Chelsea Manning speaks from prison for the first time, rejects “pacifist” label

In her first public statement since being sentenced to 35 years in prison, Chelsea Manning (formerly known as Bradley Manning) says that she rejects being called a “pacifist.”

Manning recently received the 2013 Sean MacBride peace award, which was accepted by Ann Wright, a retired US army colonel who has now become a prominent peace activist. But the young soldier says she had no idea she had been nominated for the award.

“I had absolutely no idea I received this award, let alone accepted it,” Manning wrote on Tuesday. “In fact, I first found out about the award when I began receiving mail containing quotes from Ms. Wright’s acceptance speech.”

She wrote that she does not consider herself a “pacifist” and did not leak the materials to WikiLeaks in the name of peace.

From my perspective at least, it's not terribly clear to me that my actions were explicitly done for "peace." I don't consider myself a "pacifist," "antiwar," or (especially) a "conscientious objector." Now—I accept that there may be "peaceful" or "anti-war" implications to my actions—but this is purely based on your subjective interpretation of the primary source documents released in 2010-2011. I believe that it is also perfectly reasonable to subjectively interpret these documents and come to the opposite opinion and say "hey, look at these documents, they clearly justify this war" (or diplomatic discussion, or detention of an individual). This is precisely the reason why I avoided overbroad and unnecessary redactions on my end while providing (and attempting to provide) these documents to media organizations in early 2010. l'm a "transparency advocate." I feel that the public cannot decide what actions and policies are or are not justified if they don't even know the most rudimentary details about them and their effects.

Manning did not say much else about her time in prison but did acknowledge at the end of the two-page letter that she “would like to thank everyone who has avoided misgendering me and switched to using my new name and feminine pronouns.”