07/19/13 – Alexa O’Brien – The Scott Horton Show

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Next up is Alexa O'Brien.
That's B-R-I-E-N.
Alexa O'Brien.
You can follow her on Twitter, and you can check out her website at AlexaOBrien.com.
And also, you can find what she writes at TheDailyBeast.com.
She is, well, first and foremost, and most notably, as far as I know, the one who transcribed, and I don't know who secretly recorded, but she's the one who transcribed Bradley Manning's statement to the court when he pleaded guilty to some charges.
And, in fact, you know, pleaded guilty to being the American hero who liberated the Iraq and Afghan war logs in the State Department cables.
And so thank you very much for that, and thank you very much for joining us on the show today, Alexa.
How are you doing?
Oh, I'm doing great.
Thanks for having me.
Well, I appreciate you joining us.
I know you're just on lunch break from the Bradley Manning military court proceedings today, so I especially appreciate you joining us here.
I guess can we start with the latest of the bad news?
Well, the latest, actually, was really interesting.
We just saw a unit witness from Fathamer, Iraq, named Jereliah Shulman.
She was a specialist in the intelligence section that Manning worked at.
And, you know, she's appeared in Alex Gibney's recent film, We Steal Secrets, and she was also at Bradley Manning's Article 32, which is kind of like his grand jury back in December 2011.
Manning and her had an altercation in Iraq, and she came on the stand today to talk about statements, alleged statements that Manning made that he had no allegiance to any flag and that he didn't feel any kind of allegiance to his country.
And it was amazing to watch defense essentially, and it's no exaggeration, destroy her testimony on the stand.
What got revealed was that Manning had actually filed an equal opportunity complaint against her for using terms like faggotry, that she had clearly some kind of, there was clearly a personal animosity either shared or one way directed, and it really colored her statements.
So it was very, very interesting testimony today.
You know, it's interesting that you say that.
I've been speaking mostly with Nathan Fuller throughout this trial, now that they finally decided to hold one after three years.
And the thing of it is, as far as I can tell from here in Texas and just consuming as much media as I can, this is the case with every single one of the prosecution's witnesses.
Now, right now they've had the prosecution case and then the defense, and then now I guess this is the prosecution rebuttal to the defense, which doesn't seem very fair to me, but anyway, they get to do that.
But anyway, have they called a single witness who actually held up to the prosecution's expectations of what they were going to say and what their testimony was supposed to prove?
Because so far it looks to me like they didn't even bother red teaming their own case at all.
Well, it's interesting.
I mean, you know, one of the big charges, of course, that totally bombed in court, was the Garani airstrike, which was their sort of central charge that Manning had pled not guilty to.
It was the only espionage charge that he pled.
He didn't plead to a lesser included offense.
He pled not guilty.
And so here they come into court, and they're trying to tie Bradley Manning to this, essentially, video that was never published by WikiLeaks.
It was of a May 2009 U.S. bombing in the Far Province of Afghanistan that killed at least 140 women and children.
And it fits into, it dovetails into the grand jury investigation, the ongoing investigation of Anjali Kishen, at least seven civilians that we know of, from pretrial testimony.
And so, you know, that case flopped forensically.
The lead government forensic expert essentially agreed with the defense on cross-examination that that video likely came from the T-drive, the same drive that Manning got collateral murder, and didn't come from the CENTCOM server.
But, you know, one of the things that's going on in this courtroom is that there's a lot of parameters around, you know, what is allowed and what isn't allowed.
And this is also a military trial.
And so there are sort of notions of prejudice to good order and discipline or service discrediting that really factor into the more conservative approach of this judge who's presiding over this trial.
The fact that she didn't dismiss aiding the enemy, despite the fact that the government didn't produce any kind of evidence that he had actual knowledge or was clearly cognizant he was dealing with al-Qaeda when he sent information to WikiLeaks, and the fact that she won't even dismiss the, quote-unquote, you know, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act charges when, you know, clearly they didn't present evidence.
So there's a lot of other issues in this trial.
There's a lot of complexity, too, the breakdown in the chain of command.
