RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN RUSSIA TODAY
Private Manning deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, and as few
recipients have deserved it in recent years.
He represents a genuine hero for our time, having risked so very
much to reveal truth, a most ugly set of truths too.
His words about being most affected by seeing helicopter
pilots enjoying their devilish work of slaughtering what were obviously
civilians reminded me painfully of the recordings of American pilots during the
first Gulf War.
Poor Iraqi troops - just poor conscripts for the most part -
were evacuating Kuwait City and trying to retreat.
A huge traffic jam allowed American pilots to swoop down,
again and again, to strafe and bomb their vehicles.
Hundreds of the retreating troops were killed in the most
horrible fashion in acts no different to shooting a fleeing man in the back.
We heard voices of American pilots yelling out things like,
"Hey, this is jus' like shootin' fish in a barrel! Whoopee!"
It was a horrifying moment for any person of conscience.
