Capitol Hill Blue Forums Misc. Topics The Media Bradley Manning: A Window Into The American Soul

It is apparent that you are either not listening or don't want to hear.
Hitler was your idea, I never said Hitler did anything for the greater good- BTW.

The only things you have stated correctly are that he knew he leaked classified information and he knew the U.S. was engaged in hostile activity.

"He knew that that information would be made public." How could he possibly know this? You are assuming because of your political bent. This leak was to a group that does its own analysis of the information. They could have decided (as they do with a large part of the information they get) that they shouldn't go public with it.

"He knew that elements of hostile forces use public information to gain advantage in staging attacks against American forces."
You have really gone off the deep end. This is pure speculation - you have no idea what he thought about hostile forces having access to the information he provided - which, as it turns out, they did not.

"It really is that simple." Apparently it is not.

"Politics have nothing to do with my argument"
Really, but still no proof of criminal activity?

You claim he is a criminal - but he has not yet had a trial?
You have anointed yourself judge and jury.
If that is not political bias then I don't know what is.

"The road to hell is paved with "good intentions."" You should heed your own advice.

"I have no sympathy for him." More political prejudgement.

Your argument is far from cogent, and the simplicity you claim is mere imputation of your own bias.
Mind you, I believe the notion that one is innocent until proven guilty is still in force? Or have we abolished that relic too?
I know what I think and I don't need you to tell me.
You should consider exactly what it is you're saying.

'
Speaking of Hitler....

The only real crime here was that of the United States government AND ITS SUPPORTERS, which, like the Nazi regime, broke international law and invaded countries which had not attacked it, and then proceeded to wreck their infrastructure and murder their people and rampage like drug-crazed savages (oh! I suppose many US soldiers were drug crazed, weren't they?).

Anyone who supports a regime of international law has a duty to oppose the crimes of the USA government -- and SO FAR I am amazed at how moderate that opposition has been. Certainly Hitler and the Nazis were not treated as leniently as the USA has been -- but I think every citizen of the USA should think long and hard that the crimes of their government can still very easily turn around and bite them in the butt.

Declaring Manning guilty prior to a complete trial violates his constitutional right to the presumption of innocence. When President Obama pronounced Manning guilty, he -- the Constitutional Law Lecturer from a top Law School known as the University of Chicago, violated his right to the presumption of innocence.

Let's look at the documents revealed. Many were casual emails containing no identification as to agents of the US, imperiled no lives, but brought to light the practice of over-classification as secret documents that would show embarrassment to the US due to containing information regarding illegal practices such as checking out the purchases of diplomatic personnel at the UN, or other embassies in the US.

Other documents showed practices of the diplomatic and military arms of the US that are also of questionable legality.

Granted, he released hundreds of thousands of documents, which he obtained by a document dump from computers, and which documents were reviewed by the Guardian, the New York Times and other news outlets, and which documents when appearing legitimately classified were not published. If you look at the time frame between the dump and alleged disclosure, it would have been impossible for him to review each and every document prior to disclosure.

Wikileaks allegedly has the documents, but cannot say from whom they were received. Assange, an Australian citizen, owes no loyalty to the US, has no duty to protect information, yet has been accused and some have called for his execution for treason against a government to whom he has no legal ties.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Manning has been kept in conditions that the US government has defined as torturous when done by other countries. Manning has been isolated, compelled to comply with forced nudity, removed from human contact, and his access to legal counsel was for a time anyway, restricted. These conditions have been found to cause psychological harm of the permanent nature.

The video met with small reaction from the American people, largely due I believe, to the failure of the media giants, all six of them, to play out what was really going on. That release was met with indignation from the government, as in how dare anyone expose our wrong deeds? Well, sometimes in war and not in war, people do wrong things. Punish the wrongdoers, not the messenger.

When evil is exposed, evil complains of unfair treatment and prejudice. Evil complains that it is being put upon by disclosure of the evil.

A healthy response would be to look at the actual acts of both sides, the actual deeds of both sides. And, if Manning was so bad for what he did, the New York Times, Guardian, and any other paper that published even one of those items should be in the dock with Manning.

Even I know that's not going to happen.

As I understand it (which is not so very much)
Mannings guilt or innocence rests upon whether he did in fact
release classified documents to unauthorized recipients.
The question of guilt does not rest upon a detailed examination
to assess of the damage that might have resulted from each of those documents.

