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[URL="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/bradley-manning-sentenced-35-years-leaking-secrets/story?id=20021288"]http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/bradley-manning-sentenced-35-years-leaking-secrets/story?id=20021288[/URL]
Message to all the young kids out there. Don't **** with big brother or you'll end up like this guy
Snowden's decision to flee US completely justified now.
[QUOTE=falc39]Snowden's decision to flee US completely justified now.[/QUOTE]
Yup
Tell the truth = crimes. Modern America :facepalm
Bradley manning is a hero
[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0[/url]
Collateral Murder video.
These soldiers that killed those innocent civilians were never punished. the guy that blew the whistle on their crimes is sentenced to 35 years.
:biggums:
Bush and Obama are both war criminals, and the only reason the Hague doesnt prosecute them is because they have a powerful army around them.
Edit: a soft guy like manning isnt going to survive in jail. he gonna get raped.
i remember an innocent time when america wasn't flushing itself down the toilet...
[QUOTE]First, your honor, I want to start off with an apology. I am sorry that my actions hurt people. I'm sorry that they hurt the United States.
At the time of my decisions, as you know, I was dealing with a lot of issues, issues that are ongoing and continuing to affect me. Although a considerable difficulty in my life, these issues are not an excuse for my actions.
I understood what I was doing, and decisions I made. However, I did not fully appreciate the broader effects of my actions.
Those factors are clear to me now, through both self-refection during my confinement in various forms, and through the merits and sentencing testimony that I have seen here.
I am sorry for the unintended consequences of my actions. When I made these decisions I believed I was going to help people, not hurt people.
The last few years have been a learning experience. 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 (unintelligible) on decisions of those with the proper authority.
In retrospect, I should have worked more aggressively inside the system, as we discussed during the provenance statement. I had options, and I should have used these options.
Unfortunately, I can't go back and change things. I can only go forward. I want to go forward. Before I can do that, I understand that I must pay a price for my decisions and actions.
Once I pay that price, I hope to one day live in a manner that I haven't been able to in the past. I want to be a better person, to go to college, to get a degree and to have a meaningful relationship with my sister, with my sister's family and my family.
I want to be a positive influence in their lives, just as my Aunt Debra has been to me. I have flaws and issues that I have to deal with, but I know that I can and will be a better person.
I hope that you can give me the opportunity to prove, not through words, but through conduct, that I am a good person and that I can return to a productive place in society. Thank you, your honor[/QUOTE]
Hopefully, Manning will be able to follow through and become a better person.
This is complete and utter bullshit. I can't believe a man's entire life is about to go to waste while real threats to our country (aka our politicians) are still free men.
[QUOTE=falc39]Snowden's decision to flee US completely justified now.[/QUOTE]
I cant believe some people argued he should have stayed in America to face "Justice".
Even nixon didnt do this to whistleblowers. Think about it for a sec the supposedly liberal democratic president is doing something to whistleblowers even Nixon did do to Daniel Ellsberg when he released the pentagon papers
[QUOTE]The Papers revealed that the U.S. had expanded its war with bombing of Cambodia and Laos, coastal raids on North Vietnam, and Marine Corps attacks, none of which had been reported by media in the US.[11] The most damaging revelations in the papers revealed that four administrations, from Truman to Johnson, had misled the public regarding their intentions. For example, the John F. Kennedy administration had planned to overthrow South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem before his death in a November 1963 coup. President Johnson had decided to expand the war while promising "we seek no wider war" during his 1964 presidential campaign,[5] including plans to bomb North Vietnam well before the 1964 Election. President Johnson had been outspoken against doing so during the election and claimed that his opponent Barry Goldwater was the one that wanted to bomb North Vietnam.[12][/QUOTE]
ellsberg was considered a hero once, look how far we have fallen as a nation
[QUOTE=KevinNYC]Hopefully, Manning will be able to follow through and become a better person.[/QUOTE]
His releases embarrassed a few diplomats
no one yet has been able to give specifics about the people he hurt.
I guess he hurt those murderers who killed civilians in iraq, you know by letting people see the murder the pentagon wanted to cover up.
