Bradley Manning's Court Date Finally Set 523
bs0d3 writes "Bradley Manning has finally been scheduled for a day in court. On December 16, he will have an Article 32 hearing (military pre-trial). Private Manning has been in jail for one and half years. The Article 32 hearing will begin at Fort Meade, Maryland. The primary purpose of the hearing is to evaluate the relative strengths and weaknesses of the government's case, as well as to provide the defense with an opportunity to obtain pretrial discovery. Further trial dates and locations are still unknown."
Re:About fucking time (Score:5, Informative)
The Sixth Amendment called... (Score:5, Informative)
I shudder to think of a world where "one and a half years" qualifies as "speedy". Or have we forgotten the Bill of Rights?
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
I know the government isn't the swiftest thing in the world, but I don't believe it's that slow. And I'm not sure courts martial qualify as "criminal" prosecutions. But I do know that if I were PFC Manning's lawyer, I'd definitely be bringing that up.
Re:The Sixth Amendment called... (Score:5, Informative)
Your assuming he tried to assert that right and was denied. The defendant doesn't have to assert that right if they don't want to. For all we know the defense has been getting their ducks in a row and have been using the extra time.
Re:About fucking time (Score:5, Informative)
Having been active duty military, you are obliged to enter into any criminal proceedings, as a member (juror), with impartiality the same as in the civilian world.
People are under the impression that the UCMJ is some oddball, ignores the constitution document. It isn't. The rules make less sense to civilians ,and it is harsher than the average civvy law, but it's also quite fair.
Re:The Sixth Amendment called... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:spin. (Score:5, Informative)
What crimes exactly? Look a few posts below for one example.
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2537478&cid=38128690 [slashdot.org]
In a nutshell, US troops executed at least 10 civilians and then called in an airstrike to destroy the evidence.
Re:About fucking time (Score:4, Informative)
In the civilian world, yes. In the military world, he could stand before a general, or a tribunal, or a jury of his peers, which is to say, a bunch of active duty military guys who have been told over and over for the last year that this guy is evil.
-Rick
Juries under the UCMJ are almost always high raking officers and NCO's. It's not a jury of your peers. You may request enlisted, but you'll probably end up with Master SGT and above.
Note: I was on "Class-A Duty" right before my ETS, meaning I had to do all the details that required the green monkey suit. This included parade detail, charity poker night for the wives of generals, soldier of the month board (I won) and bailiff at court marshals. In the court marshal where I was a bailiff, the lowest ranking enlisted member of the jury was a SGT Major. The lowest ranking officer was a full bird colonel. Every one of those bastards stepped on my highly polished shoes on their way out of the jury box into the deliberation room as I was holding the door.
Re:Leaking Secret documents... not OK (Score:4, Informative)
Loose lips also reveal war crimes.
He did violate his oath. And perhaps he should face the death penalty.
But his defiance of criminal acts suppressed through secrecy in spite of the risk also makes him an American patriot and hero.
And the illegal treatment he has received, that as circumvented the lawful process of justice is also a reprehensible failure of the system and an act of treason against the United States of America.
Just a liar (Score:1, Informative)
Manning is just a liar.
When he got is clearance he made an oath knowing what the penalty would be were he to break it, and he broke it.
He released more than 100K classified documents, did he check each one of those documents to see if there was evidence for a specific crime of the US?
I don't think so. He grabbed absolutely everything he could and sent it out.
Contrary to ignorant claims, Manning is no martyr, he's just a lying creep, who should hope that they shoot him rather than lock him away in the USDB forever.
Re:spin. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:spin. (Score:5, Informative)
as far as I know, he hasn't been convicted which means the year and a half of torture and psychological abuse should be enough to throw the case out. Not to mention your president on public camera claiming you're guilty when you haven't even gone to trial... the US gov't should release him to show it still trusts and respects its people, but obviously it does not, and it is our enemy of free speech.
Re:Weak sauce (Score:2, Informative)
What were the "atrocities" anyway?
What about committing the supreme international crime [wikipedia.org], a war of aggression against Iraq?
Is that an "atrocity" enough for you?
Re:About fucking time (Score:5, Informative)
He was not afforded the rights dictated by the constitution. He was not afforded the rights dictated by the constitution
Those rights are human rights which are protected by the Constitution, not granted by it. US jurisprudence does not recognize the right of a person to contract away human rights (e.g. you can't sell yourself into slavery).
The UCMJ is subordinate to the Constitution, so Manning's constitutional rights still exist. It seems they've been infringed.
Re:Just a liar (Score:4, Informative)
He believed there was one specific crime, and he actually did expose evidence of it.
Problem is, that was illegal. Releasing every other document in the database was just piling on.
There's a procedure for getting criminally classified documents declassified. In fact, it might not even be necessary, since all he had to do was show certain people within the system that they existed, and the crime would be dealt with without declassifying the documents.
if for some reason he didn't like the result, his recourse was to take it another step up the chain. He's got a dozen commanders and a dozen Inspectors General (who checks-and-balances his associated commander) between him and the Commander-in-Chief, plus he can write his Congressmen (all three of them) or a number of officials in the Defense security apparatus whose sole job is to deal with illegal classification, and he's completely within his rights -- and encouraged -- to do those things, and told (probably on a poster in the classified storage area) that it is illegal for anyone to retaliate against him.
