Bradley Manning Sentenced To 35 Years 491
An anonymous reader writes with bad, but not unexpected news: "The U.S. soldier convicted of handing a trove of secret government documents to anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks has been sentenced to 35 years in prison. Pte First Class Bradley Manning, 25, was convicted in July of 20 charges against him, including espionage. Last week, he apologized for hurting the U.S. and for 'the unexpected results' of his actions. He will receive credit for three and a half years, but be dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army."
When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not a legitimate secret. It's a coverup of war crime. They are not the same thing.
Re:When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a legitimate secret. It's a coverup of war crime. They are not the same thing.
Manning released over 10,000 documents. Are you sure he read them all and confirmed that every single of the 10,000 documents contained evidence of a war crime and made sure that the release would not help the enemy?
Don't get me wrong, if he read and verified every document he sent out, fine. That's not the case here.
Re:When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether Bradley Manning deserves to be punished is something reasonable people can disagree about. What reasonable people cannot disagree about is that those responsible for the crimes he did expose deserve to be punished.
No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Manning.
No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Snowden.
No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Kiriakou.
No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Binney.
No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Drake.
All these people reported on crimes committed by the government and government officials. Crimes ranging from fraud, to wiretapping, to murder. In none of these cases have any of the true criminals been tried, and in every one of these cases the whistleblowers have been the subject of harassment by the government, or worse.
If you're going to fall back on the "it's the law" excuse for prosecuting whistleblowers, you have to apply the law to everyone. Anything else is despotism.
Re:When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:4, Insightful)
"No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Manning."
what crimes?
Torture, bribery of foreign officials, child sex trafficking.
"No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Snowden."
it's on going, and he uncovered very few crimes.
Asking a company for documents is not a crime.
Keeping warrant secret for an investigation is not a crime.
Eavesdropping without probable cause is a crime. Issuing warrants that do not specifically describe the places to be searched or things to be seized is a crime. The NSA cannot even abide by the unconstitutionally lax privacy rules it sets for itself, breaking those rules over 2000 times per year. Every one of those overreaches is a violation of the CFAA, those NSA analysts deserve the same treatment Aaron Swartz got.
As a culture we haven't even decided if information sent though multiple servers around the globe IS private.
Somehow it's private when one individual reads the emails of Sarah Palin, but when the NSA reads all of our emails it's not private anymore?
You can repeat what you here in your echo chamber, that doesn't make it true.
The echo chamber is within the US government. Espionage against US citizens is forbidden by the constitution. That the executive, legislative, and judicial branches have all conspired against the American people to ignore the constitution doesn't change that fact.
Re:When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:4, Interesting)
Eavesdropping without probable cause is a crime. Issuing warrants that do not specifically describe the places to be searched or things to be seized is a crime. The NSA cannot even abide by the unconstitutionally lax privacy rules it sets for itself, breaking those rules over 2000 times per year. Every one of those overreaches is a violation of the CFAA, those NSA analysts deserve the same treatment Aaron Swartz got.
Given the scope of the NSA, I'm surprised it's only 2k/year.
Somehow it's private when one individual reads the emails of Sarah Palin, but when the NSA reads all of our emails it's not private anymore?
Have I fallen behind on what the NSA has been accused of doing? I thought they weren't so much reading our emails as collecting transmission information - the equivalent of reading the to/from addresses on everything we snail-mail. Collecting WHO we talk to, not what we're talking about. I still think it should be a violation without some sort of warrant, but it's not quite as bad.
The echo chamber is within the US government. Espionage against US citizens is forbidden by the constitution. That the executive, legislative, and judicial branches have all conspired against the American people to ignore the constitution doesn't change that fact.
Given that it seems that most of the western-style governments seem to be in on it as well, the echo chamber is quite a bit bigger. Consider that the UK government has gotten involved in hushing up parts of the Snowden leaks. The NSA cooperates.
Re:When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:5, Insightful)
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All of those - all of them - are things that you think should be illegal (and many would agree) but are not so. That makes Manning a protestor, but not a whistleblower. Likely Snowden as well (though time will tell what else he reveals).
That the executive, legislative, and judicial branches have all conspired against the American people to ignore the constitution doesn't change that fact.
Sure, it doesn't change the fact that you don't like these things, and wish they were illegal. You're not alone in that, But if you pretend that "illegal" means something different than it actually does, well, that's pretty much exactly what you're complaining about, isn
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Your personal reading of the 4th amendment is neat and all, but the SCOTUS' reading is the one that matters, legally, and those guys are nothing if not creative. We're in a sorry situation, to be sure, but "plain reading" of the constitution is grounds only for moral outrage, not claims of illegality.