If you want manning to go to jail, I cant imagine what you would have wanted to do to ellsberg when he released the pentagon papers.
Honestly man is there anything the government can do that you wont defend?
[QUOTE=KevinNYC]Hopefully, Manning will be able to follow through and become a better person.[/QUOTE]
I hope you go to prison to become a "better person" :facepalm
Wait can someone explain this to me?
[QUOTE=KevinNYC]Hopefully, Manning will be able to follow through and become a better person.[/QUOTE]
That message was so coerced.
they tortured manning before the charged him with anything
[url]http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/12/bradley-manning-cruel-inhuman-treatment-un[/url]
[QUOTE]The UN special rapporteur on torture has formally accused the US government of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment towards Bradley Manning, the US soldier who was held in solitary confinement for almost a year on suspicion of being the WikiLeaks source.
Juan Mendez has completed a 14-month investigation into the treatment of Manning since the soldier's arrest at a US military base in May 2010. He concludes that the US military was at least culpable of cruel and inhumane treatment in keeping Manning locked up alone for 23 hours a day over an 11-month period in conditions that he also found might have constituted torture.
"The special rapporteur concludes that imposing seriously punitive conditions of detention on someone who has not been found guilty of any crime is a violation of his right to physical and psychological integrity as well as of his presumption of innocence," Mendez writes.
The findings of cruel and inhuman treatment are published as an addendum to the special rapporteur's report to the UN general assembly on the promotion and protection of human rights. They are likely to reignite criticism of the US government's harsh treatment of Manning ahead of his court martial later this year.
Manning, 24, was arrested on May 29 2010 at the Forward Operating Base Hammer outside Baghdad, where he was working as an intelligence analyst. Manning has been charged with 22 counts, including aiding the enemy, relating to the leaking a massive trove of state secrets to the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.
Mendez, who runs the UN office that investigates incidents of alleged torture around the world, told the Guardian: "I conclude that the 11 months under conditions of solitary confinement (regardless of the name given to his regime by the prison authorities) constitutes at a minimum cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in violation of article 16 of the convention against torture. If the effects in regards to pain and suffering inflicted on Manning were more severe, they could constitute torture."
Manning was initially held for almost three months at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, and then transferred in July 2010 to the Marine corps base at Quantico in Virginia. He was held there for another eight months in conditions that aroused widespread condemnation, including being held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day and being made to strip naked at night.
In his opening letter to the US government on December 30 2010, Mendez said that the prolonged period of isolated confinment was believed to have been imposed "in an effort to coerce him into 'cooperation' with the authorities, allegedly for the purpose of persuading him to implicate others."
It is known that the US department of justice is conducting a grand jury in Virginia exploring the possibility of bringing charges against Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder.
The US mission to the UN in Geneva responded to Mendez on January 27 2011. It said that the US government "is committed to protecting human rights in our country and abroad, and we value the work of the special rapporteur".
In a later letter, dated May 19 2011, the Pentagon's legal counsel told Mendez that it was satisfied that Manning's treatment at Quantico had been fine. "Though Private Manning was classified as a maximum custody detainee at Quantico, he occupied the very same type of single-occupancy cell that all other pretrial detainees occupied."
But the Pentagon's arguments did not impress the special rapporteur. He stressed in his final conclusions that "solitary confinement is a harsh measure which may cause serious psychological and physiological adverse effects on individuals regardless of their specific conditions." Moreover, "[d]epending on the specific reason for its application, conditions, length, effects and other circumstances, solitary confinement can amount to a breach of article seven of the international covenant on civil and political rights, and to an act defined in article one or article 16 of the convention against torture."
He also said that the US government had tried to justify Manning's solitary confinement by calling it "prevention of harm watch". Yet the military had offered no details as to what actual harm was being prevented.
Mendez told the Guardian that he could not reach a definitive conclusion on whether Manning had been tortured because he has consistently been denied permission by the US military to interview the prisoner under acceptable circumstances.
The Pentagon has refused to allow Mendez to see Manning in private, insisting that all conversations must be monitored. "You should have no expectation of privacy in your communications with Private Manning," the Pentagon wrote.
