Chelsea Manning is one of the most dynamic and controversial personalities of our time. She is criticised and admonished by some as a traitor who compromised the safety and reputation of her country’s soldiers and diplomats. To others, she is one of the most prominent whistleblowers of modern history, one who exposed human rights abuses and unethical practices in the United States (US) Armed Forces and US State Department, while simultaneously inspiring journalists, activists, civil servants, and the LGBT community.
Below is a timeline and commentary on Manning’s story from a young soldier to explosive whistleblower and history maker to a world-famous political prisoner.
It should be noted that throughout the saga, Manning’s gradual personal identification as a trans woman was highlighted by the media. Born a man – as Bradley Manning – Manning was diagnosed with gender identity disorder while in the Army. Manning underwent gender transition surgery and presently identifies as a woman – as Chelsea Manning. While this plays a role in the usage of pronouns in the article, this was a matter of personal choice for Manning, and must, therefore, be respected. What is important for the rest of the world is not Manning’s gender; what is important are the files she leaked, the abuse she faced while she was detained, and the debate over whether she is a patriot or a traitor.
Notable leaks by Chelsea Manning The Baghdad airstrike video – 2007 video of US military helicopters firing at unarmed civilians and journalists. The Iraq War Logs – nearly 400,000 field reports describing the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and the subsequent US conduct during the war. The Afghanistan War Diary – 91,000 US military logs regarding the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan and the war thereof. The United States diplomatic cables leak – Nearly 260,000 diplomatic cables. At that time, it was the largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain. The Guantánamo Bay files – 779 secret documents describing the inhuman treatment of detainees at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp. The Granai airstrike video – 2009 video of the airstrike by US Air Force which led to the death of 86 to 147 Afghan civilians. Chelsea Manning timeline
October 2007: Bradley Manning joins the US Army. He is 19.
October 2009: Manning is deployed to Iraq. There, he finds the Baghdad airstrike video. The video shows two American helicopters firing on a group of ten men in the Amin District of Baghdad in July 2007. The group includes Reuters journalists and Iraqi civilians.
November 2009: Wikileaks releases 570,000 intercepts of pager messages sent on 9/11 (the 11 September 2001 attacks). The leaks are heavily publicised and catch Manning’s attention.
January 2010: Manning downloads hundreds of thousands of files which contain sensitive military information relating to US involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. (Following the 9/11 attacks, the US had invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003.) The files Manning secretly downloaded contain information regarding US conduct during these wars. The files are broadly classified as the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs. They are smuggled through military security on a CD-RW named “Lady Gaga”. Manning takes two weeks’ leave and returns to the United States via Germany.
During this time, Manning wrote a message intended for The Washington Post. It read:
“Items of the historical significance of two wars Iraq and Afghanistan Significant Activity, Sigacts, between 0001 January 2004 and 2359 31 December 2009 extracts from CSV documents from Department of Defense and CDNE database. These items have already been sanitised of any source identifying information. You might need to sit on this information for 90 to 180 days to best send and distribute such a large amount of data to a large audience and protect the source. This is one of the most significant documents of our time removing the fog of war and revealing the true nature of 21st century asymmetric warfare. Have a good day.”
February 2010: Failing to elicit an enthusiastic response from The Washington Post and The New York Times, Manning passes the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs to Wikileaks.
March – April 2010: Back in Iraq, Manning downloads 250,000 diplomatic cables; these are also sent to Wikileaks.
April 2010: WikiLeaks posts the Baghdad airstrike video. The video, named “Collateral Murder”, goes viral, Wikileaks becomes a global topic of discussion, Manning’s leaks begin to make headlines around the world.
May 2010: Manning is arrested in Kuwait, detained, and subsequently charged with leaking classified information. It is gradually revealed that Manning was detained in inhuman conditions, with allegations of torture, abuse, and long periods of solitary confinement finding their way into the mainstream media. Manning’s detainment raises concerns in the US and around the world.
July – October 2010:…
