BERKELEY, California, (AFP) - Leaders in the northern California city of Berkeley late Tuesday sidestepped a proposal to make a hero of the US Army private suspected of giving a mountain of secret data to whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks. The successful vote to table the notion came after public comment that ranged from painting former US Vice-President Dick Cheney a war criminal, to deriding the resolution proclaiming Bradley Manning a hero as an embarrassing waste of time. Berkeley, located in the San Francisco bay area, has long supported progressive social and environmental causes. The city is home to the University of California at Berkeley, known for student activism that dates back to protests against the Vietnam War in the 1960s. While the resolution praising Manning and urging military officials to release him from custody was put aside, city council members can revive it at a future date. Blowing the whistle on war crimes is not a crime, read the resolution. The resolution argued that the govt documents reveal years of whitewashing the war in Afghanistan. Opposing illegal acts of war is a noble and important thing, but we need to give the honour to whoever actually has done that, council member Kriss Worthington said while debating the resolution. My problem is that we are declaring someone a hero who didnt say he did it, he continued. It is a strange concept to me to say we have an anonymous hero. While supportive of WikiLeaks, council members felt it was premature to say for certain whether Manning supplied the data, and whether the massive document disclosure has cost lives or put people in danger. Another speaker urged the council to reject the foolish resolution and tell the bearded and beaded jesters of the 1960s we have had enough of them.