Free Chelsea Manning...and Julian Assange as well

Is it not the supreme irony that the US gives presidential libraries and six figure pensions to its war criminals but imprisons the blokes that call out US war crimes in the Middle East and Africa. Former Pvt. Chelsea Manning did her job obeying the Constitution by outing such crimes in Iraq nine years ago. Her reward? Seven years in prison, several of which the UN described as torture, before being mercifully pardoned by Obama. When she stood on principle to refuse further cooperation, her government jailed her again for another sixty-two days, with more jail time ahead if she refuses to talk at the next Grand Jury investigation.

Then there's Julian Assange, forced into wretched conditions at Ecuador's London embassy for seven years to escape extradition to a cruel America bent on imprisoning this courageous journalist for publishing Manning's revelations. The US exerted pressure on Ecuador to cough up Assange from his Ecuadoran asylum upon which the Brits immediately imprisoned him for 50 weeks for jumping bail on a Swedish sex charge investigation. That provides the US nearly a year to snare Assange before he's once again free.

The US does pay lip service to justice for its real villains, imprisoning low down on the war crime chain soldier William Calley who served just four years for following superiors' orders to snuff out 500 innocents at Vietnam's My Lai massacre in 1968. Twenty-seven of his follow murderers were set free. Flash forward to today where the president is mulling the pardon of Navy Special Ops Chief Edward Gallagher for the grisly knife killing of a teenage captive, as well as others convicted of war crimes in our forever Middle East wars. Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-CA) is pushing the pardon claiming he too killed many innocents during his tour of duty as an artillery officer in Iraq...and it was no big deal.

This is a grotesque country where our leaders can launch criminal wars, give a pass to heinous individual crimes; then seek decades in prison for the true heroes seeking justice. It's time to give our support and demand freedom for Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange.