edited video entitled Collateral Murder. In it, we see civilians including a Reuters TV film crew being gunned down in an airstrike on the outskirts of Baghdad. People driving by in a car who stopped to help the injured are also shot. They include a young child. Meanwhile the American troops keep up a cynical commentary, celebrating each direct hit with whoops of triumph.
While the video was still in the edit suite, Private Manning was already being ensnared by a false friend in online chatrooms, arrested and charged under the US Espionage Act.
Court-martial and rehabilitation
The rest of the story is one of brutal and Kafkaesque confinement, relieved only by the hormone treatment that finally allowed Chelsea Manning to present herself to the world as a woman. She is a woman who developed considerable skills in researching and mastering points of law to bolster her defence. And she won worldwide support from internet libertarians, anti-war campaigners, LGBTQI activists and – surprisingly – many Army veterans.
Blow-by-blow accounts of the court-martial and eventual sentence make compelling reading. Only a last-minute decision by Barack Obama on the final day of his presidency rescued Chelsea Manning from a further two decades behind bars.
Now as a published author, data scientist and expert in online security she is free to give her account of the motivation behind her whistleblowing. It makes fascinating reading – whatever you think you already know about her.
