Chelsea Manning, who was sentenced to 35 years in military prison for leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, said Wedneday in her first statement since August that she is not a “pacifist,” but rather a “transparency advocate.”
“It’s not terribly clear to me that my actions were explicitly done for ‘peace,'” Manning wrote in a statement to the Guardian. “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 added that the cables did not necessarily support opposition to U.S. wars.
“I believe 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,'” she wrote.
Manning announced her request to be recognized as a woman in August, and is still pushing for treatment for Gender Dysphoria. Manning’s lawyer said in September that the military brought in an expert to conduct an assessment.
Manning also clarified that she no longer carries any rank in the U.S. military, and would prefer to go by “Ms.” or no title.
