Bradley Manning and Wikileaks
Bradley Manning may face death penalty
Bradley Manning, the US soldier who has spent 10 months in solitary confinement on suspicion of having transmitted a huge trove of state secrets to WikiLeaks, now faces a possible death penalty.
The intelligence specialist, who is being held in the maximum security jail on Quantico marine base in Virginia, has been handed 22 additional military charges as part of his court martial process.
They come on top of initial charges of having illegally obtained 150,000 secret US government cables and handing more than 50 of them to an unauthorised person that carried a possible sentence of up to 52 years in prison.
Manning's lawyer, David Coombs, said that the most serious of the new charges was the Article 104 offence of "aiding the enemy". The charge carries a potential death sentence....
David House, a researcher at MIT who is one of very few people to have visited Manning in prison, told the Firedoglake news website that the "aiding the enemy" charge was similar to Richard Nixon's heavy-handed treatment of Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers. Nixon called Ellsberg "the most dangerous man in America" and said he was "providing aid and comfort to the enemy".
"Today we see the Obama administration continuing the legacy Nixon started by declaring whistleblowers as enemies of the state. It is a sad and dangerous day for transparency advocates everywhere," House said.
While that's true I really doubt he'll be executed. The US military hasn't executed a soldier since 1961. There are currently 7 soldiers on death row.
How nice of them to spare their soldiers whilst killing their own civilians. What point r u tryin to make?
That they wont be executing Bradley?
I'm sure the fact that Manning only faces life on death row for trumped up, imaginary charges gives him great comfort.
I doubt he'll be executed...
I think that the death penalty, even for show, would be a bit much, but according to Wiki, prosecutors have said they won't be seeking it.
That said, I really can't bring myself to call him a "whistleblower". To my way of thinking, a whistleblower exposes something illegal, that the public should know (eg: "My company has been secretly dumping waste in the town's only river")
Last I checked, diplomatic communications aren't illegal, and are intended to be confidential. That's the whole idea of diplomacy. Make diplomacy transparent and you will no longer have diplomacy. If we can't bear the idea that diplomats are going to communicate confidentially, we should abolish diplomacy and go back to settling things at the end of a gun.
Do you think, Snert, if Manning was responsibile for leaking the cables, that he should face life in prison?
Deep down, no. Particularly as the leak doesn't really seem to have compromised much national security.
But there's also the matter of him being in the military, and presumably having agreed not to divulge classified information. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect him to have upheld that agreement, so I wouldn't suggest that he should be freed with a warning, or sentenced to community service. There should be something to tell him that he quite voluntarily fucked up bigtime. Dishonorable discharge and a few years in the pokey, maybe.
And ya, I'm sure some of those cables were like the world's juiciest gossip, but their entertainment factor isn't enough for any kind of hero status, IMHO. What real good thing came of this leak? Besides dumping confidential records to the public for its own sake, what did he really do that was good? Taught the public that diplomats sometimes make deals? That politicians have a public face and a private face sometimes? Well, duh.
I agree some of the charges are trumped up and exaggerated. But then again some of the charges like giving classified information to an unauthorized third party are not and I suspect he'll be convicted of those charges. I still doubt he'll get the death penalty.
I know Pvt Manning is a hero to allot of people for what he did; that does not make him immune to UCMJ.
He pretty much fucked his life up by doing this... I hope he thinks it's worth it.
Oh and to answer catchfire's question to snert:
Pvt Manning is a soldier as was I and aside from the fact that he's being kept in special protective custody, which I think is bullshit, I personally have very little sympathy for him. It's not for me to decide but I'm thinking he's going to spend most all his young to mid adult life in prison... even if he gets life I bet he gets paroled down the road.
Not a very popular answer here, I know, but it's an honest one. I did write my members of congress and requested Pvt Manning be removed from SPC. Only one responded back so far and said it was best to leave the military handle that. I have not written back yet, I can't figure out what to say just yet (or more how to say what I want to say without calling him a dumbfuck, he's a repub).
No one is disputing Manning broke a law, or laws, and he took a big personal risk in whistleblowing.
There are many loyalty and non-disclosure oaths variously ranging from government to military to corporate to mafia to street gangs.
To favor the valuation of any of these oaths over the exposure of major wrongdoing says a lot about attitudes of slavish acquiescence to group and tribal identity over wider issues of non-sectarian justice.
....
Predictably, lawyer Glenn Greenwald gives the best summary of the implications of the new charges:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/03/03/manning/ind...
Can you give us a few examples of the "major" wrongdoing that Manning exposed? If it really is major, and it really is wrongdoing (and not normal diplomatic duplicity and other intrigues) then I could be inclined to see Manning differently.
Yes
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/24/wikileaks
....
See also (scroll toward bottom of page):
http://wlcentral.org/cablegate#data
I would agree there's some big stuff there -- video of chopper pilots gunning down civilians, for example -- but is that really from some diplomatic cables? Or are those leaks jumbled in with others.
We're talking about Bradley Manning, so in this context I'm interested in what Manning himself (allegedly) provided, not so much everything WikiLeaks has ever leaked.
A whistleblower is anyone who exposes sneaky, underhanded, duplicitous, or hypocritical behaviour to public scrutiny. It doesn't have to be illegal.
Diplomatic communications aren't illegal, but that statement obscures the real point, which is that the diplomatic cables contain documented proof and descriptions of sneaky, underhanded, duplicitous, hypocritical, and yes, illegal behaviour.
And as Michael Moore said about US government cables, some of those are designed to be deceptive as well. US national archives are full of diplomatic cables which are now known to have been totally innaccurate. The failed Bay of Pigs invasion is example of a time when US government deliberately lied to itself for the purpose of gaining political momentum for launching a terrorist attack against Cuba.
