US in court of public opinion

DESPITE the tribulations of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, it is on the far sketchier figure of Bradley Manning that the US government has focused its ire – as a US soldier, and alleged traitor.

For eight months Manning was held in a military prison where he was kept in a cell for 23 hours a day, sometimes naked.

The evidence against him seems overwhelming – yet the US military has not explained how such a lowly soldier was able to obtain the classified information relayed to WikiLeaks.

Also the publicity the leaked US cables have been given has been far more injurious to foreign regimes than to Washington. Whether this matters to US military justice will now become apparent.