Bradley Manning

[LSN80]

Gets 35 years, which is less than the 60 years the prosecution asked for. But what it means is at 25 years of age, he'll be in jail until he's 60 years old.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/21/us/bradley-manning-sentencing/index.html?hpt=ju_c1

In what's been called the biggest leak of classified documents in Army history, Manning was convicted in July of stealing 750,000 pages of classified documents and videos and leaking them to WikiLeaks. Along with the 35 years he received, he had his rank reduced from 'Private First Class' to 'Private', was dishonorably discharged, and will have to pay back past pay and benefits received from the Army. Capt. Joe Morrow, the prosecutor on the case, explained his reasoning for pushing for such harsh sentencing:

"There may not be a soldier in the history of the Army who displayed such an extreme disregard for his mission. Manning's arrogance was such that he felt he alone was knowledgeable and intelligent enough to determine what information was to be classified. His actions created grave risk, disrupted diplomatic missions and endangered lives."

David Coombs, Manning's lawyer, appealed not for a specific sentence, but that Manning is an excellent candidate to be redeemed.

"Perhaps his biggest crime was that he cared about the loss of life that he was seeing and couldn't ignore it.This is a young man capable of being redeemed. The defense requests, after the court considers all the facts, a sentence that allows him to have a life."

Manning's sentence does the opposite of this. He'll be a senior citizen, when most are nearing retirement when he's released.

I don't mean to ride the fence, but I see both points of view. While no lives(that I know of) were lost as a result of this, it's fairly reasonable to say that it could have happened. Further, the fact that he acted alone showed, as the prosecutor said, either extreme arrogance, or incredible paranoia. What he did was reckless as well, and while we certainly lock people up for being incredible reckless, do we do so for 35 years?

Some who commit pre-meditated murder get less than this.

Is Bradley Manning deserving of 35 years? More? Less?

Whose statement do you agree with more, Prosecutor Morrow's, or Defense Attorney Coombs?

 

[Loveless]

I'll come back to this in more detail later but for now.

Why is the guy exposing crimes facing 35 years in jail while those he exposed have gotten away with far worse?

Keep drinking that fear-mongering Government kool-aid guys, you'll be in a police state before you know it.
Exposing criminal behaviour isn't a crime. There's a reason that traitor Obama made a pledge to protect whistleblowers (and then conveniently took it down last month) and it's because they work to uphold the law. This was a sham trial, run by the criminals Manning exposed.

 

[H33LTurn]

If you set a house on fire and no one dies, are you still a criminal? Yemen is an incredibly tumultuous area right now, geopolitical speaking, and with the rest of the middle east in upheaval, Bradley could've not just endangered the lives of the agents working in that region of the world, but he could have jeopardized any attempts to stabilize that region. The cop out excuse made me hate him more that I already did before. His excuse was that he was not comfortable with his gender identity and that the stress influenced his decisions. Sorry, there are plenty of people with gender identity issues, and few of them jeopardize the safety of entire nations because of it. If you cant handle your emotional baggage, I dont care if you're gay, straight, black, white, male, female, you need to stay away from the high pressure situations that come with working in the armed forces. I dont see the heroism others see in this man. If you didnt know covert operations occurred within our armed forces, then you know nothing about our armed forces. And its not so much about keeping secrets from other Americans as it is about keeping it from the people who are being spied on.

 

[Mustang Sally]

Not to trivialize the severity of this crime by comparing it to an example in sports, but this reminds me of Pete Rose being banned for life by Major League Baseball for gambling on games.

For Rose, it wasn't a question that he believed the authorities would accept his premise that he should be able to legally gamble, since it was expressly forbidden...... nor could he claim he didn't know he wasn't allowed to gamble on baseball. He hoped to escape detection but surely knew that if he was found out, he was subject to whatever penalties MLB could nail him for. Okay, so they banned him for life.

Same with Manning. It isn't a question that he didn't know that what he was doing was forbidden and he could hardly have believed he was going to get away undetected.

So, he did what he did. Sure, the prosecution will think Manning didn't get a long enough sentence, while the defense figured he was being punished too harshly. Isn't that always the case?

But, to hell with all that. If you do wrong.....knowing damn well you were doing wrong.....and they nail you for it.....tough rocks. He's going to spend the prime of his life in prison?.....Again, tough rocks.

If you do wrong and get caught, you've taken control of your own life from yourself and put it in the hands of others.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

Americans, as much as it pains me to say this, truly do behave like children who have been spoiled shit ass rotten and this story is a prime example of why. For many Americans, they simply flat out want everything and they want it exactly the way they think it should be done.

