80 replies to this topic

[DieChecker]

Babe Ruth, on 18 March 2013 - 02:15 PM, said:

DC

Manning DID KNOW what he was sending out sir.  Recall that he was an intelligence analyst, and his job description involved poring over all manner of communications.  Again, had you bothered to read or follow this case, you would already know that.  It's old news.

So how would you explain reading 750000 documents? If he read one a second, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week that would be 5 weeks of reading. If he took 1 minute for each document (check how long it takes to read this post) then he needs 60 times as long... 300 weeks... 6 years... of doing NOTHING ELSE but reading. Do you really beleive he did that monumental task? If so, then he is superhuman, and.... he would have been unable to perform his military functions, which take 8 hours of his day.

Well sir, I happen to have served in a Brigade level HQ unit in Germany (2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division in Baumholder Germany, with the Engineering Battallon) in the mid 1990s, and the quality of the intellegence enlisted analysts in my opinon seems about the same... poor. Spc Manning did not require a college education to be a intellegence analyst. Indeed, he probably did not analyse anything. He most likely just took reports, collated paperwork and handed off the data to the Officers, who DO THE ANALYSIS. Your insisting that he is super smart and super trained, due to an assumption based on his duty station, is a statement of ignorance. Indeed it is public knowledge he failed out of college his first semester. Who would you want doing your analysis... A hyper emotional, mentally unstable college dropout or an officer with specific analysis training and a Bachelors degree at a minimum? Manning was a driver, coffee boy and secretary... I know because that is what I did in his same Spc position, but working for the Engineers.

So what is the more logical answer, that Manning sent out documents unread, or that he is some kind of savant hyper-reading genius?

EDIT: I read this kind of slow and it took me 1:26. Probably reading fast this post could be read in about a minute...
http://www.online-stopwatch.com/

Edited by DieChecker, 18 March 2013 - 09:08 PM.

[Babe Ruth]

DieChecker, on 18 March 2013 - 09:02 PM, said:

So how would you explain reading 750000 documents? If he read one a second, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week that would be 5 weeks of reading. If he took 1 minute for each document (check how long it takes to read this post) then he needs 60 times as long... 300 weeks... 6 years... of doing NOTHING ELSE but reading. Do you really beleive he did that monumental task? If so, then he is superhuman, and.... he would have been unable to perform his military functions, which take 8 hours of his day.

Well sir, I happen to have served in a Brigade level HQ unit in Germany (2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division in Baumholder Germany, with the Engineering Battallon) in the mid 1990s, and the quality of the intellegence enlisted analysts in my opinon seems about the same... poor. Spc Manning did not require a college education to be a intellegence analyst. Indeed, he probably did not analyse anything. He most likely just took reports, collated paperwork and handed off the data to the Officers, who DO THE ANALYSIS. Your insisting that he is super smart and super trained, due to an assumption based on his duty station, is a statement of ignorance. Indeed it is public knowledge he failed out of college his first semester. Who would you want doing your analysis... A hyper emotional, mentally unstable college dropout or an officer with specific analysis training and a Bachelors degree at a minimum? Manning was a driver, coffee boy and secretary... I know because that is what I did in his same Spc position, but working for the Engineers.

So what is the more logical answer, that Manning sent out documents unread, or that he is some kind of savant hyper-reading genius?

EDIT: I read this kind of slow and it took me 1:26. Probably reading fast this post could be read in about a minute...
http://www.online-stopwatch.com/

Point well taken DC.  No sir, Manning did not read, could not have read everything he released.  So what is your point, exactly?

Gates, SecDef, already stated in public that whatever Manning released harmed nobody.  Nobody died from what was released, but a whole lotta people had egg on their faces, and crimes and hypocrisy were revealed.

You go ahead and take the government side DC, I'm ashamed of my government.

[DieChecker]

Just saying, in my opinion, he is not a hero, but a traitor. Just my opinion though.

Babe Ruth, on 18 March 2013 - 09:29 PM, said:

Point well taken DC.  No sir, Manning did not read, could not have read everything he released.  So what is your point, exactly?

Gates, SecDef, already stated in public that whatever Manning released harmed nobody.  Nobody died from what was released, but a whole lotta people had egg on their faces, and crimes and hypocrisy were revealed.

You go ahead and take the government side DC, I'm ashamed of my government.

To my point of view, I am supporting Law and Order. He broke the law, in many ways, and there is a lot of evidence of that, so he will now have to do the time. I just feel he had many, many other options then the way he chose to go, all options that would have not landed him in 20 years of jail. Maybe a discharge, or maybe time served, or maybe nothing, but a lot less then 20 years (20 years being the estimate of what he has already pled guilty to).

The fact that little of any worth was released actually speaks to the fact he had no idea what he was sending out, don't you think? If he'd sent out real "super criminal activity" stuff, don't you think there would have been some real, international repercussions?

