US war criminals should pay Chelsea Manning’s $256,000 fine

How does the US deal with top leaders who lead America into senseless wars that kills hundreds of thousands? It lavishes millions in pensions and book deals on them to live out their lives in splendor. How about a lowly Army intelligence analyst who outed their war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan by giving classified documents to journalist Julian Assange? Manning was imprisoned for seven years, the first several of which under conditions described by the UN and humanitarian groups as torture. Released in 2017, Manning was tossed back in the clink last May for refusing to testify in a Grand Jury inquiry for the upcoming show trial of Assange, currently being extradited from the UK to be punished for exposing US war crimes. Finally released after 256 days, the Judge retained the thousand dollar a day fine Manning accumulated. That’s $256,000 that Manning owes Uncle Sam for the privilege of eight years of torture and imprisonment for the crime of outing war crimes.

We’ll never investigate, much less imprison US war criminals George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice for their crimes against the Afghan and Iraqi people. How about, at the least, we require each of them to cough up $64,000 to pay off Manning’s debt for serving humanity. That, as the name of an infamous game show from the 50’s suggests…is The $64,000 Question.