And anyhow, the 4th isn't a law. Laws are made by congress, and stand unless a particular law is not to the personal taste of enough of the SCOTUS. I'd bet the NSA, for example, was in fact strictly followin
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Your personal reading of the 4th amendment is neat and all, but the SCOTUS' reading is the one that matters, legally, and those guys are nothing if not creative. We're in a sorry situation, to be sure, but "plain reading" of the constitution is grounds only for moral outrage, not claims of illegality.
That's exactly the conspiracy against the constitution to which I referred.
Of course a plain reading is what matters. The Constitution is only valid because it was ratified by common people, people like you an
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Your long rant boils down to "but I don't like reality". Yeah, I'm not so happy with the government's increasing departures from the Constitution either, but that doesn't change the law.
Congress has no authority to pass laws that violate the constitution. They can try, but that doesn't make it a law. It has the exact same legal standing as "laws" issued directly from my ass.
The governments' monopoly on force says otherwise. Many people have gone to jail for laws that were later found unconstitutional, and many more for laws that should have been. It may suck, but its the law as written, and as interpreted by judges, that determines whether you get a new roommate. And the constitution is onl
Re:When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:5, Insightful)
Torture was in fact illegal. It was just approved by the government.
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> You and I may not like it but torture was in fact not illegal.
In that case, there should be no problem in letting a public court come to that conclusion and exonerate them. Personally though, i dislike it enough that I say, if it was legal, then the legal is illegitimate.
Re:When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:5, Insightful)
You and I may not like it but torture was in fact not illegal.
Yes it was. The US is signatory of several treaties saying so, and that makes it the "law of the land" according to the Constitution. We executed Japanese and Germans in 1945 for doing the same things that you are saying we don't consider illegal.
Re:When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, bribery of foreign officials is an offence under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Bribery of American officials is not illegal.
Re:When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:5, Insightful)
Giving little boys over to Afghan warlords to be raped is just the "way to get things get done over there" and should be an acceptable action to take, with US tax dollars no less? Well...shit man... <:-(
Re:When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:5, Interesting)
"No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Manning."
what crimes?
Child prostitution [wikipedia.org] -SOMEONE at Dyncorp and the US government for employing them to do so.
Blackmail [wikipedia.org] -SOMEONE at Pfizer.
Smuggling [wikipedia.org] -SOMEONE at Chevron.
Espionage [wikipedia.org] Hilary Clinton and the State department.
It goes on and on. It's almost as if there's a systematic flaw that's so pervasive it's hard to see the trees for the forest. Seriously, haven't you looked at any of this?
"No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Snowden."
it's on going, and he uncovered very few crimes.
Perjury [usnews.com] - James Clapper.
Illegal warrantless espionage against US citizens on US soil. And no, FISA is not looking over their shoulder [washingtonpost.com].
As a culture we haven't even decided if information sent though multiple servers around the globe IS private.
Yet as a legal body we HAVE decided that email is private for the first 180 days. At least by US law. [wikipedia.org] And we're pretty damn sure even as an amorphous cultural body of billions of people that encrypted communications [mashable.com] is private, so suck it.
You can try to refute all that citation (and hey, some of it might even be off), but you'd best bring a big-ass list of citeable sources and have a DAMN good argument for why I shouldn't believe what appears to be really bloody obvious to me.
Re:When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone forgets the minor detail that Manning dumped everything to Wikileaks, not the internet, and Wikileaks repeatedly asked for help from the US Govt to redact and vet for safety the documents, and the US Govt refused.
Then the Guardian's reporters revealed documents, and Domscheit-Berg betrayed Wikileaks and then, after everything was already out in the open, Wikileaks dumped the unredacted cables.
And then, maybe, some Afghan informants died.
While all the time you forget that had there been no fabricated war in Iraq, had Manning's chiefs just listened to his repeated requests to be sent home, he would not have even been able to see those documents, let alone dump them.
So for your own mistakes in strategy, and to divert attention from your own crimes, you sentence a sincere young whistleblower soldier, who does the right thing - as he is taught as being the American way - you sentence him to 35 years after 3 years in torture - solitary, sleep deprivation, waterboarding and everything else you can try without permanently damaging him in an obvious way.
And there are idiots out here who sound informed while defending this continuing travesty of justice.
