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Tighe Barry, an activist with the CODEPINK from the city of Los Angeles, has joined Press TV to further discuss the issue of the US military court’s verdict of 35 years in prison for the whistleblower, Bradley Manning.

What follows is a rough transcription of the interview.

- How do you react to this verdict?

- Well, once again we see where the actual criminals are getting away with murder, those in the collateral murder video that Bradley Manning released on Wikileaks, they are not being brought up on charges.

We saw back in the 70’s Lieutenant [William] Calley, who murdered dozens in cold blood in Vietnam, in the Vietnam War, three years in jail, it was actually a house arrest.

Bradley Manning is a hero in this country, he's a hero for being an incredible person to step forward, take the courageous move to put his life on the line so that others might know what's going on and I believe that he brought the end of the Iraq War, to a swift end.

I think that the Obama administration would have loved to have kept five thousand, ten thousand, fifteen thousand troops in Iraq like he did in Afghanistan and Bradley Manning deserves a medal and not a jail term.

- If I could just be the devil’s advocate for a moment Tighe, you know, certainly from the US government’s point of view this man did deserve some form of punishment, did not he?

- Well, I think that there is a possibility that they could have gotten him on some charge of maybe stealing property of the United States but that would carry a very small term; maybe a year or so in jail and I think, an actual fact of the matter is that Bradley Manning, if there was enough media coverage of what happened, what was going on during Bradley Manning’s trial and what he did for this country, I think even that would be too much.

- Right. Also tell us Tighe, how do you feel about the fact that before this sentence, you know, Bradley Manning himself in fact apologized for some of what he did.

- Well, I mean there is some suspicions that he was coerced into that.

I think that Bradley Manning was trying to get the best sentence he could get out of the court today. I had friends that were there today..., hundreds of people showed up to give their support for Bradley Manning and there will be hundreds more in front of the White house tonight, asking Barack Obama to commute his sentence.

We elected this president in this country on the order of change that we are going to get transparency and what we have gotten is more and more of the same if not worse than under George W. Bush, who is a true war criminal.

- Tighe, you know, I have seen the discussion coming out of this specific trial of Bradley Manning that the kind of precedent that this has set, the kind of fear that this may raise in other whistleblowers or potential whistleblowers’ hearts.

- Well, I think it does; I think the American public lives in a state of fear, I think; but also at the time I think that people are waking up to the fact that without these whistleblowers, without Snowden, without others like John Kiriakou, who was a CIA agent, who revealed, who gave proof that the United States was using torture at Guantanamo and other CIA spots around the world. He's doing 30 months right now in a federal penitentiary.

With people like that, I think, you are going to see more and more whistleblowers now that people see that they are under 24-hour surveillance and that they want this change to happen in their country.

I commend Bradley Manning and I think that it is going to embolden people.

- Speaking about people I want to ask about the public’s view on all of this because you know, the response although on social media has been quite out there and loud, you know, when it comes to coming out on the streets the public’s response is being fairly muted or has it not been?

- Well, it has because there has been zero media coverage on what is taking place in the Bradley Manning’s case. I have just..., for example today, there was a couple of blips on CNN, we have got these so-called media programs that are supposed to be bringing us the news of what is happening and I think without the Snowden case that just recently came up, I don't think that the American public would have known who Bradley Manning was.

Bradley Manning should have been splashed all over the news media, we know that Bradley Manning did not release any documents that hurt anyone but what he did release was able to wake most Americans up that were not questioning their government about their position in Iraq.