Thread: US Soldier Bradley Manning faces trial today for leaked military "secrets"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1296034.html


Americans are divided over whether Manning should receive a medal or be imprisoned for life. His lawyers argue that the released information did not result in the death of any US troops and that it was an act of his own moral conscience to release the classified information about Iraq.

He is a modern day hero for sure. One day he might be iconic, like Martin Luther King or Angela Davis.

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I hope the creep that turned him in has lost all his friends.

I hope the creep that turned him in has lost all his friends.

Thank you Hanna! I agree! Such a person does not deserve friends! Filthy stooley. Snitch.

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His lawyers argue that the released information did not result in the death of any US troops

If a person is caught driving a car with a blood alcohol level of 0.30, but by pure good luck he didn't kill or injure anybody, he is still legally liable for the criminal offense of drunk driving!

"Lack of harm", in other words, is not necessarily legally mitigating or exculpatory.

If Manning's lawyers can successfully show that Manning KNEW that NONE of the leaked documents were "mission critical" material whose release might endanger the lives of US troops or our allies, then the "act of conscience" defense might be persuasive. But the sheer number of emails involved (30,000+, I think) makes that line of defense very difficult. Is it really plausible that Manning had carefully reviewed every single email and could be certain that none of the leaked material could help the Taliban (for instance) plan a deadly attack?

It seems more plausible that Manning acted with extreme recklessness (at the very least!), as much so as someone who drives with a .30 BAC.

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

It seems more plausible that Manning acted with extreme recklessness (at the very least!), as much so as someone who drives with a .30 BAC.

That is the perspective of the prosecutors. And he is likely to be put in prison forever because yes, by the law he will be found guilty. But I think there are some higher laws he was responding to, personally.

Quoth Hanna: "He is a modern day hero for sure. One day he might be iconic, like Martin Luther King or Angela Davis"

I was thinking more along the lines of Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen, and John Walker, Jr. Whether for cash or some perceived righteousness, they breached security and thus are guilty.

Manning had "issues" and was exploited.

He broke the law and is guilty. Case closed.

People who traded in slaves, or shot those who escaped slaves in the USA were only doing their jobs while slavery was allowed.
Nazi camp guards in Poland during the war were part of elite regiment and doing a job that they were told was important.

They *should* have known that the orders they were given were morally wrong, and refused. But they did not.
That's exactly how I see the situation of the US soldiers in Afghanistan today. Bradley Manning is one who realised that the war was wrong, and decided to do something.

He found himself caught up in an unjust war and decided to commit an act of civil bravery and expose the crime and hypocrisy that he had witnessed.

The treatment he has suffered seems no different to than what some of the "dissidents" in China are suffering today!
They disagree with what they percieve as unjust behaviour by the government and try to pass on information and speak up.
For that they are inprisoned and sometimes mistreated.

Apparently Bradley Manning has been both tortured, brutally questioned and subjected to complete isolation. His lawyer believes that he is slowly losing it and might never recover mentally.

The treatment of Manning shows to what kind of a country the US has become. Many Americans are seeing it themselves, but not the great mass of people who don't care about anything but the latest soap opera, dead celebrity or the price of petrol.
It was a very long time since it was a fair and decent democracy.

PS - @Lampada and Gromozeka, maybe this needs to move to Politics...?

Wikileaks is an American project, so it is very unlikely that the accused really gave some classified documents to Wikileaks.

The treatment of Manning shows to what kind of a country the US has become. Many Americans are seeing it themselves, but not the great mass of people who don't care about anything but the latest soap opera, dead celebrity or the price of petrol.
It was a very long time since it was a fair and decent democracy.

This is no longer the America I once believed in. In fact, I am sometimes not sure how much of it was illusion all along. I have no doubt that Manning will be punished to the fullest extent of military law. And it's sad, because there are higher moral laws which he was following.

Originally Posted by Marcus

Wikileaks is an American project, so it is very unlikely that the accused really gave some classified documents to Wikileaks.

While I think the theory that Wikileaks is a setup is interesting..
It is not an American project.

