StandingWithWhistleblowersFrom ChelseaManningTo
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Standing With Whistleblowers From Chelsea Manning to Reality Winner Need Help? mailto:[email protected] Get this transcript with table formatting Paul George: Hello and welcome to Other Voices, brought to you by Peninsula Peace and Justice Center. I'm your host Paul George. Donald Trump has his first whistleblower case as President of the United States. About six months ago, a young woman, a National Security Agency contractor much like Edward Snowden was, leaked to the investigate journal The Intercept an NSA document that purported to show evidence of Russian meddling in our elections, and specifically in local election software and with local election officials. Donald Trump doesn't have a big problem with this whistleblower though, because it seems like not many people know about the case of Reality Lee Winner. We're going to try to change that tonight. And our guest, Jeff Patterson, is one of the people who's trying to make public, more public, the case of Reality Winner. Jeff, welcome back to Other Voices. Jeff Patterson: Thanks for having me, Paul. Paul George: Jeff has spent the last 11 years, in fact, on just this kind of effort as director of Courage to Resist, which provides legal and other forms of support to military war resisters. Most prominently among them, Chelsea Manning. Jeff was the first enlisted soldier to speak out against the first Gulf War in 1990 when he refused to deploy to Iraq. And these days, along with Rainey Reitman and Trevor Timm, Jeff founded Stand With Reality, to provide support to America's latest whistleblower, Reality Lee Winner. Much as Courage to Resist stood with Chelsea Manning for many years. I want to start, Jeff, with your last visit here was about Chelsea's case, I believe. I don't remember exactly when it was, but several years ago. Jeff Patterson: It was a long time ago. Chelsea Manning was arrested in May of 2010, and she just walked out of prison a few months ago. So that was a long seven year stretch of protests and petitions and marching on the White House and traveling the country to wherever she was being incarcerated at. It was a long haul. Paul George: Yeah, I wanted to start there, not only with Chelsea's case which ended up on a rather happy note, but how many military resisters has Courage to Resist worked with over the years? Jeff Patterson: We were founded, I would say, formally in 2005, when the Iraq War was first picking up. And we've worked on 40 military court martials, meaning people who were facing prison time. Standing With Whistleblowers From Chelsea Manning to Reality Winner Page 2 of 21 Paul George: For refusing to deploy to ... Jeff Patterson: For refusing to deploy to Iraq usually, and sometimes Afghanistan. And sometimes those individuals sought refuge in Canada, some of those people were deported, some of those people are allowed to stay. Other people simply came back from Iraq and said to themselves, "I'm never going to do that. I can't go back. I've seen too much death. I'm not going to survive, and I disagree with what's happening over there," and simply turned themselves in later and faced the consequences of that. Paul George: Yeah, so people take a lot of paths to, because as you know, it's not easy to refuse an order like that. Because you're facing a lot of personal grief. Jeff Patterson: Right, and the military has a hold on people's minds. If you get a bad paper discharge from the military, your life is over, for example. Paul George: Although as we found out tragically, you can still buy a gun. Jeff Patterson: Exactly. Right. But a lot of that's internalized, as far as that guilt of letting your buddies down. And a lot of people I work with went through the Vietnam War as well and you have the same experiences. You can totally disagree with the war, but yet the friends you train with and live with for years are ... Paul George: Are still friends. Jeff Patterson: Are still friends and they're facing life and death situations regardless of whether you politically disagree with the war and personally can't be involved. Paul George: Chelsea's case is the best known one. But I want to spend a moment before we get into Reality's case about how grassroots support, what you're trying to drum up, the demonstrations and stuff, how important a role that plays. What role does it play in these kind of cases? Or like with Chelsea's in particular? Jeff Patterson: Yeah, I'm the project director of an organization dedicated to building that grassroots support, so I have to say it makes a big difference. But I've done this for the last 10 years because I've seen it make a difference. In my own case I was facing five years in prison for speaking out against the first Gulf War. And it made all the difference in the world that people in the community came forward to support me. And not only give me a pat on the back, but actually fundraise and find an attorney to represent me. And because of that my jail time was limited. And once I got out, I relied on that community of support to move on from the military and try to make a life after that. One of the biggest cases prior ... Standing With Whistleblowers From Chelsea Manning to Reality Winner Page 3 of 21 Paul George: I want to pick up on something you just said. How did that kind of public support shorten your sentence? Was it ... Jeff Patterson: Well, I was facing five years in prison. And every one of these cases we do, and we've done almost 50 of them now, it's a different situation. Meaning we're dealing with a particular prosecution team that's taking orders from a particular general. And sometimes that general is focused on deploying thousands of troops into a combat theater and sometimes he's not. Sometimes he's dealing with troop shortages and he's going to take every last person he can regardless of medical conditions. And sometimes they're not. Sometimes the U.S. is