103 replies to this topic

[Cradle of Fish]

I'm more amazed that anti-big government right wingers are totally okay with the government holding such secrecy over them. Manning broke the law, sure, he was in the completely wrong profession to exercise his conscious. He knew the risks when he signed up.

I'd say I hope he receives proper treatment from the courts, but knowing the track record of the United States I feel that it's futile.

[DieChecker]

The military is full of secrets. And it is not even that Manning exposed anything, but that he did so horribly wrongly.

Even if the videos he put out are true whistleblower material, he turned over 250000 emails and 500000 other documents.
http://en.wikipedia....Bradley_Manning

To read that number of documents, even at one per second, would take 8.7 days. Reading 24 hours straight through. If he read in only 8 hours shifts per day that is 26 days of nothing but reading. And obviously most of those documents would take minutes to read.

So obviously Manning did not read all that material. He just mass copied stuff and passed it off to Wikileaks. That is not the action of a hero. it is the action of an idiot, or... a traitor.

[with bells on]

It will be good if he only gets 16 years. He is a silly kid, but he has been punished enough I'm sure.

I feel so sorry for him.

[Cradle of Fish]

DieChecker, on 04 December 2012 - 06:22 AM, said:

The military is full of secrets. And it is not even that Manning exposed anything, but that he did so horribly wrongly.

Even if the videos he put out are true whistleblower material, he turned over 250000 emails and 500000 other documents.
http://en.wikipedia....Bradley_Manning

To read that number of documents, even at one per second, would take 8.7 days. Reading 24 hours straight through. If he read in only 8 hours shifts per day that is 26 days of nothing but reading. And obviously most of those documents would take minutes to read.

So obviously Manning did not read all that material. He just mass copied stuff and passed it off to Wikileaks. That is not the action of a hero. it is the action of an idiot, or... a traitor.

I understand that. If troop deployments and battle plans were free knowledge among the civilians it could easily fall into enemy hands. I would class him as an idiot, if he truly considered the risks he would have no right to complain about the punishment.

But a traitor? If you want to find someone guilty of treason and endangering American lives start with the Bush administration and their cronies.

[preacherman76]

Wearer of Hats, on 04 December 2012 - 03:31 AM, said:

Manning is neither a hero or a villain, he is possibly a man who acted upon his conscience or possibly a man who did what he did for fame.
But what he did was break the law.
Righteous and villainous lawbreakers both end up in the same place when caught though, and that's gaol.
If he acted upon his conscience then one day, in this life or the next, he'll be vindicated and if he did it for fame then he's gotten that and reaped the rewards of his avarice.
But he's not a hero, nor a villain.

He didnt break the law, In fact the law should have protected him under the whistle blowers law. I personaly think his bravery in exposing tyranny was heroic.

Edited by preacherman76, 04 December 2012 - 12:09 PM.

[Dredimus]

preacherman76, on 04 December 2012 - 12:08 PM, said:

He didnt break the law, In fact the law should have protected him under the whistle blowers law. I personaly think his bravery in exposing tyranny was heroic.

Releasing Classified information to anyone without the right level of clearance and need to know is against the law. He committed a crime.

LINK


Edit To Add: Not only did he break the law, but any one that read the information (in the US) technically broke the law if they knew the information was not declassified.

Edited by Dredimus, 04 December 2012 - 12:35 PM.

[preacherman76]

Dredimus, on 04 December 2012 - 12:34 PM, said:

Releasing Classified information to anyone without the right level of clearance and need to know is against the law. He committed a crime.

LINK


Edit To Add: Not only did he break the law, but any one that read the information (in the US) technically broke the law if they knew the information was not declassified.

http://washington-dc...gn=WPEmployment

Thats unless that information its self was in violation of the law. And clearly, it was.

[Dredimus]

preacherman76, on 04 December 2012 - 12:55 PM, said:

http://washington-dc...gn=WPEmployment

Thats unless that information its self was in violation of the law. And clearly, it was.

