Karen Nickel
Staff Reporter

Private Manning has gone through a great deal since joining the U.S. Army in 2007. As an intelligence analyst stationed in Iraq in 2009, Pvt. Manning witnessed things so disturbing that sharing this information with the world became more important than their freedom.

Now Manning has embarked on a new goal, to petition President Obama for clemency and to begin to live as she really is, as Chelsea Manning.

Chelsea Manning (formerly Bradley Manning) was an intelligence analyst during her military stint in Iraq in 2009. It was during this tour that Manning came across information that shook her belief in the war and what America was doing there.

She contacted WikiLeaks and began to release chunks of information to be analysed and released. Beginning in 2010 with the ‘Iraq War Logs’, the ‘Afghan War Diary’ and the damning visual evidence of U.S. forces killing two Reuters journalists and shooting four people that came to help, including two children. This was the ‘Collateral Murder’ video.

Manning hoped to show the world that the U.S. was not being accountable for the abuses and crimes it was perpetuating under the banner of the War On Terror.

The U.S. government detained and charged Manning in 2010 with leaking confidential information and she was placed in custody. There were allegations of torture while she was held waiting for the hearing. At the end of the trial, Manning was found guilty of around 20 charges, but was not found guilty of ‘Aiding the Enemy’, and spared from the death penalty sentence.

Manning and her legal team have claimed a ‘Whistle Blower’ definition of what she did, as sharing information with a reporter was done for the common good.

On Aug. 21, Manning was sentenced to 35 years in a military prison; she released a statement to supporters thanking them for the three years of support, in it was this statement, “As I transition into this next phase of my life, I want everyone to know the real me. I am Chelsea Manning. I am female.”

On Sept. 3, Manning petitioned the White House for a commutation of her sentence, stating in the petition, “When I chose to disclose classified information, I did so out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to others.”

There has been no comment from Obama.