The lack of privacy is a violation of human rights procedures, the UN says, and considered unacceptable by the UN special rapporteur.
Manning's travails in solitary confinement came to an end on April 20 2011 when he was transferred from Quantico to Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, where he was held in more open conditions. He is currently being held in a facility in Virginia so that he can make frequent pre-trial appearances at Fort Meade in Maryland ahead of his eventual court martial.[/QUOTE]
punishing citizens who dare to speak the truth against the government for its wrongdoings is something you'd expect from a bullshit state like f..king north korea...
[QUOTE=Jameerthefear]Wait can someone explain this to me?[/QUOTE]
basically bradley manning saw this video
[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0[/url]
and he tried to get someone in the military to prosecute this atrocity. Everyone being killed were civilians. They also shot at the people that went to try to save the dying victims, kill a father and his 2 kids.
The pentagon refused to do anything. Manning tried to get American news outlets like the NY times to publish the story, they refused. Eventually he was forced to release the info to wikileaks. The government was embarrassed and wanted to make an example out him, so that nobody would ever have the courage to blow the whistle on their crimes in the future.
Bradley Manning Uncovered U.S. Torture, Abuse, Soldiers Laughing As They Killed Innocent Civilians
[url]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/21/bradley-manning-leaks_n_3788126.html[/url]
read that report to see all the stuff he exposed that our government was trying to hide. Basically the government is punishing him for exposing their crimes. Punish the whistleblower ignore the crimes being exposed = modern American government.
[QUOTE]1. The 'Collateral Murder' Apache helicopter video
Manning released this graphic video of a U.S. Apache helicopter attack on a group of people gathered in Baghdad. Two were employees of the Reuters news agency. A member of the helicopter crew refers to the "dead bastards" he killed, and the crew lights up a passing van that stopped to help victims of the first round of gunfire.
2. The Reykjavik-13 cable
Far less known than the Apache video was this classified 2010 cable from the U.S. Embassy in Reykjavik released on Feb. 18, 2010. The first of Manning's leaks to be published, it caused an immediate sensation in Iceland for its frank discussion of U.S. indifference toward problems in the small island nation's banking sector.
3. The Iraq War Logs
4. The Afghanistan War Logs
5. Detention, abuse and torture
Manning's leaks included more than 700 Guantanamo detainee files, many revealing that the U.S. had little reason to continue holding its prisoners. The 250,000 State Department cables he leaked detailed U.S. diplomatic pressure on foreign countries to ignore or excuse extraordinary renditions carried out by the CIA in apparent violation of international law. They also showed that the U.S. routinely failed to investigate reports of prisoner abuse and summary execution by the Iraqi military.
6. U.S. complicity with repressive Arab regimes
It was no surprise to many living in the Arab world that the United States routinely collaborated with Arab dictators behind closed doors while proclaiming its commitment to democracy in public. Manning's leaks of sensitive State Department cables, however, laid bare the American hypocrisy in the Middle East. By some accounts, they served as a catalyst for the regime changes around the region that would come to be known as the Arab Spring.[/QUOTE]
The only thing manning did wrong was not running as far and as fast as he could, like snowden.
[QUOTE=MavsSuperFan]Even nixon didnt do this to whistleblowers. Think about it for a sec the supposedly liberal democratic president is doing something to whistleblowers even Nixon did do to Daniel Ellsberg when he released the pentagon papers[/QUOTE]
You don't know the history of the Ellsberg case do you?
SMH. I doubt this guy will survive in prison. Couldn't he have gotten something ridiculous like 200 years?
[QUOTE=longtime lurker]SMH. I doubt this guy will survive in prison. Couldn't he have gotten something ridiculous like 200 years?[/QUOTE]
I heard he was originally up for 90 years and they brought it down to 65 then 35. He got less time because the judges agreed he put no american lives in danger.
[QUOTE=KevinNYC]You don't know the history of the Ellsberg case do you?[/QUOTE]
I know a lot about it. He was never treated like Manning and he revealed far more sensitive information.