What exactly did he seek to expose with the 250000 documents of Cablegate? What did he plan to expose with Iraq War Logsand Afghan War Logs? Did he have any Plan? Did he have any targets? Or, was he just tossing out documents willy nilly, and hoping that some stuck and exonerated him to history?

Actually Wikileaks has said that they have not published all the Afghan and Iraq documents, because there are many (15,000 from Afghanistan) that even they deemed too sensitive to publish right now. That speaks to Manning actually sending out much. much worse material then has been published.

Quote

As of 28 July 2010, only 75,000 of the documents (of 91,731) have been released to the public, a move which Wikileaks says is "part of a harm minimization process demanded by [the] source".

Edited by DieChecker, 19 March 2013 - 02:12 AM.

[AsteroidX]

................

Edited by AsteroidX, 19 March 2013 - 03:59 AM.

[Babe Ruth]

DC

With all due respect sir, you don't have a clue what law and order is.

Among other things, law and order means that the government and its agents obey the law.  For example, they uphold their oath of office, and govern in accordance with the law.

Both invasions, Afghan and Iraq, were brought under fraud.  They are, by definition, military aggression.  That is illegal.

Killing civilians is illegal.  Laughing about it is obscene and barbaric, but it seems your position is that such crimes should be kept secret.  That is a bad position to be in, IMO.

We both did our time in the Army.  You enlisted, me by way of ROTC.  I don't know if you ever realized it, but classification of documents is way out of hand.  Everything is classified, and that trend has only increased, according to what I've read.

Keep in mind that the Pentagon Papers of my generation were all TOP SECRET papers.  And after all the smoke cleared, Congress found that those papers revealed, among other things, "the purposeful witholding and distortion of facts."  I was not comfortable with that then, and I'm sure not comfortable with it now.

Manning's material was NOT top secret, merely classified at lower levels.

But it seems you are forced to post that you actually approve of such witholding and distortion.  Bradley Manning was not, and that's the difference between him and you.  And of course he's been in jail for years, in DIRECT VIOLATION of the speedy trial rule in UCMJ.

It seems DC, that you are quite selective about just which laws you support and what kind of order you like?  Pity, I say.

Edited by Babe Ruth, 19 March 2013 - 02:27 PM.

[DieChecker]

Babe Ruth, on 19 March 2013 - 02:26 PM, said:

Killing civilians is illegal.  Laughing about it is obscene and barbaric, but it seems your position is that such crimes should be kept secret.  That is a bad position to be in, IMO.

If you continue to lie about my stated position, we're going to have to stop this discussion. It only makes you seem like you are not even reading the posts... Point out where my position is that such crimes should be kept secret?

Quote

We both did our time in the Army.  You enlisted, me by way of ROTC.  I don't know if you ever realized it, but classification of documents is way out of hand.  Everything is classified, and that trend has only increased, according to what I've read.

Probably true, but still not an excuse to mass publish said classified documents.

Quote

Keep in mind that the Pentagon Papers of my generation were all TOP SECRET papers.  

But from what I read, they were ALWAYS intended for public consumption. It was simply a matter of when and where it would be published.

Quote

Manning's material was NOT top secret, merely classified at lower levels.

And yet never intended for public consumption. Anyone that needs these documents should file a Freedom of Information Act application. What Manning did is steal.

Quote

But it seems you are forced to post that you actually approve of such witholding and distortion.  Bradley Manning was not, and that's the difference between him and you.  And of course he's been in jail for years, in DIRECT VIOLATION of the speedy trial rule in UCMJ.

I do believe there are some documents and information that the general public does not need access to. The social security numbers of personnel, the addresses of personnel and so on... Troop movements and deployments.... Covert operative data... Planning documents... many, many documents and data that the national security interests require be kept secret. So, yes, I do approve of keeping some documents out of public hands.

I believe the whole speedy trial thing is what has been going on and probably still is going on... rather whether his treatment and delay is cause to dropping the charges or not. I personnally think he should have plea bargained earlier and he might have got off with only 10 years with time served counting. So, I think you have a point there. But, that is a crime of the military, and still should not excuse Mannings actions.

Quote

It seems DC, that you are quite selective about just which laws you support and what kind of order you like?  Pity, I say.

Perhaps. And perhaps you do the same??

[Babe Ruth]

DC

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your position here?  Manning released the helicopter gunship video, and for doing that, you call him a traitor.  That implies that you think that releasing it was a crime.

Please correct me.

Just curious here--what leads you to believe that the Pentagon Papers were intended to be eventually released to the public?

[DieChecker]

Babe Ruth, on 19 March 2013 - 08:07 PM, said:

DC

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your position here?  Manning released the helicopter gunship video, and for doing that, you call him a traitor.  That implies that you think that releasing it was a crime.

Please correct me.

I've actually never said anything about that video. Exposing it was actually a commendable action. That video clearly shows enough for a Whistleblower to expose it. If Manning had sent it to just about any US citizen, I'd have zero problem with it, but he sent it to a foreign national. So, in that case, it was a crime. Otherwise I specifically have not commented on that video because it is a weak point in my end of the debate.