For instance, ever been in an airport waiting while someone is being checked over by security? How often have you heard people complaining, bitching, threatening lawsuits if they miss their flight, etc.? They want to feel safer and more secure while on their flight, which means making sure that no one is bringing weapons or explosives onto the flight, but they don't want to have to endure the inconvenience of undergoing additional security routines & procedures so that some nutjob doesn't hijack the place, fly it into the side of a skyscraper or blow it out of the sky.

This is sort of a similar situation. All throughout history, and when I say history I mean ALL of it, governments have used covert operations within the military as a means of safeguarding the security of the nation. That means that when it comes to dealing with those who are threats to the safety and security of the country, there are going to be some things in which military & government officials aren't going to announce to you. Why? Because they don't want this information revealed to people who want to bring the country down, such as terrorist organizations or foreign powers that would like nothing better than to see the country reduced to ash. The world isn't full of people who are made of sugar & spice & everything nice. Not everyone is going to get along, not everyone can get along, and not everyone is going to play fairly. How nice it'd be if the world was that way, I seriously mean that. But part of keeping a country safe is the use of covert ops. And not to trivialize this whole thing by comparing it to a movie, but a covert operative is what James Bond is right? Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't people spent billions of dollars over the past 50 years to watch the exploits of this spy in which he travels the world battling other spies and terrorist organizations so that he can keep his country, and even the world at large, safe? So why is the notion of being a covert operative in video games & films such a cool thing while some ridicule it in real life even though it's part of what ultimately keeps us safe and to enjoy the freedoms that some want to deprive us of?

I see nothing heroic in what this man did. Bradley Manning isn't a hero, he's nothing more than an old fashioned, common variety traitor who has cloaked himself under the guise of patriotism.

 

[Барбоса]

The only reason I have for seeing his sentence as harsh as there are people who do far worse things and get far less of a sentence.

Actually, there is another reason I think the sentence is overly long. I have a suspicion that Manning is not the same kind of person that Asange and Snowden are - thinly veiled narcissists, who only want to draw attention to themselves. Manning strikes me more as someone who is on the autistic spectrum - extremely clever at computer manipulation but lacking in some of the necessary cognitive abilities to understand what he should be doing with those skills or when he is being manipulated.

Mind you, I am basing that off very little to no evidence. Just a gut feeling.

 

[LSN80]

Keep drinking that fear-mongering Government kool-aid guys, you'll be in a police state before you know it.

I don't agree with the sentence that Manning got, I believe it to be too harsh. Still, I'm not sure how his conviction correlates in any way to us becoming a police state.

Exposing criminal behaviour isn't a crime.

Stealing classified materials and leaking them, endangering lives, is. If Manning truly did nothing wrong, why did he need to do it by himself? Was there no one else he could have gone to with his concerns?

Perhaps Barbosa is right, and Manning has autism/Asperger's Disorder. It would explain quite a bit, including the feeling that he was alone.

That doesn't mean he didn't know what he was doing.

There's a reason that traitor Obama made a pledge to protect whistleblowers (and then conveniently took it down last month).
And it's because they work to uphold the law.

It wasn't Mannings job to uphold the law. From Obama's "ethics agenda":

Obama's ethics agenda: We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process.

This was a sham trial, run by the criminals Manning exposed.

1. He didn't expose it to his own government. He didn't blow the whistle on corruption by going over his superior's heads. He leaked classified information.

2. There's a huge difference between "Whistleblower" and what Bradley Manning did. A whistleblower is a snitch, someone who exposes abuse of authority in government to the proper authorities. They don't endanger the lives of people in the process by recklessly sharing classified information to an online anti-secrecy group.

3. His trial, as promised, was expedited. He was given full opportunity to defend himself. He received due process in every way. How was his trial a sham, exactly? He was military personnel, and he received a military trial.

Manning had the following to say in a prepared statement from his attorney, as he's seeking a pardon from Barack Obama now:

Bradley Manning:"I acted out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to expose what he said were abuses committed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Don't we all, misguided sometimes, act out of love? If someone were to kill my wife, I wouldn't be satisfied with them rotting in prison, I'd want to find and shoot them dead myself. If I did, I'd be acting out of love, after all, against an atrocity committed against me.

But like Manning, I'd be going about it the wrong way.

More from Manning, in his request for a pardon:

Bradley Manning:"If you deny my request for a pardon, I will serve my time knowing that sometimes you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society. I will gladly pay that price if it means we could have a country that is truly conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all women and men are created equal."