[QUOTE=KevinNYC]Hopefully, Manning will be able to follow through and become a better person.[/QUOTE]
That statement sounds like someone already preparing for his first parole hearing.
[QUOTE=MavsSuperFan]I know a lot about it. He was never treated like Manning and he revealed far more sensitive information.[/QUOTE]
Sensitive information about a war Americans wanted to move on from and forget. People knew the Vietnam war was horrible, and pointless (from their POV). Bradley revealed sensitive info about a war that people quite frankly don't give a shit about compared to back in the day, where there were rallies all over the place to bring our soldiers home. Ellsburg was backed by his fellow Americans. I hope that todays society and social media can help back up Manning and get him out of jail.
He didn't realize this would be the outcome of what he was doing? He leaked government secrets, you are going to jail. You don't get to pick and choose which laws you follow and you which you don't. I feel bad for him but didn't he commit the crime of which he's going to jail for?
If you think Manning's sole motivation was heroic, you're wrong. Revenge was one of his big motivations as well. Which is why he didn't just release information on wrongdoing, but grabbed everything he could steal, because he was in a ****ed up place and hated the army. He released tons of shit he never even looked at.
He was in a ****ed up place for a lot of reasons, but probably the biggest was he feels he was born a woman (I can't imagine what living with that in the army must be like) and just broken up with his first boyfriend. Even he was discovered as the leaker, he was going to be discharged from the army because he punched a female soldier in the face. Even before he joined the Army he pulled a knife on his stepmother.
So he had a lot of issues going on and in addition, he realized he hated being in the Army and felt the War he was part of was unjustified.
If you think Manning was a cut and dried hero, you're wrong. You're denying him his complications, his flaws and his essential humanity if you prefer the cardboard version of him. His courtroom statement to me reads like someone who has spent some time thinking about what he did and why and honestly regrets the choices he made. If you want to read more about Manning, I recommend this.
[url]http://nymag.com/news/features/bradley-manning-2011-7/[/url]
Yes, Manning exposed wrongdoing. He also committed a bunch too. I feel sorry for the kid.
[QUOTE=KevinNYC]If you think Manning's sole motivation was heroic, you're wrong. Revenge was one of his big motivations as well. Which is why he didn't just release information on wrongdoing, but grabbed everything he could steal, because he was in a ****ed up place and hated the army. He released tons of shit he never even looked at.
He was in a ****ed up place for a lot of reasons, but probably the biggest was he feels he was born a woman (I can't imagine what living with that in the army must be like) and just broken up with his first boyfriend. Even he was discovered as the leaker, he was going to be discharged from the army because he punched a female soldier in the face. Even before he joined the Army he pulled a knife on his stepmother.
So he had a lot of issues going on and in addition, he realized he hated being in the Army and felt the War he was part of was unjustified.
If you think Manning was a cut and dried hero, you're wrong. You're denying him his complications, his flaws and his essential humanity if you prefer the cardboard version of him. His courtroom statement to me reads like someone who has spent some time thinking about what he did and why and honestly regrets the choices he made. If you want to read more about Manning, I recommend this.
[url]http://nymag.com/news/features/bradley-manning-2011-7/[/url]
Yes, Manning exposed wrongdoing. He also committed a bunch too. I feel sorry for the kid.[/QUOTE]
This doesn't matter one bit whatsoever, him becomming a potential transvestit is so unimportant in the whole scenario.
He whistled on crimes being kept secret by the US government, but he himself is the one to get convicted, that's what matters.
Ellsberg was a civilian when he leaked the Pentagon Papers and Manning was an active-duty soldier. Ellsberg also was indicted and was facing something like 110 if he was found guilty, so the "even Nixon" bullshit is simply bullshit.
[QUOTE=ZenMaster]This doesn't matter one bit whatsoever, him becomming a potential transvestit is so unimportant in the whole scenario.
