More revealed about Bradley Manning’s gay past; PBS site hacked after airing ‘Wikisecrets’ [video]
A few days after the PBS series Frontline aired a portrait of Army Pvt. Bradley Manning, the UK newspaper The Guardian released its own online documentary about the controversial gay soldier. Manning is currently incarcerated and suspected of being a prime source of classified documents that were transferred to Wikileaks.
In a 19-minute video, The Guardian interviewed several people who say they knew Manning, and included their opinions of how he was treated as a young gay man. PBS, The New York Times, and The Guardian have all covered Manning’s sexual orientation and the harrassment he allegedly received in the military; but none seems ready to draw a direct connection between his experiences and his motive for allegedly leaking the sensitive documents. The Guardian says Manning faces 52 years in prison. (Guardian.co.uk)
In the video, a school principal from Manning’s hometown of Crescent, Oklahoma described Manning as very bright and a straight-A student, then added:
“I’m not saying that we do not have gay people here in our community… but I would think, back then, would have had some consequences to it.”
An unidentified fellow Army trainee said that Manning was singled out for severe bullying and harrassment by soldiers and drill sergeants, in part, because he was perceived to be gay:
“He’s a runt, so pick on him. He’s crazy, pick on him. He’s a faggot, pick on him. The guy took it from every side. He couldn’t please anyone.”
The Guardian says Manning was sent to Iraq despite indications of his “unfit” mental state, and was eventually sent back to Boston where he had a boyfriend attending college, Tyler Watkins. However, Manning returned to find that his relationship had fallen apart. A friend of Manning’s, Keith Rose, says of the situation:
”It ended seemingly abruptly, but Brad didn’t really know that…. He wanted to feel like a hero, like you hear in the stories. He had just come back from a war… instead, he was met with a boyfriend who didn’t want him, and basically no friends at all.”
The Guardian says Manning was then returned to Iraq where he had a physical altercation with his female commander. He left a number of messages of frustration on Facebook, including this to his ex-boyfriend:
”I live in a very real world, where deaths and detainments are just statistics; where idealistic calls for ‘liberation’ and ‘freedom’ are utterly meaningless…. I don’t have a real place to call home, except for a trailer with a bunk, a laptop, and an alarm clock. Please don’t let the LAST PERSON that I trust and care about go away. I haven’t given up.”
In a related media development, portions of the PBS.org website were knocked offline for much of the day. A fake story about Tupac Shakur and the Notirious B.I.G. was posted along with a page featuring Pop Tart Cat and passwords for user accounts. An entity calling itself @LulzSec claimed responsibility. One page posted at “PBS.org/lulz” read:
”FREE BRADLEY MANNING. FUCK FRONTLINE = PBS. Hey Anonymous, we heard you were having trouble!”
A statement released by PBS said:
”Last night there was an intrusion to PBS’ servers. The erroneous information on the PBS NewsHour site has been corrected. The intruders also posted login information to two internal sites – one that press use to access PBS PressRoom and an internal communications website for stations.”
Supporters of Manning and Wikileaks have reportedly taken on numerous other web sites, individuals and companies this past year including Sony, Amazon, Bank of America, Bill O’Reilly, and Sarah Palin. They appear to be strong supporters of transparency and disclosure of information related to government dealings.
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