2011-04-24 This Week in WikiLeaks - Ethan McCord & Kevin Zeese on Bradley Manning & Soldiers in War

The tenth episode of "This Week in WikiLeaks" features Iraq war veteran Ethan McCord and Bradley Manning Support Network Steering Committee member Kevin Zeese. McCord and Zeese have both appeared on "This Week in WikiLeaks." They are part of this week's episode because I recorded them talking at an event in New York City organized by World Can't Wait to promote a new short documentary, "Incident in New Baghdad."

Run time is about 1 hour for the episode.

To listen, click on the play button on the widget below:

Here is a link that you can follow to play the podcast. You can also go to the CMN News page and download an .mp3 to listen to or go find it on iTunes by searching for "CMN News" and the podcast with Ethan McCord should appear.

WLCentral previously posted video from this event. The podcast features more from McCord. He talks about soldiers being trained to commit incidents like what is seen in the "Collateral Murder" video and how the infantry is taught to treat humans outside their infantry like dirt. He addresses why there may not be more soldiers engaging in acts of resistance like Bradley Manning did.

McCord suggests the army goes after these 17, 18 or 19 year old kids because they don’t have empathy yet and they can easily be molded into killers. They want people who aren’t going to think about if what they are doing is wrong. Also, it’s very hard for soldiers to “take off that hero hat.”

“In order to change the soldiers and the way they act, we have to change the system," says McCord. Also, he says "everybody is taking pictures." McCord took pictures and he gave all of his pictures to the director of "Incident in New Baghdad" and they appear in the film.

Zeese in his statement says, "Bradley was a truth-teller in a time when telling the truth is something that is dangerous to do and he’s paying the price for it." He describes the police force that came out at Quantico on March 20 and how authorities would not let veterans lay flowers at a war memorial as part of a Bradley Manning support rally. He asks people to become a part of Support Network's organizing efforts.

Any ideas for future guests? Maybe, you want to come on the show and be part of a weekly discussion on WikiLeaks with the show's news correspondents? Shoot me a message on Twitter @kgosztola or to my email, which is kgosztola@hotmail.com.