He whistled on crimes being kept secret by the US government, but he himself is the one to get convicted, that's what matters.[/QUOTE]
He was transgender/transexual not a transvestite. He didn't merely want to dress in women's clothes (some men who do that are completely straight) he was looking into hormone therapy and sexual reassignment surgery. It would not have mattered, if it wasn't the cause of great stress in his life. Several of his fellow soldiers thought he was near a breakdown. Manning himself has described how deeply unhappy he was. Again this is guy who pulled a knife on his stepmother and punched a female solider in the face, if he was thinking clearly, he could have thought more clearly about the consequences of his actions. Remember he plead guilty to multiple crimes. Crimes he had taken oathes to uphold multiple times.
[QUOTE=KevinNYC]If you think Manning's sole motivation was heroic, you're wrong. Revenge was one of his big motivations as well. Which is why he didn't just release information on wrongdoing, but grabbed everything he could steal, because he was in a ****ed up place and hated the army. He released tons of shit he never even looked at.
He was in a ****ed up place for a lot of reasons, but probably the biggest was he feels he was born a woman (I can't imagine what living with that in the army must be like) and just broken up with his first boyfriend. Even he was discovered as the leaker, he was going to be discharged from the army because he punched a female soldier in the face. Even before he joined the Army he pulled a knife on his stepmother.
So he had a lot of issues going on and in addition, he realized he hated being in the Army and felt the War he was part of was unjustified.
If you think Manning was a cut and dried hero, you're wrong. You're denying him his complications, his flaws and his essential humanity if you prefer the cardboard version of him. His courtroom statement to me reads like someone who has spent some time thinking about what he did and why and honestly regrets the choices he made. If you want to read more about Manning, I recommend this.
[url]http://nymag.com/news/features/bradley-manning-2011-7/[/url]
Yes, Manning exposed wrongdoing. He also committed a bunch too. I feel sorry for the kid.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]He was transgender/transexual not a transvestite. He didn't merely want to dress in women's clothes (some men who do that are completely straight) he was looking into hormone therapy and sexual reassignment surgery. It would not have mattered, if it wasn't the cause of great stress in his life. Several of his fellow soldiers thought he was near a breakdown. Manning himself has described how deeply unhappy he was. Again this is guy who pulled a knife on his stepmother and punched a female solider in the face, if he was thinking clearly, he could have thought more clearly about the consequences of his actions. Remember he plead guilty to multiple crimes. Crimes he had taken oathes to uphold multiple times.[/QUOTE]
Typical KevinNYC post. You always seem to go on an ad hominem attack on the person if you disagree with them/their actions.. You try to discredit the guy and try to make him look guilty by digging up scandalous dirt on him. Newsflash this isn't E! or some celebrity gossip magazine, we don't give a shit if he thought he was a woman or if he likes men..
Him being a transgender and private details about his life isn't relevant to the case on hand. Him being a transgender doesn't change the fact that US soldiers were massacring some civillians.
You're basically saying he should go to jail because he was a transgender which is SAD
[QUOTE=KevinNYC]He was transgender/transexual not a transvestite. He didn't merely want to dress in women's clothes (some men who do that are completely straight) he was looking into hormone therapy and sexual reassignment surgery. It would not have mattered, if it wasn't the cause of great stress in his life. Several of his fellow soldiers thought he was near a breakdown. Manning himself has described how deeply unhappy he was. Again this is guy who pulled a knife on his stepmother and punched a female solider in the face, if he was thinking clearly, he could have thought more clearly about the consequences of his actions. Remember he plead guilty to multiple crimes. Crimes he had taken oathes to uphold multiple times.[/QUOTE]
Again, it just doesn't matter what his motives where, what matters is that a bunch of BS that the US government tried to keep secret was exposed. Him punching another soldier in the face doesn't make the guy laughing in the video saying he just killed a bunch of bastards any better.
Smear campaign against the guy wont work, because what he revelead was the truth taken from documents hidden from the general public. We aren't taking his word for these things, only what we see from the documents and videos released because of him.