If Manning had stopped there, there would be no issue really. And if he had continued to send out glaringly obvious military errors/crimes, that would have been in his favor too. But he did not. He started to just grab whatever he could, copy it to a DVD and then send it out unread. Those are not the actions of a crime fighter, but the actions of a spy.

Quote

Just curious here--what leads you to believe that the Pentagon Papers were intended to be eventually released to the public?

When I was reading about the Pentagon Papers it was McNamara who wanted a history of the Vietnam War with all the details, created so that Historians would record it right. His intent was to eventually give it to his friends among the Kennedys and at the Rand Corporation. Which would inevitibly end up in public publication. It was in a packet labeled Secret, but according to what I read it was not actually a high level classification.

Quote

and was classified as "Top Secret - Sensitive". ("Sensitive" is not an official security designation; it meant that the study's publication would be embarrassing.)

http://en.wikipedia....Pentagon_Papers

[ninjadude]

DieChecker, on 19 March 2013 - 11:07 PM, said:

I've actually never said anything about that video. Exposing it was actually a commendable action. That video clearly shows enough for a Whistleblower to expose it. If Manning had sent it to just about any US citizen, I'd have zero problem with it, but he sent it to a foreign national.

Otherwise known as a journalist - Wikileaks.

[regeneratia]

I think it is extremely interesting that there is such secrecy surrounding this trial.  Makes me highly suspicious of my own government.

Glad that the transcript was leaked. We The People have a right to know, especially since we are paying for this trial and the dubiously murderous antics of our USA government (dones killing a 16 year old boy).

Manning is a hero. The USA government and the US military cannot take the high moral ground on anything these days. I expect better behavior from my government and my country's military.

I am not a part of any organization the USA considers terrorist, unless We The People are now terrorists. But I am not liking the people in the USA government much these days. It is time to clean house and rid our government of criminals.

Get your scat together, USA government, or you WILL go down.

Edited by regeneratia, 20 March 2013 - 06:55 PM.

[regeneratia]

Yet he does not think that killing these people was a crime with the intent that they did it. So crazy.

We NEED to know what our government is doing on all levels of diplomacy and military actions.

The secrets are because they KNOW we the people would not approve of what they are doing.
National security claims are used to protect the government, not to protect The People.

We The People = We The Power

Babe Ruth, on 19 March 2013 - 08:07 PM, said:

DC

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your position here?  Manning released the helicopter gunship video, and for doing that, you call him a traitor.  That implies that you think that releasing it was a crime.

Please correct me.

Just curious here--what leads you to believe that the Pentagon Papers were intended to be eventually released to the public?

Edited by regeneratia, 20 March 2013 - 06:59 PM.

[Bama13]

regeneratia, on 20 March 2013 - 06:58 PM, said:

We NEED to know what our government is doing on all levels of diplomacy and military actions.

The secrets are because they KNOW we the people would not approve of what they are doing.
National security claims are used to protect the government, not to protect The People.

We The People = We The Power

So you think, back in May of 1944, the American people should have been told that we were going to invade Europe at Normandy on the 5th/6th of June? Sometimes they are secrets because letting We The People know equates to letting Them The Enemy know also.

[regeneratia]

Bama13, on 20 March 2013 - 07:23 PM, said:

So you think, back in May of 1944, the American people should have been told that we were going to invade Europe at Normandy on the 5th/6th of June? Sometimes they are secrets because letting We The People know equates to letting Them The Enemy know also.

Yes. The key is NOT to have enemies. Another key is to know that war is not an aswer for anyone or any country.

Edited by regeneratia, 20 March 2013 - 07:47 PM.

[Stellar]

regeneratia, on 20 March 2013 - 07:46 PM, said:

Yes. The key is NOT to have enemies. Another key is to know that war is not an aswer for anyone or any country.

So do you think that the allies should have just bowed down to Nazi Germany? You know... since going to war against them is not an answer....

[regeneratia]

Stellar, on 20 March 2013 - 07:50 PM, said:

So do you think that the allies should have just bowed down to Nazi Germany? You know... since going to war against them is not an answer....

Quite honestly, that era is emotionally super-charged for me. To avoid bad feelings, I generally do not like to think about it at all,  unless it is to prevent it from ever happening again. I don 't mean warring to stop it. I mean literally preventing it from happening. It could easily have been prevented and wasn't. Why wasn't it prevented?

We have different perspectives on this. I think prevention, preventing it from happening. You imply stopping it after it happens. I like to think about nipping these things in the bud. You imply that you deal with it after it has blossomed and is seeded in fertile soil.

But again, I have one line of typing from you to assess your thinking. Thus I leave room for my being inaccurate in what I connote from your one line.

Edited by regeneratia, 20 March 2013 - 08:07 PM.