I think the government has tried to scapegoat Manning, and unfortunately the government's own issues keep rearing their head in the courtroom.
Right.
Okay, now, so let's get to some of those here.
First of all, Tom Knapp, who's a libertarian activist and I believe a Marine Corps veteran, maybe an Army veteran, he has a blog entry at AntiWar.com today where he's talking about the speedy trial rules and how, of course, before the trial even started, this was a big part of the thing, was how long he was held without trial.
But I always just wondered, and I don't think I ever talked to someone who really knew the answer, but Tom Knapp is writing today that he was held more than five times longer than the absolute longest time specified in the U.S. Armed Forces speedy trial rules.
And I believe her ruling on that was, so what, it doesn't matter at all, right?
She took a little bit of time off for how he was treated at Quantico, but no time off for how long he was held without trial.
Am I right about that?
I think you're absolutely right about this.
In fact, I just published a piece today in the Daily Beast called Is Judge Denise Lynn Bradley Manning's Biggest Enemy?
And the reality of it is if you look at the way in which she has ruled on the major rulings in this case, they're sort of like mini trials, the unlawful pretrial confinement at Quantico, giving him 112 days sentencing credit, which essentially translated into one-for-one credit, the bare minimum that she could give him when he's facing 154 years plus life.
And then also in the speedy trial, the fact that he's been held longer than any accused awaiting court martial, and she says the government hasn't violated his speedy trial rights.
A really interesting comment was made by a whistleblower, actually a military whistleblower whose case, his name is Matt Diaz, he had leaked the names of Guantanamo detainees before any of us knew them, and he went to prison for it, and he's out now.
But he said over Twitter that he himself was concerned about Lynn's rulings because she seemed almost to try to find any way to avoid having to censure the prosecution.
And you see that happening with her ruling on Quantico.
I mean, this Brig Sec Nav was really vague around prevention of injury watch, and she would try to find any reason to not essentially criticize the military for their treatment of Manning.
And, of course, Manning is the one who has to sort of bear the brunt of these rulings.
So, yeah, I think that her personality and manner is beginning to appear in court, and it's not only appearing in her rulings, it's appearing in the way in which she actually has colloquies with trial counsel and defense and witnesses.
You know, she has flips of tongue.
Like, she interrupted Professor Yochai Benkler from the Harvard Center for Internet and Society, who was a star defense expert, testified in a really eloquent exchange with the judge last week about the fact that aiding the enemy, the ramifications of convicting Manning of aiding the enemy, are grave to national security reporting and to journalism.
And then it's also to whistleblowers.
He said, you know, when people that don't have infinite courage, you know, are too afraid to come forward, you know, it essentially destroys the balance between national security and the First Amendment.
But she interrupted him in the middle of his exchange last week when he called this memo about WikiLeaks that was published by the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Center in 2008, a mediocre effort.
She interrupted him and said, well, he's not an intelligence expert.
And what was interesting is that the government actually has to prove that this charged document, it's charged against Manning under the Espionage Act, but it's actually being used by the government in their case for aiding the enemy.
It's called, you know, WikiLeaks online resource for enemies, terrorists, and foreign adversaries, question mark.
She interrupted him and presumed that this document was intelligence, even though that's an open criminal element that has to be proven in court.
Right.
Well, and now at the bottom line here, this is a political case, not a legal one, and she's under direct orders from the president of the United States, the former secretary of defense, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to find this young man guilty.
And how can she possibly resist that?
And especially on the matter of how much time to give him off for the abuse that he suffered, the president of the United States has taken responsibility for his treatment at Guantanamo.
He admitted to a reporter that he asked Robert Gates, the secretary of defense, about what's going on with that, and that then Robert Gates said it's fine and that he approved and said carry on.
So Obama's the one who tortured him, and Obama, as well as Leon Panetta, the former secretary of defense, and the then and current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dempsey, they've already said he's guilty.
So how is she supposed to not find him guilty?
Those are, those amount to direct orders.
I think what you're raising are really fundamentally important issues, and they have been core brought in this trial.