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Also, let's not forget that Manning had not only the right but the legal duty to disobey illegal orders. Unfortunately "illegal" is, in this case, determined by the war criminals in charge. But rest assured that if we were to lose a war right now, most of the people in charge of both the political and corporate systems this country would be (rightly) hanged. Manning is among the (very) few who can at least say "I did what I could to stop this..."
Re:When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:5, Interesting)
Even one crime is too many.
I do not give a damn how few crimes were uncovered. Every last one of them should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, especially in a high leverage position such as a government official that can do a lot more damage with corruption than a mere citizen can.
In fact, I would suggest that crimes by government officials should have higher priority precisely for this reason. A corrupt official is dangerous to society just like a terrorist or criminal is.
Re:When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:5, Insightful)
If Soviet Russia is your benchmark for good practice in government, then fair enough.
Re:When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:5, Insightful)
Mistakes are forgiveable. The scandal is that war crimes are US policy. Torture is US policy. We suspected it but thanks to Manning we have proof.
No-one expects perfection from the US, they just expect it to at least try to act lawfully. Not just under US law, but international law.
Re:When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:5, Insightful)
"We don't do X because it is bad and wrong. Is is BAD. It is WRONG. Whoever does it must be condemned."
"OK, we did X, but at least we admitted it"
"OK, we sort of didn't tell the whole truth, but at least now it's out there"
"OK, we actually shot the messenger, but hey look, just look at this loser. Country Y is worse than us, they did bad things before. Like 30 years ago."
"OK, Country Y may not be doing that now, I mean, what we did even makes them look good in comparison. But, you know, they're really the Bad Guys, trust us. We even made a dozen movies about how bad they are."
"OK, the whole world disagrees. So what? They are all against freedom and democracy. They are all terrorists. We are the good guys. All the good guys are on our side. It's not like the other side matter anyway. What can they do about it? We'll just invade whoever dares stand up against us. IN YOUR FACE LOSERS!!"
Re:When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm quite certain I have read those books and more.
The Battle of Trenton took place on the morning of December 26, 1776. It was not fought at night. Most attacks in that time period (or even today) are fought around dawn. All that happened at night was an unexpected movement into position. But you are talking about tactics, not conventions. Night attacks were most certainly possible, they just were not very practical for large armies in the 18th Century. Indeed, they still aren't practical without a lot of night fighting gear even today.
As for the lining up aspect, that wasn't a "fairness" thing, that was because muskets were smoothbore weapons that only came into their own when fired in volleys. If volleys were not being fired, they would go to bayonets and melee. Rifles were too expensive and slow to load to put in the normal soldier's hands. The American irregulars happened to have them because they were often hunters who had a lot of experience with them, and they'd fight from cover because, again, they had no training and their rifles loaded too slowly to go toe to toe. These were not regular Continental troops, they were at best militia.
So yes, there were riflemen in the bushes, but Continental Army fought in lines, and they really weren't all that successful against the British in pitched battles until they learned their drill in line formation. The Continential regulars were mostly equipped with the British standard Brown Bess musket and would have fired in line, because they had to. That's why we really liked von Steuben, he got the army up to fighting form at Valley Forge. The bush fighting was just that, out in the bush. We would have never won the war is that is all we ever did. The fighting at Yorktown, Saratoga, Cowpens and Trenton were all in fairly normal line order set piece battles with perhaps some American features.
As for pay or starvation, starving troops doesn't make you less of an army, it just means your supplies are deficient or cut off.
Compare to the "insurgency" and you are trying to compare the fighting style on the very fringes of the Revolution with how the insurgents are going up against regular troops. Washington and his troops were as uniformed as they could be and in as good an order as you would expect from an ad hoc army. Where uniforms did not exist, marks of rank and unit were contrived. As the war went on, all of that was normalized as best as it could be. More to the point, they were always operated as an actual army with a complete organization and rules of war. As in most wars, things happened on the edges between irregulars like militia, Tories, and Indians, but that was not major operations of the rebels.
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If you are going to hold a "read every document" standard to Manning, then you must hold it to the prosecution as well.
Did they find explicit evidence that a document was NOT evidence of a war crime? Given the weight of documents that WERE evidence of such, is the release of the other documents excusable?
I don't think that the government's case was based on the particular contents of any given document or set of documents. I'm pretty sure they considered the entire corpus to be theirs and thus that ANY re
Re:When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:5, Informative)
Manning didn't release over 10,000 documents. He handed them over to established news organizations who then WORKED WITH THE GOVERNMENT TO DETERMINE WHICH DOCUMENTS SHOULD NOT BE RELEASED.
