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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 7/28/10

Letter to an American hero

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Message John Grant

This letter is being sent to PFC Bradley Manning at the following prison address in Kuwait. For obvious reasons, I've left my return address off this posting.

Inmate PFC Bradley Manning

TFCF - Theater Field Confinement Facility

APO AE 09366 USA

Dear PFC Manning:

The New York Times just reported on 92,000 classified military field reports from Afghanistan that graphically underscore what a demoralizing mess that war is. The leaked material has stirred new opposition in Congress to funding the war, and WikiLeaks is now seen by many as a much needed instrument to crack open the grip that secrecy has on the truth in America.

On the other side, there are powerful enemies. General James Mattis told a Senate confirmation hearing for his new job as Commander of Central Command that the leak was "an appalling act." But then he assured the senators the leak revealed "nothing new."

The point is such leaks are finally fueling robust debate over the war in Afghanistan. And the leak you are alleged to have made that resulted in WikiLeak's web video "Collateral Murder" was the beginning of it all. See it at: http://www.collateralmurder.com/

I'm a veteran who worked in radio intelligence in Vietnam. I was a radio direction finder in the Army Security Agency, the service wing of the National Security Agency. The ASA was disbanded in 1973, and its activities were assumed by various intelligence commands.

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I'm a 72-year-old American who served in Vietnam as a naive 19-year-old. From that moment on, I've been studying and re-thinking what US counter-insurgency war means. I live outside of Philadelphia, where I'm a writer, photographer and political (more...)
 

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