[QUOTE=KevinNYC]He was transgender/transexual not a transvestite. He didn't merely want to dress in women's clothes (some men who do that are completely straight) he was looking into hormone therapy and sexual reassignment surgery. It would not have mattered, if it wasn't the cause of great stress in his life. Several of his fellow soldiers thought he was near a breakdown. Manning himself has described how deeply unhappy he was. Again this is guy who pulled a knife on his stepmother and punched a female solider in the face, if he was thinking clearly, he could have thought more clearly about the consequences of his actions. Remember he plead guilty to multiple crimes. Crimes he had taken oathes to uphold multiple times.[/QUOTE]
Maybe you like to seem semi-retarded but I hope that you realize that none of above made a difference at all in terms of the sentence he got.
[QUOTE=MavsSuperFan]kill a father and his 2 kids.
[/QUOTE]
Fortunately, the kids didn't die.
[QUOTE=knickballer]Typical KevinNYC post. You always seem to go on an ad hominem attack on the person if you disagree with them/their actions.. You try to discredit the guy and try to make him look guilty by digging up scandalous dirt on him. Newsflash this isn't E! or some celebrity gossip magazine, we don't give a shit if he thought he was a woman or if he likes men..
[B]Him being a transgender and private details about his life isn't relevant to the case on hand. Him being a transgender doesn't change the fact that US soldiers were massacring some civillians.[/B]
You're basically saying he should go to jail because he was a transgender which is SAD[/QUOTE]
No, I'm saying he should go to jail because he clearly committed serious crimes, crimes that he plead guilty too. Just because someone did something worse doesn't change that. He's guilty.
As for him being transgender, I do think it's relevant. This is a perfect post about denying Bradley Manning his contradictions and his humanity. You think the fact he feels he is a woman is scandalous and dirty. You claim I think he should go to jail because he was transgender. No. I think his being transgender in the army was a source of enormous psychological stress that contributed to his not thinking straight. If you can't see the empathy in my earlier statement, that's on you. It's also the same argument that Manning lawyers used [I]in his defense.[/I]
[QUOTE=millwad]Maybe you like to seem semi-retarded but I hope that you realize that none of above made a difference at all in terms of the sentence he got.[/QUOTE]Again, Manning's lawyers brought his mental state and his gender dysmorphia [I]during the sentencing phase of his trial.[/I]
[QUOTE]Defense lawyer David Coombs portrayed Manning as a well-intentioned but isolated soldier with gender identification issues, and he asked Lind to impose “a sentence that allows him to have a life.”[/QUOTE]
Manning's lawyer is a good one and there a reason he brought up Manning's mental state.The prosecutors were asking for 60 years. The judge gave him 35.
I recommend this book if want to know more about the day the two journalists died.
[url]http://www.amazon.com/The-Good-Soldiers-David-Finkel/dp/B003ZK50U2[/url]
[QUOTE]Remember he plead guilty to multiple crimes. Crimes he had taken oathes to uphold multiple times.[/QUOTE]
this isn't exactly true. the only crime he plead guilty to without stipulation was "wrongfully classifying stored information", which carries a sentence of two years.
the main guilty plea he offered to the prosecution was a limited version of the espionage act. in case people aren't already familiar, this is the law that the obama administration has used to charge twice as many americans as every other president before him combined.
anyway, manning was charged on seven counts of the espionage act. to be found guilty under the espionage act, they have to prove six things. manning plead guilty to a limited version of the charge because there was no way in hell he was going accept two of those six things.
the two conditions he definitely did not plead guilty to are at the very heart of the case, and in fact are all anybody in the public or the media ever bother bringing up.
a) that his leak was directly related to national defense
b) that he had reason to believe that his leak could injure the united states or benefit some other nation
bear in mind, the difference between the sentence of the full charge and the limited charge isn't beans. it's actually a difference of 56 years. and that's just the espionage charges, he plead for lesser counts of other offenses too.
[QUOTE=KevinNYC]If you think Manning's sole motivation was heroic, you're wrong. Revenge was one of his big motivations as well. Which is why he didn't just release information on wrongdoing, but grabbed everything he could steal, because he was in a ****ed up place and hated the army. He released tons of shit he never even looked at.