Convenient how people overlook that very important piece of information, isn't it?
Re:When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:4, Informative)
FACT:
All US wars - within the last 40 years or so - are crimes, committed in violation of Constitutional war powers, and in violation of international treaty, signed with binding power of law.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Manning released over 10,000 documents.
Manning conveyed over 10,000 documents to journalists. Of course, his treatment will compel future whistle-blowers to release their shit anonymously, and unedited. This is what we, as a society, will get for letting our secret police to attack the free press, but it's a small price to pay for a functional democracy.
Re:When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:4, Informative)
He wasn't a private. He is now after being demoted.
Re:When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:5, Informative)
Did you just start following this case? He worked in Information Systems; the only thing preventing him from accessing the documents was protocol. Since the case went public, they've added technical safeguards.
Actually he didn't work in 'Information Systems', he was an Intelligence Analyst [wikipedia.org].
At least in the DoD, an 'Information System' job would entail setting up and maintaining IS, keeping the network functioning, secure, patched, etc... Intelligence Analysts have wide ranging access to classified and non-classified information because their job is to put together numerous bits of information and build a more complete picture in order to make informed predictions. Basically a wide-ranging detective.
In the DoD, clearances are granted on the basis of background investigation. Access is based on clearance and 'need to know'. Bradley had a good background investigation* and 'need to know' for the documents he accessed due to his job. Or at least arguable 'need to know' in that one of the findings from 9/11 was that we weren't sharing information enough, so we relaxed a lot of access controls so that, at least theoretically, analysts would be able to put together A, B, and C in order to reach conclusion X, enabling us to respond in time to prevent or mitigate another attack.
Rank doesn't actually have much to do with it. Jr. Enlisted do most of the 'grunt work', even if it's in an office environment without much grunting. NCOs act as first line supervisors - train, assist, make low level policy calls. Senior NCOs manage workcenters, etc...
*Whether the investigation process needs to be reformed or not can be a separate topic.
Re:When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you had so much access, then why is Bradley Manning the only one who did the right thing with that access?
In no uncertain terms, as far as I am concerned, the only people who ere betrayed were the American people's enemies. The enemies who take our money with lies of necessity, and then turn around and use it for their wars, even lieing to us about the purpose of those wars.
He is a hero, and this sentence only makes it more so, and sets him apart from everyone else who works for these traitors.
Re:When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:5, Interesting)
>Manning's disclosure was so very indiscriminate.
How so? He delivered information to an investigative media source to be examined, considered, and redacted before responsible publication - like most every responsible whistle-blower has done in recent ages. It's really hard for a man on the ground to decide what is or isn't relevant, they lack the perspective, and generally have a potentially very narrow window of opportunity between when they grab as much possibly incriminating data as they can and when that fact is noticed and they are silenced.
The only reason that a flood of unredacted information hit the public was because one of the handful of journalists given access to the data was grossly irresponsible and published the information necessary to access it directly.
Re:When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:4, Informative)
The Pentagon has *repeatedly* said that the documents that have been disclosed by Wikileaks have *not* resulted in known, actual harm to US persons, or the informants & etc. that they rely on.
Put this "Wikileaks hurts people!!!111!!" rumor to bed.
Re:When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:4, Interesting)
Our Congressional representatives pass 2,000 page legislation after 1 hour without even bothering to glance at it, let alone read it. Yet their laws govern America. Do you really think Manning deserves 35 years in prison for being "indiscriminate"?
Re:When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:5, Insightful)
His disclosure was not indiscriminate. He gave it to journalists who were trusted to only publish parts that it was reasonable to publish.
It's not a perfect situation, but when the US decides to cover things up what other option is there? Hand it to the military police and hope they arrest the generals responsible? What about the politicians involved?
There is no evidence at showing harm to anyone, other than the reputation damage done to the US. You can be damn sure that if there were they would have charged him with it.
Re:When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:5, Funny)
If it's a legitimate secret, the government body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down!?
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Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan the recent actions of our government (recent being, depressingly, the last 40 years or so), and I am in favor of transparency, whistle-blowing, and calling out our government on its bad behavior. I also think Manning did a good thing, though I also feel his actions should have consiquences since he did still break the law, laws that at least partially these days, exists for a very good reason (some secrecy will always be necessary, especially about military matters and in
Re:When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:4, Insightful)
He's right. If the NSA wants to know who posted that comment, they will know.
