Heading to Rural Wales for "The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning" *Watch it on Livestream!

by 3 week report Tue May 08, 2012 18:54

WISE Up for Bradley Manning is a loose network of groups and individuals in Wales, Ireland, Scotland and England (WISE) taking action for Bradley Manning, the young US military intel. analyst with Welsh roots who has been held for almost two years without trial accused of blowing the whistle on war crimes and revealing other truths the US would have preferred to keep buried. Bradley Manning has been tortured and denied his constitutional rights. President Obama, Commander-in-Chief of the military, has already said he broke the law and has therefore irrevocably prejudiced the upcoming court martial as well as breaking – not for the first time – his election promise to protect whistleblowers.

We call for all charges against Bradley Manning to be dropped and for his immediate release. Blowing the whistle on war crimes is not a crime!

When we heard that Tim Price’s new play The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning was to be performed by National Theatre Wales in Pembrokeshire, Cardiff and Flintshire during April, starting with Tasker Milward, the school Bradley attended as a teenager in Haverfordwest, it seemed an ideal opportunity to organise a series of solidarity actions and events to coincide with these performances. Our aim was to raise awareness of, share information about and generate support for Bradley across Wales.
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by Last chance online Fri Apr 27, 2012 18:02

The play is livestreamed at 7.30pm Friday night, Sat afternoon and Saturday evening for the last time.
(See viewing details above on this thread)

The play has been viewed by over 7000 people in 64 different countries. If you have any digital networks I'd urge you to push the play out to them. It would be great to break the 10,000 barrier.

Four people watching in the Maldives on Wednesday.

Bradley Manning was shipped through Shannon Airport to Iraq.
He now has a Sept 21st court martial date.
He faces 23 charges, one carries the death penalty.
Alternatively if convicted he faces life imprisonmet
accused of exposing the nature of war 100,000 people marched aganst in the streets of Dublin.
A protest march supported by Irish leader Bertie Ahern at the time.

by Wales Tue Apr 24, 2012 12:54

Show of support for Bradley Manning
Sat. 21st April 2012 in News

A group of political activists, who condemn the glorification of war, have been showing their solidarity for accused WikiLeaks whistleblower Bradley Manning.

Bradley Manning Support Events (Wales) staged an exhibition into the life of the 24-year-old US soldier, who is accused of ‘aiding the enemy’ by leaking classified information to the website.

The exhibition, entitled War in the 21st Century, saw ex-SAS (Special Air Service) veteran Ben Griffin and peace activist Ciaron O’Reilly talk about personal experiences, and the importance of Bradley Manning’s case.
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by arrested@ Ft. Leavonworth, Sat Apr 21, 2012 22:33 Ft. Leavenworth Kansas USA

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Highlighting a unique demonstration of national security interests, peace activists gathered in the Kansas City area April 13-15 to call attention to nuclear weapons, unmanned drone attacks and the detention of accused WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning.

The three-day convergence, called a "Trifecta Resista" by organizers, saw people from across the Midwest gather for three lively demonstrations in the area. Seven people were arrested over the weekend for such acts.

On April 13, the activists gathered outside an entry point for Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where Manning has been held at the Army's Joint Regional Correctional Facility.

The treatment of Manning, an Army private accused of leaking thousands of confidential diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks, previously spurred protests from supporters and human rights groups. Before being transferred to Leavenworth last April, Manning was held at the Marine brig in Quantico, Va., where he was placed into solitary confinement and wore only a suicide-proof smock each night

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by Guardian Review Thu Apr 19, 2012 23:22

Bradley Manning, as most people know, is a 24-year-old US soldier accused of releasing 250,000 secret cables and logs about the Iraq and Afghan wars to WikiLeaks. What is less well known is that he spent over two of his early teenage years at school in Haverfordwest after his Welsh mum split up with his American dad. Tim Price has seized on this to create a fact-inspired fictional play which National Theatre Wales is performing in schools, including the one Manning attended. But, ardently as I welcome plays on public issues, I feel Price's piece raises acute moral and aesthetic questions.

