Members of the Icelandic Parliament have nominated Private First Class Bradley Manning for the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize. If there’s any sense of justice left in the Nobel Committee, he’ll win.
Bradley Manning is accused of leaking a video showing the killing of civilians by a US Apache helicopter crew in Iraq. As well, he is charged with sharing the documents known as the Afghan War Diary, the Iraq War Logs, and embarrassing US diplomatic cables, all of which Manning leaked to the champions of transparency: Wikileaks.
Since his arrest in May 2010, Manning has been held in military prison without trial.
The chain of events Manning helped spark include:
- exposing American war crimes in Iraq, prompting the Iraqi President to drop support for extending the US Occupation, thereby ending the Iraq war
- revealing corruption in Tunisia, which ignited the Arab Spring
- inspiring a new generation as to the real potential of any single person to make a lasting difference
In 2009, President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” Since then, Obama has increased military spending, expanded US-led war into several new countries, and has furthered the continued erosion of precious civil liberties.
If Pfc Manning doesn’t take the Nobel this year, maybe the Committee should strip Obama of his award and instead bestow the 2009 honors on a more deserving peace-builder.