AC is fine to hide your identity from your fellow posters. If you think AC hides you from the Lidless Eye, you're fooling yourself.
On the bright side, I don't think we have a thing to fear from the NSA. It's the other TLAs you need to worry about.
Re:When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:4, Insightful)
Prison. Death.
The NSA has no agents and no guns. Just information.
Re:When a secret is a criminal act, it's evidence. (Score:5, Insightful)
But they can pass that information to those other agencies that do. "Parallel construction" is their weapon against the masses.
WINSTON SMITH HAS GOODTHINK (Score:5, Insightful)
Plusgood. He is given 35 years helpwise for Big Brother.
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NBC. The stupidest of all three letter organizations.
This is A Distraction From the NSA Scandal (Score:5, Interesting)
Sources: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/nsa-has-access-75-percent-us-internet-traffic-says-wsj-6C10967780 [nbcnews.com]
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/21/us/facial-scanning-is-making-gains-in-surveillance.html?_r=0 [nytimes.com]
Re:This is A Distraction From the NSA Scandal (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm saying they released the sentencing information and the news about the NSA on the same day in an effort to obscure what the NSA is up to, as they know most of the techie/twenty something/hacker types will quickly drop everything to do some sort of "Free Manning" chant and forget the other news.
Re:This is A Distraction From the NSA Scandal (Score:5, Insightful)
What are these sociopathic tendencies? He wanted to expose wrongdoing and did not do it in the best way.
Sociopath: a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.
I don't see how you could claim he lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience. It seems he may have them in more abundance than the average person.
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Justice Has Been Served? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Justice Has Been Served? (Score:4, Insightful)
I never understand why people leave the current Obama administration out of these lists. He has taken what Bush did further than Bush ever dreamed (which is normal. The next president usually adds to their power/abuse instead of reducing it.)
Re:Justice Has Been Served? (Score:4, Interesting)
"He has taken what Bush did further than Bush ever dreamed "
that is completely false. Frankly, it's getting old and has been factual shot down 1000 times.
Obama did expand drone strikes in his first year in office. He did assassinate American citizens, which Bush didn't dare do. You cannot say that statement is completely false.
I think Obama is actually more dangerous than Bush. Bush was a bit of a buffoon; a caricature of a Texas cowboy or a "Joe Everyman" (neither are accurate, but that's how he presents himself. Obama comes across as more refined, more intelligent, more compassionate. He promised transparency, an end to Gitmo, and a renewed focus on diplomacy over military intervention. The current president won a Nobel Peace Prize as the world hoped he'd be the change he preached! But, by his actions, he is a wolf in sheep's clothing.
I blame myself too. I voted for Obama, twice. The second time I did so with my nose pinched shut. When our broken system gives you two choices, "bad" and "worse", then sometimes you just have to hold your nose and do the practical thing rather than the right one. I didn't vote in 2000 because both candidates were flawed,and sometimes I think that the many of us who abstained from the process during that election set the stage for a lot of the mess that we're in today as a nation.
Twisted "Justice" (Score:5, Insightful)
Bradley Manning has been sentenced to 35 years, and must server 1/3 to get parole which they will of course deny him.
President Obama authorized the killing of Americans without trial, something illegal under the very rules of the U.S. (constitution)
One of those Americans killed was a 16 YEAR OLD BOY who was murdered by his own government, without trial. [nytimes.com]
The United States no longer pretends to be the land of the free, it now openly favors corporations (Apple given presidential override of import ban), rich individuals and political cronies.
Today is a very sad day. The truth is the enemy, justice inconvenient, and money/power the one true ruler of this country.
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Obama is nothing but Bush in blackface. It is amazing how many people give him a pass because he is black and has a D besides his name.
What is even more laughable is the Nobel Peace Prize that was given to him.
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Re:Twisted "Justice" (Score:5, Interesting)
Well because it was a shit-ton better before Bush. Back then the USA was riding high after the cold war and the worst that the president did was have an affair. Or raise taxes after promising not to. Or have an ill-conceived tax reform. Or just kinda not get much done. Or a crook who abused his position to spy on his political adversaries. And that was bad. Seriously bad. A stain upon our history. And that's getting to about the extent of our memory. I had to google who was president before Nixon, and I had forgotten about Carter. Sorry, there's only so much history I have at the tip of my mind.