Price's approach is to zig-zag through the last 10 years of Manning's life to produce an impressionistic biography. But his key idea is implicit in his title: he clearly believes that Manning's Welsh schooling was crucial in that it both introduced him to the history of radical protest and exposed him to institutional injustice. Price also gives us key moments from Manning's later life. We see his dad urging him to join the military, where he can both work in computers and have his college degree paid for. We also see Manning's fraught relationship with a gay student, his shock at the amount of classified information he has access to as a young soldier and his detention, which has now lasted two years, for allegedly uploading military secrets.
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by Youtubes Mon Apr 16, 2012 14:10

yotube (1 min) - 'THE RADICALISATION OF BRADLEY MANNING' HYPER CONNECTED THEATRE
http://youtu.be/8a7ZXVchhuE

YOUTUBE (30 secs) Audience Reaction's 'The Radicalisation Of Bradley Manning'
http://youtu.be/p1yOoHCNbqE

by Ben Griffin - Veterans for Peace UK Fri Apr 13, 2012 11:53

The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning opened last night in Tasker Millwood School, Haverford West, Wales. This is the school that Bradley Manning (BM) attended during his teenage years. I have been in West Wales this week along with other activists to organise around the play in an effort to raise the issue of BM. There is a general awareness in the area that BM went to school here and that he is facing serious charges in the US but this is yet to form into a wider campaign of solidarity. It is my hope that this play will help to humanize BM and spur people into action.

The play has been written by Tim Price. I met Tim last year at Occupy London during a talk given by Michael Ratner on the plight of BM. He was obviously passionate about the case and we met up again outside the Supreme Court during a vigil for Julian Assange and again outside the US Embassy at a vigil for BM.

The performance begins as soon as the audience enters the school with sounds of the playground mixed in with the sounds of army training. On entering the school hall actors in combat dress with helmets and weapons distribute polyprop seats and commands to sit in designated positions. The stage is in the centre of the hall with a tall CCTV pillar in each corner. At the base of each pillar monitors are piled up which are used to convey messages and footage throughout the play. The seating is arranged into four banks around the stage and the whole scene reminded me of a boxing arena.

The play is not chronological with the action moving at a fast pace between BM’s school years to Army training, Iraq, Incarceration and back again.The cast is constantly in view with costume changes worked into the action. The actors are completely immersed into the story.

The school scenes build an argument that BM could have been influenced by radical Welsh movements like the Rebecca Riots and Chartists. The pressures applied to the young BM are the hypocritical authority of the teacher and the bullying peer pressure of his classmates. These two pressures from authority and peers are constant throughout the play and build into an almost unbearable intensity.

There are scenes depicting BM working in mundane jobs in the US and wishing that he could afford to go to college. This leads him to turn to his father with a request for help with college fees. The father convinces Bradley to join the Army by telling him that they will pay his college fees. The scenes with his father bring out the wider issue of how young people from economically depressed areas are recruited into the military. West Wales is a prime recruiting ground for the British Army.

The scenes depicting Army training and service in Iraq are authentic. The chaotic nature of the war in Iraq ring true, I served in Iraq in 2005 with US forces in Baghdad. I particularly like a scene in which BM works out that some detainees labeled as insurgents are in fact political protesters, his superior tells him that his job is to find more insurgents not reduce their numbers.

The pressure on BM builds and builds as he goes round after round with authority and peers with their lust for perpetuating all that is wrong in the world fueling his sense of duty to do the right thing. The play climaxes with a wonderfully uplifting scene. BM is on the computer downloading what will become the Collateral Murder Video, Afghan War Diaries, Iraq War Logs and Cablegate. The rest of the cast launches into a Lady Gaga number which culminates in hundreds of pieces paper with classified information printed on it being hurled into the air. I was genuinely moved by this scene.

Scenes portraying BM’s incarceration are disturbing and highlight the inhumane treatment amounting to torture that this young man has been subjected to.

The play is in essence a celebration of a small (BM is 5’2″ and 105 lbs) young (22 when fist incarcerated) homosexual man who won’t accept the world as it is and does something truly incredible about it.

The play is running in Haverford West, Cardiff and Conors Quay. It will also be live streamed from saturday. More details can be found on the NTW Website

Veterans for Peace UK is campaigning for the charges against Bradley Manning to be dropped and for his immediate release.

Ben Griffin

by Wales Wed Apr 11, 2012 08:57

WELSH supporters are set to embark on a month-long campaign to help a Pembrokeshire-schooled US soldier accused of the biggest leak of classified information in American history.

Bradley Manning is due in court at Fort Meade in the US between April 24 and 26 where proceedings against him will continue.

Charges against the 24-year-old include “aiding the enemy” in relation to 700,000 secret documents released via the WikiLeaks website.

The charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Now the Pembrokeshire-based Wise Up For Bradley Manning Campaign Group has organised a touring exhibition to travel across the country throughout April.

The exhibition will tour alongside National Theatre Wales’ political production The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning which will be performed in schools across Wales and globally via a live internet stream.
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