Instead he decided he knew that there were no honest men or women anywhere in that system, so he was above the law, and glory would shine on him for his actions.
I think he had help coming to that belief, and that encouragement constitutes a violation of law itself.
Re:spin. (Score:2, Informative)
Actually as someone who took the oath you are incorrect, the highlighted part is correct, but your logic is flawed.
As a soldier you are required all LAWFUL orders, meaning that the government itself can be an enemy, therefore you it is not just who the government choses to be enemies, it can be the government itself you must sometimes fight.
Re:spin. (Score:5, Informative)
Not exactly:
I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.
Later, of course, you swear loyalty to the President, your officers, UCMJ, etc., but I suppose one could argue that since this part of the oath comes first, if there is a conflict between the former and the latter, this part would be more pertinent.
Re:spin. (Score:5, Informative)
How about paying for child sex slaves?
http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2010/12/wikileaks_texas_company_helped.php [houstonpress.com]
Re:If Guilty... (Score:4, Informative)
If found guilty, putting him up against the wall and doing what you do to traitors up against the wall is fully appropriate for the damage he has done.
Citation needed.
Re:spin. (Score:3, Informative)
there are proper ways to handle that
such as?
you might want to read this chatlog of him that was leaked. he tried to go through proper channels, nobody listened.
Re:And something people need to remember (Score:5, Informative)
After Disclosures by WikiLeaks, Al Jazeera Replaces Its Top News Director [nytimes.com]
"CAIRO -- Al Jazeera, the pan-Arab news network financed by Qatar, named a member of the Qatari royal family on Tuesday to replace its top news director after disclosures from the group WikiLeaks indicating that the news director had modified the network's coverage of the Iraq war in response to pressure from the United States...
In at least one instance, involving a report on the network's Web site, Mr. Khanfar said in the cable that he had changed coverage at the American official's request. He said he had removed two images depicting wounded children in a hospital and a woman with a badly wounded face."
The fact that American officials are censoring the media, including Al Jazeera, may not be news to you, but it does further explain why the Iraq War looked nothing like Vietnam as far as news coverage was concerned. It wasn't because it was a good war. It was because reporting was limited to what American officials wanted Americans to see.
Re:Who was misusing it? (Score:5, Informative)
Some people would say that much of the information he released shouldn't have been classified in the first place. So, who is really the one misusing it?
And what "some people say" doesn't mean squat, because you don't get to decide that when you enlist. Just like you don't get to decide what uniform to wear or what targets to bomb or who to shoot at.The military is not a democracy.
Re:spin. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:About fucking time (Score:4, Informative)
Here's the UN report [google.com]. It should be pointed out that the UN investigator had to make this report without unmonitored access to Manning because the US government refused 'unfettered' access [guardian.co.uk], which is what the UN expects of all cooperating states.
Here's a Welsh MP [youtube.com] expressing her concern about Manning's treatment, particularly relevant because Manning is apparently a Welsh citizen in addition to being a US citizen.
Here's Amnesty International [amnesty.org].
If you haven't noticed that there's at least a serious question regarding whether Manning's been tortured, you've probably been limiting yourself to mainstream US media.
Re:Weak sauce (Score:5, Informative)
2A) The NY Times and the London Guardian informed the US government, before publishing anything, that they were in possession of the documents. They invited the US to review what was to be published, and were given the power to edit the documents so that no soldier would be endangered by publication. The US government refused to cooperate. So, please, keep this in mind when you talk about Manning "releasing" documents. All the T's were crossed and the i's dotted.
Re:Weak sauce (Score:3, Informative)
1) Manning DID NOT release the documents, as you keep asserting. He transmitted them to Wikileaks, a trusted organization that kept secret whistleblowers secret.
Yea, see, that right there is releasing sensitive information. He is the one who had the original access to it, and he is the source of the leak. You might as well claim that, had he put it on bittorrent, it wasnt HIS fault that it was broken up into a zillion pieces and spread all over the internet.
If you have a problem, take it up with the newspapers, not Manning, not Wikileaks.
The newspapers arent being charged, last I checked, since they didnt break any agreements or violate any military codes.
Manning and Wikileaks exercise due diligence and made sure that they released nothing harmful to the troops by giving control of the release to responsible reporters who were supposed to know what they are doing. That is precisely how responsible leakers have always done it.
That might have held some water if he hadnt realeased such an incredible amount of stuff which amounted to basically however much he could get his hands on.
This is not about oaths and laws.
See, thats where youre wrong-- laws and oaths are precisely why Manning is on trial, and would have been at any point in US history. What he did has never been acceptable, and never will be. As for right and wrong, for him to take the moral high ground he would have had to exercise a great deal more restraint and specificity on what he leaked than he did.
Re:spin. (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a cite for you Mr. Head-in-the-Sand:
http://www.salon.com/2011/10/23/wikileaks_cables_and_the_iraq_war/singleton/ [salon.com]
Sounds leak worthy to me.
Re:spin. (Score:4, Informative)
Your definition of "not troubling" is pretty fucking evil:
http://www.salon.com/2011/10/23/wikileaks_cables_and_the_iraq_war/singleton/ [salon.com]