Bradley Manning Says He's Sorry 496
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "The Washington Post reports that Pfc. Bradley Manning told a military judge during his sentencing hearing that he is sorry he hurt the United States by leaking hundreds of thousands of sensitive military and diplomatic documents to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks and he asked for leniency as he spoke for less than five minutes, often in a quavering voice "I'm sorry I hurt people. I'm sorry that I hurt the United States," said Manning, who was convicted last month of multiple crimes, including violations of the Espionage Act, for turning over the classified material. "I'm apologizing for the unintended consequences of my actions. I believed I was going to help people, not hurt people." Speaking publicly for only the third time since he was arrested in Iraq in June 2010, Manning said he had been naive. "I look back at my decisions and wonder, 'How on earth could I, a junior analyst, possibly believe I could change the world for the better over the decisions of those with the proper authority?'""
Re:Not Quite (Score:2, Interesting)
No, that's not an apology, that's a statement of self deprecation; meaning that he should have known that the powers he is up against are so overwhelming that he should have just kept his mouth shut than try to do the right thing. David vs. Goliath, without god's grace to see him through.
Re:I'd be sorry (Score:5, Interesting)
[Spoiler alert] Last page of 1984.
That ?
... Do you remember, [O'Brien] went on, writing in your diary, 'Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four'?
....
You believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right.
Yes, said Winston.
O'Brien held up his left hand, its back toward Winston, with the thumb hidden and the four fingers extended. How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?
Four.
And if the Party says that it is not four but five--then how many?
Four.
Five
Re:You did change the world for the better! (Score:3, Interesting)
I wouldn't fault him for that as much as fault the US government for our gross miscarriage of justice.
the impact of this is causing ripples around the globe - more and more companies involving technology do not have any desire to work with the US. This wouldn't matter if we weren't a country that's living basically depends on our technology involvement.
MIT has told the world "fuck you" and was seen as a leader in technology. The NSA has done the same. That's pretty significant.
Re:Not Quite (Score:5, Interesting)
it sounds more like "I was naive to think that doing the right thing would change anything for the better".
like, that it was naive to think that anyone would flinch and any war criminals would get what's coming to them... naive to think that exposing any crimes would put a stop to them, naive that those in authority would do jack shit about them.
even then, it's unlikely that he got to say whatever he wanted anyways.
Re:I'd be sorry (Score:5, Interesting)
That wasn't the last page. I know that wasn't the last page because the last pages of that book haunted me for weeks after I read them. Its probably one of the most emotionally disturbing bits of fiction that I have ever read. Just thinking of the last few words of that book sends shudders down my spine now.
This particular scene however, I have trouble not replacing Winston and O'Brien with the TNG version of this exact scene. "There are FOUR lights!"
Re: You did change the world for the better! (Score:5, Interesting)
Sounds like outright sarcasm to me. Last refuge of the tortured.
Re:Not Quite (Score:5, Interesting)
"I look back at my decisions and wonder, 'How on earth could I, a junior analyst, possibly believe I could change the world for the better over the decisions of those with the proper authority?'"
That struck me as Bradley saying "I should not be thinking for myself, questioning my superiors and acting according to my morals. I should just follow orders."
Thank goodness the Nuremberg trials have shown that this is the right attitude for a soldier. Never question superiors, never act in a way contrary to their orders no matter how many rights you violate. Bradley Manning has learned...
Re:You did change the world for the better! (Score:5, Interesting)
How well did WikiLeaks try to protect the innocent people caught up in all of this mess?
Pretty well. They offered to work with the US Government, and let the US review any material prior to release, to ensure no lives were endangered. The US refused the offer.
How well did the American Government try to protect the innocent people caught up in all of this mess? Not at all.
Re:I'd be sorry (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, it's more like Nikolai Bukharin's hysterical personal letter to Stalin [yale.edu] on the eve of his execution:
For example:
Re:I'd be sorry (Score:5, Interesting)
Has anyone NOT read 1984 by now? I'm pretty sure it was required reading at high school in the UK for a while.
If anyone hasn't read it, they should do so. Right now. It is the book most relevant to the times in which we live. Spoilers follow. The parallels are just terrifying:
Of course, there are things that don't apply too. In 1984 the government exercised absolute control over information, as the Soviet Union did (which is what inspired the book). Goldstein could be manufactured out of nothing because Big Brother controlled all access to information and had perfect propaganda in place. I am very skeptical such a thing does or could exist today. Our Big Brother equivalents hide information obsessively but they know they can't actually control it once out, nor can they rewrite history. If the internet had not happened or had evolved in a different way (like in China) then this part might also have come true, but so far in the west I believe we have a pretty good idea of what's truth vs fiction - we might be missing information but we are not widely believing propaganda. Well, except for idiots who have an instinctive need to "belong to a team" in which case they choose to believe propaganda even though disproving it is trivial. But that's a different problem than the people in 1984 had.
Re: Fake apology (Score:4, Interesting)
My personal experience dealing with psychotics is that this is surprisingly effective. Take the words right out of their mouth, and the delusional motherfuckers take it at face value, like I finally saw the light.
It can't hurt.
John McCain (Score:4, Interesting)
I believe McCain is a dolt, but at least he was a brave dolt. He was captured and tortured in Viet Nam. While under torture, he signed confessions and accusations against the United States. But yet he was elected as a senator. There are many other examples, as others have pointed out.
Manning is in good company.
Re:I'd be sorry (Score:5, Interesting)
The "proper authority" wording really catches at me. Authority doesn't mean that you know everything; it just means that you were in the right place at the right time with sufficient credentials to have power.
What he could have said there is, "In my low-level position I didn't have the perspective to see what damage this might cause, and should not have overriden the authority of those in a position to take a broader perspective." It's written so that people could come away thinking that's what he did say, but it clearly doesn't. Instead, he's saying exactly what you said: "I had no power to change things. I'd hoped the leaks would give me some, but they didn't. The power structure remains in place."
What I don't understand is, just who is this addressed to? Surely he doesn't expect the sentencing judge to be fooled by this non-apology into granting leniency. Could it just be a thinly coded message, telling the people who support him that there's still a lot of work to do, dressed up as an "apology" so that it would get press coverage?
Actually, if the quotes are exact, what really bothers me is the way they read.
My dad was obsessed with brainwashing. 1984, Communism, the whole Cold War terror. Which, ironically, even though the Satan-led Godless Commies were going to come in and force us to all Love Big Brother managed to get by just fine without "enemy combatants" or citizens who effectively became non-citizens the minute they left US soil.
So he collected books on brainwashing. And the stilted wording of the "confessions" of the brainwashed in those books were rife with phrasings like those attributed to Manning.
In fact, that is probably why you don't hear too much about brainwashing any more. Essentially brainwashing was the process of brutalizing someone into a psychotic state where they'd parrot out "the truth". But only the most credulous would believe the wooden delivery or unnatural tone of these confessions. As propaganda, brainwashing sucked. And that's all most brainwashing was ever used for, since it didn't actually cause anyone to truly "love Big Brother". It didn't re-shape them to be happy supporters of Communism and its ideals. It just produced automatons whose sole utility was to act as automatons speaking the words that were forced into their heads.