Manning: I’m Not a Pacifist

Chelsea Manning, the WikiLeaks source formerly known as Bradley Manning, came forward Wednesday to publicly dispute the claim that she was motivated to leak the information in an effort for peace. “It’s not terribly clear to me that my actions were explicitly done for ‘peace,’” Manning wrote in a statement to the Guardian. “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 2010-11.” Specifically, Manning referenced the 2013 Sean McBride peace award, which he was awarded in absentia in March. Manning called herself a “transparency advocate” when she leaked the hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. army documents to WikiLeaks.