06/04/13 – Nathan Fuller – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, so welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton, and our first guest, maybe our only guest today, I'm not sure yet, but anyway, it's Nathan Fuller from bradleymanning.org, and he's covering the Bradley Manning court-martial.
You're just at lunch break right now, correct?
That's correct.
All right, so give us a lowdown, all the highlights that you can, the most important things that have happened the last couple days, and I'll try to find good spots to follow up here.
Okay, sure.
So yesterday, Bradley Manning's trial finally started after about 1,100 days since his arrest in May of 2010.
And so yesterday, we heard opening statements from the defense and government, and then a few forensic witnesses who talked about retrieving the computers from Manning's room in Baghdad in a workstation following his arrest.
Today, we heard a couple more forensic witnesses, and then we heard from Adrian Lamo, who was testifying about his chat log with Bradley Manning.
And he largely confirmed what we already knew from those chats, but it was pretty interesting to see him talk about them in person.
He told the government that Manning did admit to disclosing information via those chats, but then the defense kind of took him line by line on Manning's motives, and he said, you know, Bradley's a humanist, someone who values human life more than his fellow intelligence analysts.
The kind of person who wants to investigate the truth.
And Lamo said, you know, despite informing on him later on that he could appreciate that and even saw some of Bradley in himself.
And so we're at a lunch break now, and we're going to continue some more witnesses.
The government is intending to call 140 witnesses or something, about 140 anyway.
And so we're just getting underway of what should be a 12-week trial.
Wow, I'm surprised that they mean to carry on such an extensive case against him, when he's pled guilty basically to the facts of downloading and disseminating the information already.
They're just trying to prove this outlandish case that he was knowingly aiding the enemy, correct?
Or what am I missing here?
Right, and so the defense has on a couple of occasions said, you know, we have already stipulated to this, we have already agreed that, you know, say for example, this is Manning's computer, or he was in fact the person in this station.
And so the government, it feels in a way, is kind of wasting our time by reviewing all of this.
But yeah, they ignored Bradley's plea in that they would not accept the 10 lesser included offenses that would have put him in jail for up to 20 years.
They're trying to build a monstrous case that would, in their minds, could put Bradley in jails for life without parole.
And well, at least they're not seeking the death penalty here.
Now, here's the thing I read over at Empty Wheels blog, Marcy Wheeler.
She was talking about the prosecution opening statement and referring to a document that they found on Manning's computer.
And I guess maybe if you could clarify whether he has already conceded to having read this particular document rather than having just possessed it on his computer.
But anyway, the document says something to the effect of, well gee, if anybody ever put anything on Wikileaks, then maybe the Al-Qaeda enemy types might get it.
But then Marcy was undermining that claim and saying that that very same document actually only indirectly refers to the enemies getting their hands on it and actually talks about, actually it really implicates the government for having lousy security more than it implicates Manning for, you know, in any way knowingly aiding the enemy.
Although it seemed to be all they had, really.
Right, so one fact that's overlooked a good amount of the time is that I believe Bradley learned about Wikileaks because of his research as an intelligence analyst.
The Army asked him to, or you know, as part of his job to understand Wikileaks as an organization that put this kind of information online.
But yeah, it is obliquely referred to the possibility that America's enemies might want this.
But, you know, so many organizations are like that and that doesn't mean that that's what Bradley intended to use it for.
We're going to hear sometime soon from the defense witness Yogi Benkler who's going to testify about Bradley's understanding of Wikileaks.
It's really that it's a news organization, that it should be seen as kind of an open source website and he understood that it's not just about, you know, funneling anything to the enemy.
It's about making information public for everyone to see.
And now, on the defense cross-examination of Adrian Lamo, the rat, I guess, first of all, was he on drugs at the time, could you tell, or did he seem sober?
Yeah, he said he wasn't on too many drugs.
I mean, he does suffer from depression and Asperger's and so I believe he's medicated for those.
But he didn't look great.
I mean, he was kind of sunken eyed and he gave very formal and a little protracted answers.
But he largely just, you know, confirmed a lot of what we already knew about him.
But he at least was speaking coherently.
Yeah, I could hear him pretty well.
I mean, I only ask that because there are times where I've seen him on video where he's, he looks like a heroin junkie completely out of his head.
His eyes are rolling back in his head.
He can't, you know, make any sense whatsoever.
So, yeah, for example, in Al Skidney's movie, We Still Secret, he is occasionally almost impossible to hear because he is, it does sound a little drugged up or something.
But anyway, so then part of that conversation with the defense cross-examination there, Lamo had to concede then that, well, or did he ask him about, because I believe it's in the chat logs, right, where Lamo tries to tempt Manning with the dark side and says, well, why don't you sell these secrets to the Chinese or the Russians?
Yeah, Lamo did confirm that, that he had asked Bradley, you know, yeah, why don't you sell these documents?
Why don't you try to make a little profit?
And he confirmed that.
Bradley, of course, denied that because that's not Bradley's interest.
And, you know, he certainly could have made money, but he wanted to make these public for everyone.
He said they belong in the public domain.
Information needs to be free.
All right.
So, I mean, if you were on the jury at that point, or I guess, no, it's just the judge without a military jury in this one.
But, I mean, did they score the point?
Did the defense score the point on this one, on the government's witness, that actually he had, Bradley Manning had pure whistleblower motives here and not nefarious aid-to-enemy motives?
I mean, that's what came across most failingly to me.
But I think kind of both defense and government got Lamo to track their opening statement argument because the government wants to portray this as Assange trying to kind of lure Manning into her, you know, being the guide for Manning's release system.
And he did, and Lamo did say that Manning disclosed that he had talked to Julian Assange, or, you know, someone that he thought was Assange in fact.
But just the same defense tracked its own opening statement by exploring Manning as a humanist and somebody who just wanted to investigate the truth and keep not only his fellow soldiers safe, but also he wanted to ensure the safety of Iraqi nationals.
Right, because, oh, well, and did they talk about that, the original, the order from his commanding officer to participate in the arrest and persecution of Iraqis for writing critical essays about the prime minister?
They didn't discuss that specifically, but they did talk about Bradley's interest in keeping everyone safe and that he just wanted everyone to go home safely at the end of the day.
And that's what he understood as his job as intelligence analyst.
He said, you know, I don't see good guys and bad guys, I see a lot of people acting in self-interest.
And he hoped to rectify that or at least do what he could to help out.
Right.
Okay, well, I know you've got to go because you've got another one of these you've got to do before you go back.
So thanks very much, Nathan.
I hope we can come back to you later in the week, too.
That would be great.
Sure thing.
Thanks for having me.
Thanks very much, everybody.
That's Nathan L. Fuller.
He's Nathan L. Fuller on Twitter, and he helps run the Bradley Manning Support Network at BradleyManning.org.
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