One hundred and thirty-six years in prison are Bradley Manning’s perspective after judge Army Col. Denise Lind had convicted him guilty yesterday for 20 charges including espionage. Juan Cole has listed top ten ways, Manning has changed the world with his leaks to WikiLeaks of hundreds of thousands of mainly classified documents.
One might easily continue:
11. His leaks let constitutional law professor Obama show his true colors when prejudging him: “He broke the law” (in April 2011).
12. Manning has proved that the Unites States would not hesitate to keep whistle-blowers in cages (in 2010 in Kuwait).
13. Likewise, that the U.S. humiliates and maybe tortures whistle-blowers, according to Amnesty International (Quantico Brig in 2010 and 2011).
14. It has become clear that Julian Assange and Edward Snowden are well-advised to prevent, under all circumstances, entering the U.S.
15. Manning has provided historians with material (the Iraq and Afghanistan warlogs, the diplomatic cables) which needs to be studied probably for decades.
16. He has taught us the lesson that locking him away will not silence those who criticize previous and current U.S. administrations.
31 July 2013 @ 5:05 pm.
Last modified July 31, 2013.
Freelance 
Did you know that Manning actually indirectly caused the arab spring?!
He leaked diplomatic cables which indicated that the US was less supportive of the Tunesian president Ben Ali than they appeared.
This strengthened the people of Tunesia in their resolve to get rid of their president.
Eventually they managed to chase him out of the country and the arab spring got on it’s way.
That was actually number 2 on Cole’s list:
“2. Manning revealed the full extent of the corruption of Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidin Ben Ali, adding fuel to the youth protest movement of late 2010, which translated the relevant US cables into Arabic. Manning contributed to the outbreak of powerful youth movements demanding more democratic governance in the Arab world.”
Apologizes, it skipped my eye.