Quotes

If you have a quote to suggest, please email us with the exact quote, a link to the source and a link to some information about the person who’s quoted.

For Julian Assange landmark speeches (full of quotes by him not about him) see here

For Bradley Manning’s own words (quotes by him)see here and here

A selection of quotes about Bradley Manning

For David Coombs’ quotes on Brad see his Nov 2012 address

• Alan Moore: “When the persecution of an individual who has exposed an evil is pursued so ruthlessly and yet the evil itself is studiedly ignored, all of us know that there is something very wrong with the way that our society is conducting itself. And if we do not protest in the strongest terms about what is being done in our name, then we become complicit.” See quote source.

• Les Barker: “The US has shown remarkable energy in its pursuit of alleged whistleblowers. Has it investigated the deaths of those innocent civilians with the same vigour? With any vigour whatsoever? And which would you consider a crime? To conceal the deaths of innocent civilians, or to reveal them? I know what my answer would be.” See quote source.

• Noam Chomsky: “It is a privilege to join the campaign to support Bradley Manning for his courage and integrity in serving his country by helping make the government accountable to its citizens, and to inform the world of what its people should know.” See quote source.

• Daniel Ellsberg: “If Bradley Manning did what he’s accused of, then he’s a hero of mine and I think he did a great service to this country.” See quote source.

• Bianca Jagger: “Bradley Manning is an American hero.”
  See quote source.

• Michael Moore: “To suggest that lives were put in danger by the release of the WikiLeaks documents is the most cynical of statements. Lives were put in danger the night we invaded the sovereign nation of Iraq, an act that had nothing to do with what the Bradley Mannings of this country signed up for: to defend our people from attack. It was a war based on a complete lie and lives were not only put in danger, hundreds of thousands of them were exterminated. For those who organised this massacre to point a finger at Bradley Manning is the ultimate example of Orwellian hypocrisy.”
  See quote source.

• John Pilger: “Private Manning is the world’s pre-eminent prisoner of conscience, having remained true to the Nuremberg principle that every soldier has the right to ‘a moral choice.’ His suffering mocks the notion of the land of the free.”
  See quote source.

• Peter Tatchell: “If Bradley Manning was the person who copied the secret US diplomatic cables to WikilLeaks, he is a hero for exposing human rights abuses.” See quote source.
• “He is a true true patriot… warning us of the abuses that are happening in our name.” See quote source.

• Barack Obama: “He broke the law.” (Bradley Manning has yet to be tried). See quote source.

• Juan Mendez: “I believe Bradley Manning was subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in the excessive and prolonged isolation he was put in during the eight months he was in Quantico.” See quote source (pp74-5).

• James Branum: “Dismissal of all charges is the only just option.” See quote source.

• Ray McGovern: “My view of Bradley Manning is that he’s a very courageous young man who… did what I didn’t have the guts to do during the Vietnam war.” See quote source.

• Tom Dyer (Schoolfriend of Bradley Manning): “He had a great moral compass. He knew in himself what was wrong and what was right, and he didn’t like the thought of people abusing their status and making other people feel small and doing things that were wrong.” See quote source.

• Gareth Peirce: “It is important that there is as big a campaign as there can be about Bradley Manning.” See quote source.

• Mike Huckabee: “Whoever in our government leaked that information is guilty of treason and I think anything less than execution is too kind a penalty.” See quote source.