If Manning were decided to be guilty, then the prosecution
would no doubt submit a selection of documents that they say
constitute significant damage to the national interest.
The defense would respond by showing these to be trivial and harmless documents.
The merit of such arguments would be used be the judges to assess the degree of infraction and its appropriate punishment.

A recitation of unsavory acts of the US government would not be accepted as relevant to either phase of the trial.

The "whistle blower" defense would also not be seen as legally relevant.
And, in any case, for this defense to be credible,
I think the defense would have to show that Manning gave serious consideration to
which documents achieved this end... rather than dumping an entire mass of
material... only a fraction of which had any serious "whistle blower" relevance...
and some of which, according to the prosecution, seriously damaged our nation's
security interests.

Finally there is the matter of Manning's treatment (mistreatment) while in custody.
This issue would not exculpate Mannaing from legal responsibility because these issues are not all all related to an alleged illegal extraction of evidence against him.

Bradley Manning arguably may be a martyr for some greater good.
On the other hand, the road of the martyr is seldom untroubled.
And, frankly, it seems a little naive to expect this would be the case for Manning.

If so, we are all in trouble. I'd also like to see Geraldo arrested for this same "crime"


If so, we are all in trouble.


I believe Lilli has answered that quite well in her post.


I don't see why. He released the documents to whistle blowers and not to alleged "enemies of the state". A term, by the way, auspiciously reminiscent of other truculent totalitarian regimes


A fact, by the way, auspiciously reminiscent of other truculent totalitarian regimes!

Of course, there is the unfortunate issue that having done the document disclosure, which inevitably was largely unreviewed by Manning, and being so large, only a few thousand of the documents were reviewed and published in the MSM outlets of the New York Times and Guardian, neither of which have been mentioned as possible targets for indictment. In addition, Manning is in the military justice system, which has altogether different jurisprudence than the civilian side.

But, as always, there is something new to the mix. The Guardian has named Manning as Person of the Year for 2012, based upon votes received by the newspaper. Person of the Year, Guardian article here. The sad thing is that Manning felt the compulsion to act as he did. The sadder thing is that rather than admit errors, our leadership have decided to go after the messenger rather than fix the situation reflected in the video-game-like killing of civilians resulting in the deaths of many unarmed persons, including cameramen and journalists covering the Iraq War.

This is a case where a strict reading of the law would go automatically against Manning. When considering the things pointed out that need fixing, it would behoove us to concentrate on what's broken, and adjust our reaction to Manning accordingly. I'm the last fan of lawbreaking, yet understand that sometimes laws need to be broken to fix problems that are far deeper and more damaging than the laws that were breached in the process of disclosure. It is at such moments that law must be tempered with justice, wrongs righted, and processes put into place to ensure that wrongs are not repeated.

Such are lessons of the Pentagon Papers case, the various civil rights cases, and the issues surrounding military crimes committed in battle. Sadly, we need to relearn these lessons over, and over again.

Indeed, the saddest thing of all is that there was a need for him to do this. And it is a testament to our own ignorance that so many people can't see that very simple fact.

'
At least there are many people in Britain who are not irrational, inhuman monsters, even if many people in the United States have not escaped that fate.

'
As I see it, people who focus on the legal technicalities which the United States government uses to cloak its barbarism are doing so in order to preserve their ignorance of the crimes of their government.

The only significant question is : Why does the United States government engage in such outrageous, immoral behavior --- and why do the American people permit it ?

I think Manning had a decent impressiion of which specific items were most damning... such as the video of killing the journalists.

Other items were grouped together by their source... such as information about political figures in Iceland. It was clear what this information was about. And the only purpose of releasing it was to embarrass the US government. Say what you will.... every government does this sort of analysis... even of friendly governments. Do we think that Britain or Israel are disinterested in figuring out who the various players are in our politics? It is almost certain that they do similar sorts of exercises... and would be similarly embarrassed by the release of that confidential INFORMATION.

Manning did not release all the documents because it was "necessary... he did so out of spite.


The materials selected by The Times, et all were reviewed both for relevance, as well as potential security issues. In any case, they were simply re-publishing information that was already publicly available on Wikileaks.... which I believe published the mass of documents without and effort to review them first.

In any case, there are totally different laws that apply to Manning from those which apply to the Times etc.