Quote

Some of my colleagues may be surprised that the Intelligence
Committee, which reported this bill after long discussion and study,
finds such legislation necessary. Members are aware that the principle
of a government employee's right to directly inform Congress has been
in statute for eighty six years, and was reinforced in this decade by
the Whistleblower Protection Act. What may be less well known is that
the Whistleblower Protection Act specifically exempts the principal
agencies of the Intelligence Community from the requirements of that
law. In addition, successive administrations have held that where
classified information of wrongdoing is concerned, Executive Branch
officials will decide what portion of the information will be shared
with Congress, and how, when, and with whom in Congress it will be
shared. The Administration believes the control of classified
information lies solely with the President and his designees.

Congressional Record, March 9, 1998

Not only that, but I highly doubt that this PFC (reduced in rank for other reasons before all of this came out) had "need to know" access to any of the files that he went through, read and released. All in all, Bradley "Breanna" Manning knew exactly what he was doing, he knew that what he was doing was wrong and he wanted a way out of the military. He enlisted (on his own mind you) and decided he didnt like it. He had a long list of behavioral issues and he was not happy being in the service. All the evidence played out in reality suggest that he did what he did in order to hurt the United States Military and Intel community. It Worked.

[Orcseeker]

Just because something is made a law, doesn't mean it is wrong to break it.

We shouldn't have war. Without that we wouldn't have these war crimes committed.

On the note of religion, I hate the religious drive they use to get those who believe in the desired religion to bring them to their cause. Then blind faith takes over and they're right behind the warhorse.

[Babe Ruth]

Wearer of Hats, on 04 December 2012 - 03:31 AM, said:

Manning is neither a hero or a villain, he is possibly a man who acted upon his conscience or possibly a man who did what he did for fame.
But what he did was break the law.
Righteous and villainous lawbreakers both end up in the same place when caught though, and that's gaol.
If he acted upon his conscience then one day, in this life or the next, he'll be vindicated and if he did it for fame then he's gotten that and reaped the rewards of his avarice.
But he's not a hero, nor a villain.

You have far more faith in the US military justice system than I do, and I have participated in it many many years ago.

Similar to its civilian counterpart, the UCMJ does not provide much justice at all.  It provides a legal framework in which the chain of command has a sledgehammer with which to knock uncooperative soldiers over the head.

There is more justice delivered on any given Sunday by NFL umpires and referees than there is by most american courts and the UCMJ.

Many acted out of conscience, and that is on the record.  He exposed the war crimes of the US government, and THAT is why he has been held all this time under torturous conditions.  Like Daniel Ellsberg before him, he exposed government crimes, and by his actions is a patriot and hero.

[Dredimus]

Babe Ruth, on 04 December 2012 - 01:46 PM, said:

You have far more faith in the US military justice system than I do, and I have participated in it many many years ago.

Similar to its civilian counterpart, the UCMJ does not provide much justice at all.  It provides a legal framework in which the chain of command has a sledgehammer with which to knock uncooperative soldiers over the head.

There is more justice delivered on any given Sunday by NFL umpires and referees than there is by most american courts and the UCMJ.

Many acted out of conscience, and that is on the record.  He exposed the war crimes of the US government, and THAT is why he has been held all this time under torturous conditions.  Like Daniel Ellsberg before him, he exposed government crimes, and by his actions is a patriot and hero.

Do you consider yourself a criminal? As a soldier in the vietnam era, surely you consider yourself to be an aide to illegal military action of some sort... You contend that everything about the government is illegal, thus you have been an aide to that since the day you enlisted. TURN YOURSELF IN BEFORE ITS TO LATE!  

Edited by Dredimus, 04 December 2012 - 03:11 PM.

[Dredimus]

Babe Ruth, on 04 December 2012 - 01:46 PM, said:

You have far more faith in the US military justice system than I do, and I have participated in it many many years ago.

Similar to its civilian counterpart, the UCMJ does not provide much justice at all.  It provides a legal framework in which the chain of command has a sledgehammer with which to knock uncooperative soldiers over the head.