Let me make this perfectly clear. Bush was FAR WORSE then ALL OF THAT. He took an emotionally unstable first-world super-power in a post-9/11 trauma and decided to invade Iraq. He lead us into a quagmire that cost a shit-ton of money, got a (historically small) number of US troops killed, got a SHIT-TON of civilians killed, and didn't have much to show for it all except something to put on his mantle and funneling billions of dollars to his friends. Let me repeat that: He pre-emptivly invaded a nation. He started a war based on a lie. He was objectively a far worse president than anything in the last 50 years, doing absolutely retarded things that damaged this nation and brought about hardship to us all.
Before Nixon is the long long ago where we had an idiot that double-downed on Vietnam. Or the guy who thought make-work would fix the economy. Or the asshole who thought sitting on his hands would keep it all from falling apart. And to be fair to Bush, Vietnam was worse, although LBJ didn't exactly start the whole thing. The atrocities that the CIA did in the name of fighting the commies was probably worse. Arguably it lead to 9/11, but that's almost a philosophical debate at this point.
The Obama administration has some originality you know.
Yeah, even Bush didn't straight up openly assasinate US citizens. That's a new terror. But most of this bullshit with surveillance really got going under Bush with the excuse that it was to fight the terrorists after 9/11. Obama certainly picked that up and is running with it, but we can still lay a portion of that blame at Bush's feet.
Re:Twisted "Justice" (Score:5, Interesting)
So what? Well, if you know that much, you'll probably also be aware of much of the history that goes with it, and that really does matter. For one thing, all this shit that's coming to light just now and the terrible injustice we've seen today might just stir up a bit more outrage than it is doing. What was WW2 and the Cold War and all those hard lessons about communist paranoia about if not to create nations that were better than that? Waste of time and countless lives, evidently.
Those who fail to heed the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.
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Re:Twisted "Justice" (Score:5, Informative)
Can't say I'm surprised. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd have less of a problem with this (Score:5, Insightful)
if the government's idea of "secret" weren't complete and total BS. Today, "secret" simply means "stuff that would embarrass us". The only context that getting most of today's government "secrets" into the public's scrutiny would qualify as "aiding an enemy" is if they consider the American people to be their enemy. Which is, sadly, closer to the truth than it ever should be.
Thank god for the delete key (Score:5, Interesting)
US (Score:5, Interesting)
The United States government is the largest criminal organization in the world. Bradley Manning exposed some of the war crimes routinely committed by the United States. That, in and of itself, makes him a hero. It takes no courage to invade another country that is drastically weaker than you are and to then shoot people (mostly civilians) who are simply defending their country from foreign invaders. It takes a lot of courage to stand up to the Imperial US Government.
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I know this opinion is unpopular, but doing a right thing does not excuse other actions, and while some of what he did was good, much of it was not.
Releasing something like the Apache footage of civilians being killed was one thing. That's the sort of thing that needs to be exposed, and he was in the right for having done so, if not legally, then at least morally. He should be commended for having done so.
But releasing tens of thousands of diplomatic cables without reviewing them, which ended up merely reve
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But releasing tens of thousands of diplomatic cables without reviewing them, which ended up merely revealing embarrassing-but-not-criminal activity on the part of the US government, was something else entirely.
Those cables also revealed that Danish soldiers handed over Iraqi prisoners to the Iraqi police force knowing that the prisoners would be tortured. Alas, no one was prosecuted for this, but it is clearly a war crime. The Danish forces even knew it was a war crime and in later operations brought along a few token British soldiers who happened to be the ones booking in the prisoners, thereby leaving the dirty work to the Brits in an attempt to evade responsibility. That this was done was decided high up in th
sharing info is worse than killing people... (Score:5, Insightful)
ACLU's Ben Wizner: "When a soldier who shared information with the press and public is punished far more harshly than others who tortured prisoners and killed civilians, something is seriously wrong with our justice system."
Maybe Someday (Score:2)
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Enlightenment would involve returning to medieval punishment--hangings, beatings, and public ridicule. We live in an age where, to not be "cruel", we punish people for minor crimes like shoplifting by putting them in jail for a few months. When they come out, they're damaged by jail, possibly have HIV, some are raped or beaten, a very few are murdered in prison. The vast bodies of those in jail are poor or lower-middle-classers living paycheck to paycheck; their employment is interrupted, their debts are
This whole thing is sad (Score:2)
I'm sorry for this guy ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I have respect for this man. He broke the law for the sake of what is right.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good (Score:4, Interesting)
If he'd been smart enough to send the war crime data, and ONLY that, to the Hague etc then he'd likely have fared better than by doing a bulk data dump which included so much material he couldn't have checked it all.