You know, one of the big issues, too, is that most of the public doesn't know about these things because Lynd and the U.S. Army and the Military District of Washington have, you know, prevented the public from actually being able to read any of the official court documents for 18 months.
You know, it's on the third day of Manning's trial, the public didn't even know that he had pled to lesser-included offenses with substituted dates, meaning that his dates countered the government's theory of its case with their dates and what they were alleging.
And so it's really actually, I think, created a deep chasm of lack of credibility for this trial.
And, of course, this is just the beginning for Manning.
You know, here he is, he's finally come to trial, and there will be hopefully a long, an appeals process.
I don't know how long that will take, but, you know, this is definitely a political case.
I want to also just mention one other important thing that's happened recently is, you know, we don't know who these five detainees are that are the subject of the detainee assessment brief from Guantanamo Bay.
There is pretty good evidence that at least three of them are the Tipton Three, the U.K. residents who were at Guantanamo, who have made, since they've been released, documentaries talking about the plight of other detainees.
The government considers these three individuals to be terrorist recidivists because they create these documentary films, and they have, you know, media panels with Andy Worthington and respected historian of Guantanamo Bay and other detainees.
So the question is, is how many of these charged documents, the choice of them, since there's so many that were leaked, are actually political choices?
And why would the Tipton Three of all the detainees be considered to be the ones that threatened national security of the United States?
Yeah, and now that's on the charge that he leaked the Guantanamo documents that named some of the people being held there, and didn't the defense already prove on cross-examination that all those names were already in the public domain?
Well, that's what Colonel Morris Davis testified about last week.
He was the former chief prosecutor of the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, and he resigned over the issue of torture.
And he came and said, listen, we called these baseball cards.
They weren't intelligence, meaning that they weren't partly true or valuable or useful to the enemy.
Furthermore, these names and information contained within were, for the most part, sourced from legally and lawfully released San Confuyos or habeas cases.
So this is clearly not closely held.
Two of the elements the government has to prove through the eight espionage acts that are remaining, setting aside the Guarani airstrike that he pled completely not guilty to, are that it's national defense information and that it's closely held.
Right.
And on that Guarani thing, that was really important because they were trying to say that since he leaked the Guarani thing, that proves that he started leaking way back before he says, which puts the lie to his story entirely about what his motivation was and whether Assange was telling him to do it and these kinds of things, right?
But then their witnesses did not survive cross-examination, as you've already stipulated, correct?
That's correct.
That is absolutely correct.
Now, did the courtroom laugh when they had to admit that, oh yeah, there's no evidence for our assertions?
Well, because it's a military trial, there's a sort of decorum here.
As the public affairs officer constantly reminds the press corps, there are here that this isn't a sporting event because sometimes it's really hard not to laugh at some of the things that are said in the courtroom.
Now, I'm in the media operations center, so it's a little bit more lax, but in the courtroom proper, you're actually warned that you're not to make any kind of sign for or against what's actually happening within the courtroom.
But people notice.
I mean, when the lead government forensic expert who wrote 19 forensic reports on all of the digital media and supervised everyone else, tells you that, you know, guess what, you're right to the defense, you know, that's a major lose for the prosecution.
Right.
And now, I mean, they've really had a bad time, right, from the very beginning with their Excel sheet that supposedly proved that he had started early and then that fell apart, the Apache training.
Are there more examples?
Can you help us?
I want a good gut laugh.
I mean, if the kid's going to get life in prison, we might as well try to see the humorous Saturday Night Live skit nature of the prosecution that puts him away.
Listen, I mean, like, these are very, very serious charges that he's facing.
I could say reasonably that, you know, we could expect that defense is pretty much pled to whatever the government had forensic evidence on.
So that's basically seven charges under the Espionage Act.
That's two charges for, you know, Department of State material.
And then, you know, storing, wrongfully storing classified information.
If you look at, like, the strategy of defense, the main thing in the merits is to sort of keep away any greater offense from Manning, to prevent him from getting, you know, charged or, sorry, convicted on espionage, the greater offense instead of just simply willful communication and unauthorized possession.