Assange is Australian and has lived in various European countries.
The servers are located in Sweden.

They reveal leaks from all sorts of companies, countries etc.
Left wing to right wing. Multinational corporations to charities.

If this is a setup it's devilishly clever. I think it's the real deal.

If this is a setup it's devilishly clever. I think it's the real deal.

Exactly. It's no setup. It IS quite real. We all need to wake up!

It was discussed in the media a lot. The major media depend on the American goverment. The information was only weakly classified or not classified at all. It was not something really new. Assange would have been destroyed if he really had known something important.

Wikileaks just revealed evidence that the Swedish foreign minister (who has been prime mininster in the past) has continuosly spied for the USA. Since the 1970s!

As revolting as this idea is, it is not exactly a surprise. I think he got in bed with the CIA back in the when he started his career. He hated the USSR and communism on emotional grounds because it confiscated some lands that belonged to his family, in Estonia - it's a Swedish aristocratic family and they had assets in the Baltics... but no longer, after the war! I guess he grew up a bit bitter and felt like "the enemy of your enemy is your friend".

His political party is called "The Moderates" and that means that they are moderately conservative or moderately socialist depending on who you ask. I think they are massively useless.
But it's the most conservative party in Sweden, that has been in power for the last 10 years, which they have spent selling off public assets and ignoring maintenance of the few public services they did not sell.

Anyway - I doubt he's done any serious spying or anything that would sound very cool if you knew the details... Probably he just passed on a bit here and there.

The story ran in one paper here, and then it was completely silenced.

Most people in Sweden believe the story that Assange raped the two girls that he stayed with when he visted Stockholm last year. So they don't like him anymore and many suspect that the story is just a way of getting back at Sweden in general. But this makes no sense - Bildt (the mans name) was never involved one way or the other in the Assange affair. But his idolisation of the USA on the other hand is well documented.

Wikileaks on the other hand believes that if Assange is extradited to Sweden (this is still pending --- insane!!!) then he will be passed on to the USA in one way or another. I'll definitely go along to the protests if there is ever any risk of that.

As revolting as this idea is, it is not exactly a surprise. I think he got in bed with the CIA back in the when he started his career. He hated the USSR and communism on emotional grounds because it confiscated some lands that belonged to his family, in Estonia - it's a Swedish aristocratic family and they had assets in the Baltics... but no longer, after the war! I guess he grew up a bit bitter and felt like "the enemy of your enemy is your friend".

This is such a good example of what is ruining our world today. This endless blood-feud mentality.

The other day I posted something about Russia on Facebook, and we were having a really interesting conversation about the Cold War, and how we were all lied to, and why we need to get past it and become allies with Russia (wouldn't THAT be a switch?!). Then this one guy jumped into the conversation. He is American, of Polish descent, and he was angry and talking about how Russians are all bad, blah blah blah. Apparently the Russians had taken some land from his family too, before he was even born. But he is STILL angry about it! I told him that he sounded like he was in a lot of pain, and needs to think about what is really hurting him, and open his eyes about Russia because it is not the USSR, and it never was exactly what we thought it was anyway. He replied that I had no heart because I don't feel sorry for people in Poland (he assumed!). So I simply replied that I grieve for ALL people who suffer.

The Nazis slaughtered so many millions of people, and the whole world is STILL reeling from that. Israel has grown up and gone from victim to bully, bullying people in Palestine and segregating them into ghettos just the way the Jews were segregated in Germany. The Palestinians are no picnic either, and they constantly provoke Israel. Now Israel wants to drag the US into some war, which the US does not want. Russia is trying to say - enough aggression America! Iran is in our back yard, let us handle this situation! But of course America does not trust Russia, because America does not really know Russia.

It's all so very human. Our relationships with each other are magnified at the world level in how our nations treat one another. We can only change our individual natures, one by one. It is all we can truly do.

I for one, admire the courage it took for PFC Manning to reveal ugly secrets about the US. The silence MUST be broken, for the healing to begin.