Reactions to Manning seem to be dictated by the ideology of the beholder rather than what he actually did.
I don't find him either a hero or a villian, just a young troop with serious personal issues who went attention-whoring without thinking it through despite his training.
I'm also not sure that what he released wasn't salted with items which allowed those doing the salting to further their own agenda. Hammering Manning would confirm everything he dumped in the eyes of the world. He'd have been easy to exploit.
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You're correct. He would have been caught after sending only the first handful of reports, and he probably would have been tried for only one count of espionage instead of six. And any actual crimes that folks might have uncovered in the rest of the material would never have been uncovered.
Tha
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Reporting on war crimes should be considered a service to his country.
What war crime did he report on? You mean the Collateral Murder video? WikiLeaks "reported" on that. He did no such thing. He just took some documents and leaked them. If these had been financial documents or other "personal" documents, he would be held just as liable, even if they exposed the crimes of those to who the documents pertained.
Re:Good (Score:5, Funny)
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Well, if you recall, the Emperor allowed the plans to be leaked so as to lure the pitiful rebellion into a trap.
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>Remember, though, as Luke has taught us. The only way to win is not to fight.
Was that before or after he blew up the Death Star?
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But he just did.
If he'd been released with time served, he'd be forgotten.
While he's in prison, unjustly serving 35 years for the sin of revealing war crimes, he is a powerful, powerful symbol.
Other people who did jail time.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Ghandi. [google.com]
Nelson Mandela. [pbs.org]
Not saying Bradley Manning is in the same category. But sometimes people in prison do end up as powerful symbols.
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Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
The Empire was a legal entity created through a vote in the Senate.
So, yeah the rebels were terrorists.
Oh wait, they won..I mean freedom fighters.
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I'd understand if you'd want those who commited the war crimes he revealed to be executed, but him? I don't understand how you can arrive at the conclusion that he deserves that, unless you were perhaps one of those who commited a crime he revealed ?
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While I'm glad that some of the information he revealed came to light, he was completely reckless in the way he went about it. He did, arguably and depending on your perspective, as much harm as the original "crimes" he revealed. You don't just share 10,000 secret documents without at least reading them first. Snowden, perhaps reflecting his age and experience, is doing exactly that. So while I feel strongly that any crimes revealed by Manning should be prosecuted, I also feel that he needs to go away for a
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
He did, arguably and depending on your perspective, as much harm as the original "crimes" he revealed.
No, the State has admitted that his disclosures did not lead to any deaths [courthousenews.com].
You don't just share 10,000 secret documents without at least reading them first.
Manning left that job up to journalists. He first tried to leak directly to the NYT, as Ellsberg had done and they rebuffed him. He then went to Wikileaks, which arranged a consortium of newspapers (El PaÃs, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, The Guardian and The New York Times) to analyze, redact, and publish the information responsibly.
Snowden, perhaps reflecting his age and experience, is doing exactly that.
Why is Snowden more qualified to determine what's right and wrong to publish than a group of experienced journalists?
So while I feel strongly that any crimes revealed by Manning should be prosecuted, I also feel that he needs to go away for a while.
But that's not how it works. If Manning revealed crimes, then he is to be afforded, by law, whistleblower protection. In fact, he did reveal crimes, has been denied those protections, and those who committed the highest crimes are walking around with huge pensions and stock options for doing so.
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
IIRC Wikileaks was initially releasing the documents a bit at a time, working with journalists to, among other things, redact anything that might put anyone in danger. It was only when the US government started attacking Wikileaks on every available front (forcing CC processor to stop taking donation, getting Assange extradited etc.) that the entire thing was made public.
I suspect that if the US government had accepted the leak as fait accompli and honestly tried to work with Wikileaks to redact information that could cause actual harm to informants etc. they could have significantly limited the damage. None of this would have prevented them from prosecuting Manning, btw.
But no, instead of trying to ensure that reporters of leaks (Wikileaks included) acted responsibly, the US government decided that those reporting on leaks were criminals themselves. That is complete nonsense and a dangerous attack on western democracy.
I'm unsure if Manning deserves to spend time in prison for his actions. I am sure that the US government has done things in response to Manning's actions that are way worse.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Why people have such a problem with the fact that he was in the army, supposedly serving his country, and did something that he was forbidden to do, and so should face the consequences? .