But, you know, really the heart of the defense case is going to be sentencing, because it's going to be about mitigating the 20 years he's already exposed to, and the additional charge he seems to accumulate in the merits case.
And, of course, on the government case, he's facing 154 years post-life.
So that's like three life sentences or more.
And that's really where the heart of his motive and intent and, you know, the lack of damage evidence is going to come in.
I mean, and, of course, all of this is going to be discussed in classified sessions, especially anything related to harm.
So, you know, something that was really funny was when the 117 cables came out, you know, in the courtroom, we knew what they were, the record numbers.
One of them was about, you know, a malaria update in Kingston, Jamaica, and everyone was like, how could he possibly be charged with espionage for this cable?
Marcy Wheeler did point out that the government could, and this is pure speculation, we don't know what they're saying.
We don't have access to that information.
It's under Black Redaction.
But she could argue that the government's going to say that it could give bioterrorists a roadmap for, you know, essentially how countries will handle epidemics.
So there's all that kind of stuff going on.
I mean, the government, for the most part, especially major fines, the lead military prosecutor, they're aggressive.
They're, you know, almost, I mean, major fines, almost like a seven-foot-tall toddler.
I mean, he really sort of pounds around the courtroom, and it's very, very dramatic.
But when we finally see the evidence and we finally see his argument, it's pretty much just theatrics.
Yeah, it's a letdown every time.
Now, you know what's funny to me here, too, or not funny but just, you know, skewed funny, is the media coverage, mostly the lack thereof, the lie by omission, you know, that this thing's even happening while everybody talks about every other trial in the world all day except this one.
But the thing about it to me that's so incongruent is that Bradley Manning is such a sympathetic character, or at least he could be.
You know what I mean?
Think like a TV producer for a minute.
You could really kind of make a compelling narrative about this heroic young whistleblower who was put in a circumstance where he was being ordered to participate in war crimes, and he just couldn't do it, and then he was betrayed by this man who said he was a journalist and a minister and would keep his trust and his secrets and then betrayed him to the FBI.
Right?
Like, you could do a great TV movie of the week.
You could have, you know, 60 Minutes episodes about everybody who liked him, talking about how much they like him, but instead we get a blackout, you know, like he was some traitor who gave up our nuke secrets to the Soviets or something.
I mean, you know, I was talking with, because there's a core of us, there's five of us that have been here, you know, for the most part since the beginning, and journalists will come in from major newspapers, and they can't even get, you know, whether or not the separation between the Espionage Act and aiding the enemy, and it's not as if we can't understand to some degree, you know, in our casual conversations that this trial, there is a lot of complexity, and it's very easy to get confused, but these larger, you know, channels of communication have a greater responsibility to make sure that they're getting their facts correct, and, you know, the television reporter from a major broadcast, CNN, continues to sleep through these proceedings.
It's really disgusting behavior.
You know, the demonstrativeness that comes out at times when I communicate about this trial is based on, you know, experience of a developing complete disdain for not every mainstream journalist.
I mean, there are good people who are here from, you know, mainstream, within institutions, but the complete institutional rot within the press.
Yeah.
I mean, and here's the kid who, whether they personally favor him or not, and this goes for the lowest-ranking AP stringer up to all of the bosses, this young man, I should never call him a kid.
I'm trying to still feel young here, but I'm old, and I need to admit it.
He's so young.
He really is so young.
I mean, he really is.
I've watched him grow, I mean, from afar.
I've never spoken to Bradley Manning, but I've really seen him mature as a man.
His jaw has gotten squarer, and, you know, the things that happen to young men in their early 20s, you know, it's amazing he's been maturing through this entire process.
There you go.
So I'm even kind of right to call him a kid.
But in any case, he's the number one greatest thing that happened to journalism in the 21st century, and none of them can deny it.
How many news stories have somewhere in there, well, according to documents unearthed by the WikiLeaks, yeah, in other words, that Bradley Manning liberated for you, you jerks, you ungrateful jerks.
I know.
I mean, Bradley Manning is a powerful character.
Of course, you know, I hate to turn him into an object, and if I knew him as a person, it would probably be easier for me to make certain assumptions, but he is nevertheless a powerful symbol for us in many regards.