There is more justice delivered on any given Sunday by NFL umpires and referees than there is by most american courts and the UCMJ.

Many acted out of conscience, and that is on the record.  He exposed the war crimes of the US government, and THAT is why he has been held all this time under torturous conditions.  Like Daniel Ellsberg before him, he exposed government crimes, and by his actions is a patriot and hero.

  Never mind the fact that he endangered the lives of coalition forces as well as afghani / taliban informants.

[Babe Ruth]

Dredimus, on 04 December 2012 - 03:10 PM, said:

Do you consider yourself a criminal? As a soldier in the vietnam era, surely you consider yourself to be an aide to illegal military action of some sort... You contend that everything about the government is illegal, thus you have been an aide to that since the day you enlisted. TURN YOURSELF IN BEFORE ITS TO LATE!  

Your point is valid, but my conscience is clear regarding war crimes during my tour in Vietnam because I was a medic.  We flew unarmed missions with the red cross painted on the ship to comply with Geneva Conventions.  I never killed anybody in my life.

But your point is way valid.  Technically speaking, my several old friends who flew USN and USAF aircraft into the North to bomb and strafe civilian sites were in violation of international law.

I do NOT contend that everything about the government is illegal, but there is no doubt that our military interventions in my life time have been brought under fraud, and Bradley Manning exposed the latest generation of government lies and crimes.

Your claim that he exposed Afghan or Iraqi informants is contradicted by the public statements of Robert Gates, at the time the SecDef.  Get a grip Dred, you're having to defend government crimes and lies, and that's not a good position to be in.

Edited by Babe Ruth, 04 December 2012 - 06:57 PM.

[Dredimus]

Babe Ruth, on 04 December 2012 - 06:54 PM, said:

Your point is valid, but my conscience is clear regarding war crimes during my tour in Vietnam because I was a medic.  We flew unarmed missions with the red cross painted on the ship to comply with Geneva Conventions.  I never killed anybody in my life.

But your point is way valid.  Technically speaking, my several old friends who flew USN and USAF aircraft into the North to bomb and strafe civilian sites were in violation of international law.

I do NOT contend that everything about the government is illegal, but there is no doubt that our military interventions in my life time have been brought under fraud, and Bradley Manning exposed the latest generation of government lies and crimes.

Your claim that he exposed Afghan or Iraqi informants is contradicted by the public statements of Robert Gates, at the time the SecDef.  Get a grip Dred, you're having to defend government crimes and lies, and that's not a good position to be in.

I want you to source and show me where Robert Gates ever said that people were not put into harms way over this...

[DieChecker]

preacherman76, on 04 December 2012 - 12:08 PM, said:

He didnt break the law, In fact the law should have protected him under the whistle blowers law. I personaly think his bravery in exposing tyranny was heroic.

Whistleblower law does not apply in this case, because he did not try to hand the documents over to a representative of the US government. He handed them over to a foriegn national.

Manning =/= Whistleblower

Manning == Military Criminal

preacherman76, on 04 December 2012 - 12:55 PM, said:

Thats unless that information its self was in violation of the law. And clearly, it was.

That would be true if it could be proven that all those documents had been read by Manning and he considered them dangerous. Unfortunately, since there were over 750,000 documents, and each would take a couple minutes to digest as to if it was dangerous or criminal, he would have needed over 400 days of constant reading during his On Duty time to read all of them, and that is plainly impossible for him to have accomplished.

So he gave unread documents to a foriegn national.

Babe Ruth, on 04 December 2012 - 01:46 PM, said:

Similar to its civilian counterpart, the UCMJ does not provide much justice at all.  It provides a legal framework in which the chain of command has a sledgehammer with which to knock uncooperative soldiers over the head.

Except 99.999% of all soldiers have no issues with UCMJ. I surely never did. The only ones that I did know who had issues were drug users and wife beaters.

Personnally I'd encourage anyone with Authority issues not to go into the military, unless you Want that to be broken out of you. Harsh treatment is what the military offers and what people sign up for when they put their sig on those enlistment papers.