Because "I was just following orders" should never, ever, ever be a legitimate reason for committing crimes against humanity.
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undermined serious diplomatic negotiations
If that is true, and there are arguments on both sides. Then I would still argue its not Manning who is to blame.
I can't thank of any legitimate reason, none, that a representative government should be conducting diplomatic negotiations in secret!
The public has a right to know EXACTLY what agreements our government is making with any others, full stop. Because lets face it if we can't know what is being discusses is probably illegal, immoral, or otherwise socially unacceptable to our society. As to all
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Serving your country and serving your government are not necessarily the same thing. I think Manning was serving his country but not his government.
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Funny, isn't it? How rednecks are considered ignorants, but most of them have a clear definition of what is "government" and what is "america". Amazing how patriotic they usually are (flags, american pride, traditions), and yet they hate the "gub'mint". They're considered crazy paranoids because of that hate, and how the gub'mint tramples on their freedom.
And here we are, educated people, confusing government with country.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
"but most of them have a clear definition of what is "government" and what is "america""
no, they don't.
Bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
When Bush was president, any criticism of him was seen by the "rednecks" as an attack on America. "Why do you hate America?" was pretty much a cliche.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think anyone can argue with the fact an offence was committed. But the punishment should fit the crime. It is on that basis I object to this sentence. The sentence is so long that I feel this punishment violates your constitution. It is cruel and unusual.
We're talking about locking this guy up longer many rapists or murderers. You're even talking about executing him. How is that a sensible level of punishment?
At the end of the day, nobody died from this leak. Nothing of any substance has changed in geo-politics either. The cable leaks had a tendency to show that US foreign policy behind closed doors was pretty much the same as it was on the public sphere. As a Brit, I thought they actually came out of it looking quite good. It was the other countries were made to look like asshats.
Manning is a bit of an idiot and should serve some time but taking his entire life in forfeit for his stupidity is totally disproportionate and in my view unconstitutional.
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He's up for parole in 11 years (at least as theRegister reports it).
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At the end of the day, nobody died from this leak.
Are you sure? Because of WikiLeaks carelessness in handling the documents given by PFC Manning a lot of names of informants and dissidents were revealed. Even the names of those who happened to visit US Embassies were revealed. Can you be certain that none of those were killed or in the very least made an example of, much like PFC Manning is being made an example of?
Just FYI, I don't agree that he should have gotten 35 years when more violent criminals can get < 10 years. Personally, I think he shoul
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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Re:Good (Score:5, Interesting)
You feel that because of some twisted nationalistic pride and unquestioning faith that the overlords are benevolent, know what they're doing, and are above the vast swaths of historical abuse by similar authority figures. We feel he's been unfairly treated because of a lot of things.
1) He exposed [wikipedia.org] a whole hell of a lot [wikipedia.org] of people doing "forbidden" things [wikipedia.org]. Most of whom are never going to face prison time, courts, fines or even a slap on the wrist.
2) The people he's exposing have previously concealed their wrongdoing [wikipedia.org]. Gaming the system of justice is serious infraction. It's often worse than what they're hiding.
3) The people he's exposing have a vast amount of political power and very much have control over his punishment. I don't think it's a stretch to say that they're abusing their power and being vindictive.
4) He's been tortured. Not the sort of torture with massive blood loss, hideous scars, and severed limbs, but the sort of torture you get in a lab setting. And it looks like it was enough to break him.
Yes, he should face consequences for violating orders and exposing secrets. And he should face praise and leniency for making the USA a better place and upholding his oath. You know, to protect the nation from threats from within.
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He didn't commit treason, and the death penalty is barbaric and riddles with flaws.
Frankly, time served and dishonorable discharge is punishment enough.
He'll never be in the position to do it again, he isn't a danger, and all he is doing is costing us money to keep.
AA federal felony, and a dishonorable discharge will punish him for life.
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> and all he is doing is costing us money to keep.
Not at all.
He's also being made into a poster child for "Don't forget, Uncle Sam wants YOU... to keep your goddamned mouth shut"
You don't think that matters a hell of a lot more to the folks in power than, say, keeping some piddly little serial killer locked up?
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Re: Always look on the brightside of life.. (Score:2)
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eHem i think you are reaching for Devestated not Decimated since they ate more than 10% of our freedoms about 3 years back
hint for you
Decimated: One out of Ten removed
Devastated: One out of Ten Remains
Redacted: Zero remain
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Are you perhaps confusing this case with that of Snowden?