He was in a ****ed up place for a lot of reasons, but probably the biggest was he feels he was born a woman (I can't imagine what living with that in the army must be like) and just broken up with his first boyfriend. Even he was discovered as the leaker, he was going to be discharged from the army because he punched a female soldier in the face. Even before he joined the Army he pulled a knife on his stepmother.
So he had a lot of issues going on and in addition, he realized he hated being in the Army and felt the War he was part of was unjustified.
If you think Manning was a cut and dried hero, you're wrong. You're denying him his complications, his flaws and his essential humanity if you prefer the cardboard version of him. His courtroom statement to me reads like someone who has spent some time thinking about what he did and why and honestly regrets the choices he made. If you want to read more about Manning, I recommend this.
[url]http://nymag.com/news/features/bradley-manning-2011-7/[/url]
Yes, Manning exposed wrongdoing. He also committed a bunch too. I feel sorry for the kid.[/QUOTE]
Specifically what was the damage to the US that was done by his releases?
Who specifically died because of his release of information?
Why is it that the whistleblower is convicted to 35 years and the crimes he exposed aren't fixed and the people who committed those crimes not punished?
Why does it matter if he was transgender?
His courtroom statements are of a man trying to beg for his life and admit guilt because he has been broken by a year of what many people consider torture. Eg solitary confinement for 23 hours a day and forced strip naked in a and sleep naked in a cold cell.
Once again no one in the Obama administration or the American government has been able to identify anyone hurt by manning's leaks. The only damage has been that manning exposed the fact that our diplomats are gossipy little girls and that they spy on our "allies". Where is the Valerie plame that was exposed by robert novack?
Where is the kill lists that the obama administration disclosed in order to brag about how tough he was?
[QUOTE=aj1987]Fortunately, the kids didn't die.[/QUOTE]
Nice, good news on a day with terrible news.
Its so sad nothing ever happened to the person that shot at them.
shoot up an entire army base, killing several soldiers and this scum gets 35 years? the legal system is a joke.
[QUOTE=KevinNYC]No, I'm saying he should go to jail because he clearly committed serious crimes, crimes that he plead guilty too. Just because someone did something worse doesn't change that. He's guilty.
As for him being transgender, I do think it's relevant. This is a perfect post about denying Bradley Manning his contradictions and his humanity. You think the fact he feels he is a woman is scandalous and dirty. You claim I think he should go to jail because he was transgender. No. I think his being transgender in the army was a source of enormous psychological stress that contributed to his not thinking straight. If you can't see the empathy in my earlier statement, that's on you. It's also the same argument that Manning lawyers used [I]in his defense.[/I][/QUOTE]
His crimes were disclosing the truth about lies that the american government were trying to hide. Also why is he the only one that is being punished? Are you not outraged that the people in the collateral murder video are never going to be sentenced to anything?
How about the fact that he exposed the fact that the government is holding about 700 people in gitmo with basically no evidence?
Should soldiers follow orders no matter what? Were Nazi SS and Imperial Japanese soldiers correct in following orders unquestioningly?
[QUOTE=KevinNYC]Ellsberg was a civilian when he leaked the Pentagon Papers and Manning was an active-duty soldier. Ellsberg also was indicted and was facing something like 110 if he was found guilty, so the "even Nixon" bullshit is simply bullshit.[/QUOTE]
Ellsberg released far more operationally sensitive information.
[QUOTE]The Papers revealed that the U.S. had expanded its war with bombing of Cambodia and Laos, coastal raids on North Vietnam, and Marine Corps attacks, none of which had been reported by media in the US.[11] The most damaging revelations in the papers revealed that four administrations, from Truman to Johnson, had misled the public regarding their intentions. For example, the John F. Kennedy administration had planned to overthrow South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem before his death in a November 1963 coup. President Johnson had decided to expand the war while promising "we seek no wider war" during his 1964 presidential campaign,[5] including plans to bomb North Vietnam well before the 1964 Election. President Johnson had been outspoken against doing so during the election and claimed that his opponent Barry Goldwater was the one that wanted to bomb North Vietnam.[12[/QUOTE]
Ellsberg never spent a day in jail, he was considered a hero by liberals. I guess because Obama is president now liberals have changed their values. Well I am one liberal who hasn't this was wrong under bush and it is still wrong under obama.
