Who Really Has Blood on Their Hands? Not Brave Whistleblowers Like Private Bradley Manning

I am the mother of an Iraq vet who endured two horrific and lengthy tours in Iraq. I have just written a letter of support to Pvt. Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old intelligence analyst suspected of passing videos and documents to Wikileaks. Manning is now in pre-trial confinement in Quantico, VA, facing decades in prison and, if Congressman Mike Rogers has his way, the death penalty. I encourage you to write a letter to this brave young man and CODEPINK will deliver it to him during a rally on Sunday in Quantico, near Washington DC. To submit a letter to be delivered please email it to us at CODEPINK!

In the midst of all the grief my family has endured and the sorrow I feel for the Afghans and Iraqis who have died, I am grateful that someone out there was courageous enough to bring the powerful and dreadful truths about these wars into the light.

Admiral Mullen said that those responsible for the leaks have blood on their hands. But no one could possibly have more blood on their hands than the Bush/Cheney regime and now the Obama administration--the blood of our troops, the tears of their families, the legacy of the innocents killed and maimed in these immoral wars.

With these Wikileaks horrors revealed, it will not be so easy for politicians to convince us that these wars are just, that they are worth bankrupting our nation, or that we can achieve peace by more killing. My hope is that the national discussion that has emerged from the videos and documents will hasten the day when our troops come home. For that, the whistleblowers deserve our deepest thanks.