The Passion of Bradley Manning

April 16, 2012
Civil rights attorney Madar takes on the controversial story of Private Bradley Manning, the young man responsible for exfiltrating to WikiLeaks almost half a million confidential U.S military documents (as well as the "Collateral Murder" video in which American soldiers in a helicopter fire on Iraqi civilians). The author provides a brief biography of Manning, beginning with his childhood in Oklahoma, and moving through his enlistment and training, during which time Manning, a self-described gay atheist, struggled to acclimate to life in the military. Sprinkled throughout are selections from chatlogs of conversations between Manning and Adrian Lamo, the hacker and former confidant responsible for reporting Manning to the authorities. As a result, Manning was sent to Quantico Marine Corps Base where he was placed in solitary confinement for nine months and where he remains incarcerated. Madar maintains that Manning is "a poster child for the cause of honest dealing, patriotic dissent, and the right to know what one's government is doing," for which actions the author deems Manning deserving of a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Madar makes a compelling and passionate case, not just for one individual's actions, but for the re-examination of the rules of engagement, the government's classification system, and the treatment of whistleblowers in the U.S.