There is so much positives to the information Manning disclosed
- The collateral murder video where soldiers kill civilians from an apache gunship, and then shooting at first responders that go and try to save the victims.
-The pentagon had always publically claimed that they did not keep track of civilian
however:
[QUOTE]As part of his work as an Army intelligence analyst, Manning had access to a wealth of sensitive Army documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Called SIGACTS (significant activities), in military parlance, they detailed nighttime raids and improvised explosives attacks with intimate on-the-ground reports from U.S. troops.
Manning gave WikiLeaks nearly 400,000 SIGACTS from Iraq. They were published in October 2010. The Pentagon had always maintained that it did not keep track of civilian casualties in Iraq, but the independent Iraq Body Count website used the SIGACTS to confirm and update its count of deaths in the conflict.
As of this month, the Iraq Body Count's Josh Dougherty related, the organization had added 4,000 deaths to its database as a result of Manning's leaks and was likely to add another 10,000.
"These and thousands of others like them are known to the world today only because Bradley Manning could no longer in good conscience collude with an official policy of the Bush and Obama administrations to abuse secrecy and 'national security' to erase them from history," Dougherty wrote on the group's website. "If Manning deserves any punishment at all for this, certainly his three years already served, and the disgraceful abuse he was made to suffer during it, is more than enough."[/QUOTE]
proving that the pentagon were liars. Same is true for afghanistan
-Manning's leaks included more than 700 Guantanamo detainee files, many revealing that the U.S. had little reason to continue holding its prisoners. The 250,000 State Department cables he leaked detailed U.S. diplomatic pressure on foreign countries to ignore or excuse extraordinary renditions carried out by the CIA in apparent violation of international law. They also showed that the U.S. routinely failed to investigate reports of prisoner abuse and summary execution by the Iraqi military.
-US support for arab dictatorships leading to the arab spring.
-US government indifference towards the banking crisis in Iceland
Name one person or US operation that has been compromised by Manning's leaks? Information gets leaked all the time. Novak leaked Plame's identity? is he in jail? Scooter libby and dick cheney were also apart of that leak are they in jail? Obama administration leaked the existence of the CIA kill list in order to make obama seem tough on terrorism before the 2012 election, has anyone gone to jail?
Why is it that manning's leaks are being punished so harshly? You really think it has nothing to do with the government wanting revenge for their crimes being exposed?
[QUOTE=NoGunzJustSkillz]shoot up an entire army base, killing several soldiers and this scum gets 35 years? the legal system is a joke.[/QUOTE]
You're thinking of someone else.
[QUOTE=RidonKs]this isn't exactly true. the only crime he plead guilty to without stipulation was "wrongfully classifying stored information", which carries a sentence of two years.[/QUOTE]
So he could have faced 20 years on these charges alone. I find that serious.
[QUOTE=RidonKs]the main guilty plea he offered to the prosecution was a limited version of the espionage act. in case people aren't already familiar, this is the law that the obama administration has used to charge twice as many americans as every other president before him combined.
anyway, manning was charged on seven counts of the espionage act. to be found guilty under the espionage act, they have to prove six things. manning plead guilty to a limited version of the charge because there was no way in hell he was going accept two of those six things.[/QUOTE]
Do you have a link to the actual charges? Wikipedia just says this.
[I]On July 30, 2013, Judge Lind issued her findings regarding the charges. Manning was acquitted of aiding the enemy by knowingly giving out intelligence through indirect means and convicted of 19 of the 21 or 22 specified charges, including theft and six counts of espionage.[/I]
[QUOTE=MavsSuperFan]Should soldiers follow orders no matter what? Were Nazi SS and Imperial Japanese soldiers correct in following orders unquestioningly?[/QUOTE]
According to Milgram, maybe. Alleviation of responsibility and belief in authority tend to be conducive of immoral behavior.
Journalists are allowed to "leak" all the time -- when it benefits the administration in power. The letter of the law does not apply to the elite.