While the capitalist press has focused on the decision of the judge in the court martial of Bradley Manning to find him not guilty of aiding the enemy, his conviction on 20 other charges amounts to a full-scale assault on democratic rights.

The court martial now enters the penalty phase. Manning faces a maximum of 136 years behind bars. Whatever the final sentence, it is widely believed it will be decades in the military stockade.

Manning’s “crime” was to release to WikiLeaks proof of US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as many diplomatic cables detailing Washington’s machinations in the Middle East and elsewhere. WikiLeaks then made much of this information available to the New York Times and other publications throughout the world.

Coming down on Manning with an iron fist is part of the government’s drive to punish severely whistleblowers who reveal information about its crimes. It is an indication of what’s in store for Edward Snowden and Julian Assange if they’re ever caught.

Ben Wizner of the American Civil Liberties Union said of the verdict, “It seems clear that the government was seeking to intimidate anyone who might consider revealing valuable information in the future.”

On the other side, Republican Mike Rogers and Democrat Dutch Ruppersberger of the House Intelligence Committee issued a joint statement that “justice and liberty has [sic] been served”, adding, “There is still much work to be done to reduce the ability of criminals like Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden to harm our national security.”

Espionage Act

Six of the charges Manning was convicted of were violations of the notorious Espionage Act of 1917. These six charges themselves carry a maximum sentence of 60 years.

This law was used to go after thousands of IWW and Socialist Party members at the time for their opposition to the First World War, including the conviction of SP leader Eugene Debs.

It has become Obama’s favourite club against “leakers”. After 1919, it was used rarely, mainly in the late 1940s and 1950s against alleged Soviet spies (including the Rosenbergs, who were framed and executed) and later against Daniel Ellsberg for leaking the Pentagon Papers to the press. Under the Obama administration the Act has been used frequently. Since the law is called the Espionage Act, one might think that Manning was convicted of spying. But he wasn’t even charged with spying. He was charged with revealing the government’s dirty secrets to the people of the United States and the world.

Speaking from the Ecuadoran embassy in London, where he has been given political asylum from threats by Washington to give him the same treatment Manning received, Julian Assange said that the court martial was a “show trial” in which no justice was possible.

Of the espionage charges, Assange said, “It is completely absurd. It cannot possibly be the case that a journalistic source, who is not communicating with a foreign power, who is simply working for the American public, can be convicted of six counts of espionage.

 “That is an abuse, not merely of Bradley Manning’s human rights, but it is an abuse of language, it’s abuse of the US Constitution, which says very clearly the Congress will make no law abridging the freedom of the press or of the right to free speech.”

Throughout the military trial, the prosecution repeatedly brought up WikiLeaks and Assange, portraying him as an “information anarchist” who encouraged Manning to leak the classified documents. It is increasingly likely that the government will prosecute Assange as a co-conspirator.

That WikiLeaks is a target was emphasised by one of the obscure charges Manning was convicted of, “wanton publication”. It was claimed under this charge that WikiLeaks is not a legitimate journalistic organisation.

Assange also reported that, based on discussions his lawyers in the US have had with the Department of Justice, they “believe that it is more probable than not that there is [already] a sealed indictment” against him.

The ongoing case against Wiki-Leaks is costing $1-2 million a year just to maintain the computer systems to monitor its documents.

Targeting the media

Commenting on the fact that the Manning verdict brings the prosecution of Assange closer, Trevor Timm, the executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said, “Charging a publisher of information under the Espionage Act would be completely unprecedented and put every decent national security reporter in America at risk of jail.”

Edward Snowden is of course another target. Now that Russia has granted him political asylum for a year, the White House is fuming, sputtering and threatening. In an attempt to prevent Russia from taking this step, Attorney General Eric Holder sent Russian President Vladimir Putin a letter on 23 July.

In the letter, Holder promised the US would not seek the death penalty against Snowden, nor would it torture him, if Russia handed him over. That Holder had to give such reassurances demonstrates that much of the world believes that the US uses the death penalty too much and that the US does torture people.

Holder added that “the US doesn’t torture”.  Since the photographs of Abu Ghraib, the reports from Guantánamo, “special renditions”, etc. etc. show blatant torture, and a UN envoy found that the US tortured Bradley Manning for months, Holder’s statement has redefined the term to exclude all that.

One could conclude that what Holder was saying was that the US government would do to Snowden what it did to Manning, since that was not torture.

Incredibly, the White House also attacked Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for meeting with Snowden, claiming that they gave him a “propaganda platform”.

While the Manning verdict as a whole is a broadside barrage against free speech, freedom of the press and the public’s right to know about government crimes, the finding of “not guilty” concerning the charge of aiding the enemy was positive.

The prosecution never presented evidence that Manning’s revelations in fact aided the “enemy”, whomever that refers to, presumably al-Qaeda. That’s because there was not a scintilla of such evidence.

The government’s sole justification for the charge was that Manning had released material classified as secret to WikiLeaks, which turned it over to the mainstream press, which also published some of it, and thus the “enemy” could read it.

Under this reasoning, anyone who released to the press any classified information so that the enemy of the day could read it would be guilty of “aiding the enemy” and be sentenced to death or life without possibility of parole.

While her ruling on this charge doesn’t set a precedent for Snowden’s or Assange’s cases, it does make it more difficult politically for the government to prove that charge against them.

As Assange said, “Bradley Manning is now a martyr … these young men, Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden, have risked their freedom, risked their lives, for all of us. That makes them heroes.”