I mean, he's really carrying on his back the weight of the decay in our institutions, in the press, in the judiciary, in the civic square, and, you know, it's a great opportunity, too.
I mean, we've seen also this continuing reformation of the media that's occurring with this trial.
And, you know, my sense of Bradley Manning from seeing him in the courtroom and listening to him and also just simply transcribing this entire trial is that this is really genuinely a very strong man.
And in the face of all these things, I think that he understands on some degree that just the fact that he has pled the way he has, the fact that he has not buckled under the pressure to sort of implicate Assange in WikiLeaks, which are very real things that are happening.
I mean, it's said by defense counsel the government has cited Assange in WikiLeaks 100 billion times in this prosecution.
They're very much a central character here.
The fact that he has handled himself with such dignity and poise, the fact that he insists that his counsel only use text-based communication or that he's not spoken at all and simply tried to essentially create this clear picture of whether or not a young man can get a fair trial in the military system by his actions, his completely neutral actions, shows that he certainly can continue to persevere under these circumstances and that, God willing, or whatever you want to say it, that he'll prevail in the end.
Yeah.
You know, I think that's a very important point.
And going back all the way to the beginning here, too, they've tried to portray it like, well, you know, he had all these identity crises going on and he did what he did in a moment of weakness.
But that's not really the story that comes across in those transcripts with the rat Adrian Lamo.
You know, he makes it pretty clear that he knows the risk he's taken and he's doing a brave thing.
And he's put up to it.
He has no choice, he feels, because of his commanding officer telling him to help the Iraqi police arrest people simply for writing articles and, of course, take them off to be tortured.
Exactly.
And, I mean, even, you know, for me, I even give Bradley Manning, and I give even his command and a lot of other people, room to be also human.
I mean, you know, Bradley Manning doesn't have to be the perfect Hollywood hero to actually have done a good thing.
He's a complicated character.
He's also really young.
And I don't know about you, but if you know any precocious people at his age, there's an intensity of dealing with adult life.
And, you know, I hate to get too personal with Manning, but I do feel like if you look a little bit, even superficially, at his, you know, history, you understand that this is a young man trying to face the challenges of life, doing the best that he could.
And even if he did this act impulsively, even if he was troubled about other things, I don't think it discredits the power of his act, because fundamentally the power of Bradley Manning is that he symbolizes in some way the good that is within us, the conscience that is within us, and also the inability to essentially sometimes do the things that we do when we become adults to be able to deal with the larger world around us.
He didn't have that option.
Right.
Yeah, in other words, grown-ups compromise.
And he went ahead and said, no way, I'm taking a stand, which I say, you know, cast his statue in gold to me then.
May I be so young in my life, you know, I wish.
My favorite part about watching Bradley Manning, and it really actually is a shock to me, it's not something manufactured out of some kind of imagination, is that his earnestness is, when you finally see it, it's an amazing thing to watch.
At first it seems naive.
How could somebody be so earnest?
But as you see him on the stand in the face of this sort of aggressive military prosecutor, by the end of the cross-examination, the military prosecutor is smiling at him.
There's something very special about this young man.
Cool.
Well, I think there's very something special about you and Nathan Fuller and the other journalists who have bothered to keep track of this case for us, because after all, without you, you ain't doing the work.
It's got to be you.
And there are a lot of people relying on you, as you well know, and that includes me now.
And I really appreciate your time on the show, Alexa.
I really appreciate you asking me.
Thank you so much.
All right, everybody, that is Alexa O'Brien.
She is an intrepid journalist really doing the human's work on the Bradley Manning case there.
And her website is AlexaOBrien.com.
That's B-R-I-E-N, AlexaOBrien.com.
Well, just Google it and they'll correct your spelling.
She's also at The Daily Beast, TheDailyBeast.com, where, let's see, I think she says she's got a brand new one out.
There's Bradley Manning.
Oh, yeah, see, Bradley Manning's moment of truth and Manning's enemy number one.
That's her brand new one from today about the military judge, Colonel Denise Lind.
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