And there are US whistleblowers who have not leaked information by way of wikileaks. Some whistleblowers began blowing at the start of the 2000s before the advent of wikileaks. Wikileaks exists because there are few next to no well defined procedures for whistleblowing in the US, or in Canada for that matter. Whistleblowers tend to do so at great risk to personal well being in the USA and Canada. Sibel Edmonds, for example, is described as the most muzzled woman in US history. And there are others.
to me there is a difference between saying "he will be charged and imprisoned" and "he SHOULD be charged and imprisoned"...
And wasn't he also responsible for the collateral video, war logs AND the cables? that was my impression and would certainly be justified. If you found evidence of war crimes, underreporting of civilian deaths, wouldn't it seem reasonable to report it or try and bring attention to it?
Even assuming the cables were all he released. If a "democratic" government is lying to and deceiving it's own citizens is that not a good reason to release them? All the stuff about propping up tyrants, secret war activity in pakistan, yemen, africa, total contempt for democracy in the middle east while claiming it's the motive for invasion, all worthy of release. Even more important because there is no media that will reliably report the info (proven by the recent case of papers bending on orders from washington as to when they will publish stories)
should then the US government be charged with leaking iranian nuclear details, or al jazeera for printing the palestine papers or the identity of israeli assasins?
to me it seems contradictory to believe in democracy and government secrecy at the same time...
A good deal of the criminal behaviour revealed in those stories (including the Apache slaughter video) is alleged to have been leaked by Manning in the new US charges:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12628983
As to Manning's reasons for doing so, see my first Greenwald post here which cites the alleged government informant chat logs with Manning:
See the whole post linked below with the the new update on the most recent bout of Military sadism toward Manning:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/03/03/manning/ind...
I need to amend my above suggestion of "sadism" in the most recent abuse of Manning.
It is more like "sadism with a studied rationale of psychological murder" which follows CIA "interogation" techniques in Gitmo:
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2011/03/03/nine-years-of-nudity/
If Manning was behind those leaks then he should be afforded Whistleblower protection. I'm sure he won't be, but he should be. I don't, personally, think that most diplomatic communications are of such concern that the public "needs to know", but this is different stuff.
Also, that whole "stripped naked in his cell" thing is pretty fucked up. Are they going to lure Lynndie England out of retirement for the next round?
I agree... and that is where he fucked up... he didn't sort through all the files and reports. He didn't pick out the "criminal behavior" stuff from the mundane reports (that were also classified). Instead, he choose to turn over hundreds of thousands (or whatever number it was) of files without really knowing if any of them contained information that could endanger his fellow soldiers or national security. You can't tell me he looked through them all to ensure that: he either made a bad decision on his own or was persuaded by a third party ( I doubt it was Assange, he's way too smart to personally get involved) into turning over all those files in bulk; either way he's pretty much screwed now.
I repeat the bottom the aggregator links of the "top" Wikileaks stories of 2010. If you look at the actual stories You will find that many of the revelations of illegal behaviour come by way of the diplomatic cables.
As for the "public doesn't need to know" arguments, there are of many millions people who have suffered under US propped up Arab dictatorships who disagree with that:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/03/03/manning/ind...
=====
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/24/wikileaks
....
See also (scroll toward bottom of page):
http://wlcentral.org/cablegate#data
Only a fraction of the the cables WL turned over to the media have been published so far.
But to put it in perspective:
As I've been saying; that's all good but making that the corner stone of his defense is not going to get him off the hook in a military Court Marshal.
(Sorry for the bluntness)
I heard somewhere that lawyers should have the following priority list:
It looks like generally speaking he doesn't have the law and is reduced to arguing the morality of his actions.
How do you know he wasn't assured by whomever he handed them to that the files would be reviewed to make sure that no innocent victims were harmed by disclosure (as for example Wikileaks claims it has done with the diplomatic cables)? For that matter, how do you know Manning didn't sort through them, himself?
Exactly how many "fellow soldiers" have been harmed as a result of the disclosures? Somewhere around zero and none. That suggests to me that somebody at least has taken a whole lot of trouble to protect your precious so-called "national security". Some fuck-up that is!
Your indignant outrage at Manning's "fucking up" is merely a cover for your belief that U.S. crimes, dirty tricks, and lies committed under cover of "diplomacy" should be allowed to continue in secret, beyond review by world opinion.
Manning is a hero for exposing your dirty secrets. You can't handle the truth.
I don't know whom you are arguing against. I didn't see anyone here say Manning is going to beat the rap. In fact, there's no way in hell he's going to ever be allowed to see the outside of a prison.
Maybe we should be discussing why you "personally have very little sympathy for him". Y'know, just as a matter of morbid curiosity?
LOL that's your assumption (over blown and incorrect as usual) and thus your opinion.
I have no beef with that and I really don't give a shit what you think of me (or think I think). Have a great weekend.
I don't have to make assumptions; I just draw conclusions based on observational evidence.
Such as the fact that you have had nothing complimentary to say about Manning and have done nothing in this thread but slag him and suggest he deserves his fate.
Whether he had an agreement with Wikileaks or not to sort the files is irrelevant. There is no rule that you cannot illegally hand over files unless you have a promise that the other party will be careful. So if he handed over files that were illegal and had no whistleblower status that is a problem.
I though B de C and Snert have been very straightforward. Both have read the whistleblower evidence and amended their opinion (a rare occurence on babble).
Mistreatment aside, he does deserve his fate... Life choices, we all make them.