The arrogance here is absolutely astounding. He believed that his actions, dangerous ones, were done in the name of justice, freedom, and equality.
If so, than why couldn't he go through the proper channels?

Because he was wrong in what he did. And yet his arrogance and belief that he somehow was assuring a free society was justification for it. He doesn't deserve 35 years. He's eligible for parole in 10, which seems like a fair proposition to me.

But with Manning's arrogance, he'll serve the full 35, refusing to admit any culpability.

 

[One Punch Doug Crashin]

Bradly Manning leaking Classified info is a crime... Only in the millitary. Everywhere else there are laws that protect him. If he was a journalist leaking info to the public that would qulify legal protection under the whistleblower act. He should have gotten less but since our government got embarrassed by those leaks that's what you get. When you have a government that'll punish you simply for making it known that one of your own is laughing while civilians get killed is disgusting and the rest of 'Merica should be as well.

 

[George Steele's Barber]

Fuck Chelsea. Just because sentences for committing more heinous sounding acts are unfairly punished too leniently doesn't mean 35 years is enough for a guy who basically went about solving a problem in his eyes like a child.

It's also too bad his knee injuries never helped him live up in the pros what he accomplished at Kansas.

 

[Tastycles]

Bradly Manning leaking Classified info is a crime... Only in the millitary. Everywhere else there are laws that protect him. If he was a journalist leaking info to the public that would qulify legal protection under the whistleblower act. He should have gotten less but since our government got embarrassed by those leaks that's what you get. When you have a government that'll punish you simply for making it known that one of your own is laughing while civilians get killed is disgusting and the rest of 'Merica should be as well.

If you break the secrets act, it's a crime. If a journalist reveals the information, as the Guardian and Washington Post did, it's not, because they haven't signed a document saying they won't release it.

The only reason I have for seeing his sentence as harsh as there are people who do far worse things and get far less of a sentence.

I think that's fair. The steps from what Manning did to people being hurt is a long path, but that being said, it's the sort of thing where they feel they have to make an exception.

Actually, there is another reason I think the sentence is overly long. I have a suspicion that Manning is not the same kind of person that Asange and Snowden are - thinly veiled narcissists, who only want to draw attention to themselves. Manning strikes me more as someone who is on the autistic spectrum - extremely clever at computer manipulation but lacking in some of the necessary cognitive abilities to understand what he should be doing with those skills or when he is being manipulated.

That's exactly how I feel. Assange is a narcissist who is currently holed up evading rape charges. Sorry, I mean as his supporters say 'non-consensual sex charges', as if that's in any way different. The Guardian interview with Snowden unintentionally painted him as one of the most self-aggrandising people I've ever read.


I think fundamentally, what you have to accept is that what he did was a crime. He exposed classified documents, which he was forbidden by law from doing. The vast majority of what he released were of no consequence, and these 'crimes' he's exposed seem to be thin on the ground. The way people talk it's as if he exposed another My Lai, when in fact the cables told us almost nothing we didn't already know.

Snowden is even worse. If you didn't know that google stored your data, you are a moron. If you didn't know that google would not withhold that from the government if asked, you are a moron. All Snowden told me is that the backend system is called Prism. Big fucking whoop.

I feel for Manning, because I believe he was acting nobly, if a little encouraged by narcissists like Assange but the fact of the matter is, he must have known the consequences of his actions when he was doing it.

If you're going to play the martyr, you have to take the sacrifice.

 

[#1Peep]

Wow. Reading some of this stuff (mainly from Americans) makes me kind of sick. Especially coming from people who I thought were quite smart. I don't like Assange personally. He's an interesting character but he has A LOT of flaws. I don't think he's a great human being but I agree with most, if not all, of what he's done.

If you actually knew a thing about WikiLeaks, you'd know they worked in conjunction with organisations like the Guardian to redact the documents VERY CAREFULLY to make sure individuals and undercover agents weren't exposed. Americans against WikiLeaks always blab on about this endangering lives - but they don't have any EVIDENCE of this actually happening. Seriously? If there is please show me. There's none I've seen. No actual fucking evidence.

Manning is the true victim in all this. He's a very, very, very confused young person on a lot of levels. I feel like Assange took advantage of him knowing full well what would happen to him, but at the end of the day he's not a traitor. Can I ask you Americans, if he's a traitor then you must agree with what your country is doing in the Middle East. Do you agree with the torture of innocents? Do you agree with the slaughter of THOUSANDS of innocent men, women and children? Does the video, if you've even seen it, of the helicopter pilot shooting down 'alleged' terrorists who were just innocent citizens and a couple of journalists for a laugh make you sick?

Please tell me.