Bradley Manning sentenced to 35 years

[KevinNYC]

I recommend this book if want to know more about the day the two journalists died.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Good-Soldi.../dp/B003ZK50U2

[RidonKs]

Remember he plead guilty to multiple crimes. Crimes he had taken oathes to uphold multiple times.

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.

[MavsSuperFan]

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.

http://nymag.com/news/features/bradley-manning-2011-7/

Yes, Manning exposed wrongdoing. He also committed a bunch too. I feel sorry for the kid.

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?

[MavsSuperFan]

Fortunately, the kids didn't die.

Nice, good news on a day with terrible news.

Its so sad nothing ever happened to the person that shot at them.

[NoGunzJustSkillz]

shoot up an entire army base, killing several soldiers and this scum gets 35 years? the legal system is a joke.

[MavsSuperFan]

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 in his defense.

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?

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.

Ellsberg released far more operationally sensitive information.

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

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:

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."

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?

[KevinNYC]

shoot up an entire army base, killing several soldiers and this scum gets 35 years? the legal system is a joke.

You're thinking of someone else.

[KevinNYC]

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.

So he could have faced 20 years on these charges alone. I find that serious.

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.

Do you have a link to the actual charges? Wikipedia just says this.
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.

[miller-time]

Should soldiers follow orders no matter what? Were Nazi SS and Imperial Japanese soldiers correct in following orders unquestioningly?

According to Milgram, maybe. Alleviation of responsibility and belief in authority tend to be conducive of immoral behavior.

[reppy]

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.

[COnDEMnED]

Hopefully Snowden lives long enough to give enough evidence to have Obama impeached. I imagine Snowden mysteriously dies within the next year...Seal Team 6 style.

...people wanted change... they got it. Vote smarter next time people.

[iamgine]

People don't care as long as it doesn't affect them. No one wants to take on a cause and be prosecuted for it. Venting on the internet is enough.

[KevinNYC]

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?

He did at the very minimum 6.2 million dollars worth of damage.

Dismissing his statement at trial is again, dismissing his agency. He said something you disagree with, therefore, he must not mean it. It's only because he broken.

Anyhow, he knowingly broke several laws he took an oath to uphold. The judge who dismissed the prosecution's strongest assertion, that the Taliban killed someone who was working with the US based on the wikileaks material, still felt his crimes were sufficent to merit a sentence of 35 years.

In short, I don't want a 22 year-old private making foreign policy and deciding upon his own authority to release 700,000 documents.

Your Valerie Plame analogy doesn't really work as she didn't die either and the Robert Novak in this case is Julian Assange, the outsider, not the insider with security clearances.

[KevinNYC]

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.

Journalists don't leak. They are the recipient of leaks.

However, you're correct, they have been several leaks recently favorable to the administration and they will not be prosecuted.

[KevinNYC]

Hopefully Snowden lives long enough to give enough evidence to have Obama impeached. I imagine Snowden mysteriously dies within the next year...Seal Team 6 style.

...people wanted change... they got it. Vote smarter next time people.

Book it here.
Snowden is going permanently defect and Julian Assange will move on the next person he can convince to throw his life his away.