Bradley Manning may face death penalty

[Block]

Problem with that Shroom is that higher level military officers tend to have to be politicians as well, so you have to filter out a lot of bullshit. Of course it was potentially harmful, and there's a better than even chance that people were directly harmed by some of these leaks, but rather than give our enemies an additional victory in the PR realm, the pentagon in all it's wisdom has decided to deny everything. That's not exactly out of the ordinary for them.

[Metahive]

...while simultaneously trying to hang a charge of treason onto Manning? So he gave aid and comfort to the enemy except he didn't, great reasoning. One thing's not like the other, one does not belong...

[Shroom Man 777]

Problem with that Shroom is that higher level military officers tend to have to be politicians as well, so you have to filter out a lot of bullshit. Of course it was potentially harmful, and there's a better than even chance that people were directly harmed by some of these leaks, but rather than give our enemies an additional victory in the PR realm, the pentagon in all it's wisdom has decided to deny everything. That's not exactly out of the ordinary for them.

How dare you insinuate that our proud men in uniform would sully themselves by descending into the realm of partisan politics that only limp-dicked mud-slinging liberals are known for (unlike god-fearing true-American Republicans who ride the straight talk express). Your un-American un-patriotic contempt for our armed service disgusts me.

[Gil Hamilton]

I wonder if someone can define "The Enemy" explicitly here. Secondly, I would think that people committing the acts that were leaked caused this undefined Enemy the PR victories, not the people who leaked them. When people in Iraq and all over were pissed over Abu Gharib, it wasn't the people who released that information that caused them to be pissed, it was the actions themselves. Blame should fall on the people who did the wrong, not the people who made the wrong known.

[Shroom Man 777]

But the people who did the wrong are American soldiers, and American soldiers are never wrong, Gil. Support the troops!

The world should know! If this is what our enemies do -- if this is what America must fight -- then we are always right! And anything we do is right!

[Phantasee]

Would he get a firing squad or a noose? Because if they're going to out him in front of a firing squad… they'd be literally shooting the messenger.

[Patroklos]

I'm cool with every individual being able to make a personal assesment of what they think should not be classified and releasing it on their own cognizance.

Expert on the topic you are releasing data on? No? Oh well.

Motivated by something other than altruism? Money? Revenge? Oh well.

Given what many in this thread consider shouldn't be classified, how
could that possibly go wrong?

I would have a bit more sympathy for him if he found specific information he found objectionable and released just that. However, what he really did was just get his hands on whatever he could and release all of it. He could not have possibly known what he was realeasing given its volume. Most of it thus far has been entirely uninteresting regular buisness. That makes the whole do gooder lable completely unjustified.

[Simon_Jester]

On the contrary, much of it has been very interesting; you just don't care about it.

When evidence arises of the US selling out other countries' interests for its own, this is news- if not to you, then certainly to those other countries. People around the world care, or should care, that at Copenhagen the Obama administration collaborated with the Chinese to prevent any serious accords on global warming from being signed. People care, or should care, that US taxpayer dollars in Afghanistan wound up in the hands of a child prostitution ring. Even if these things do not surprise the cynics, it still matters that they happened.

The US does not have a right to do things like this to other countries in secrecy and expect that secrecy to be ironclad and perfect. No one does.

[Lagmonster]

More seriously, I think there is also something very wrong with taking a self-satisfied "the prisoners would murder him hur hur" attitude about Manning. It only makes sense if you trust of the ethical judgement of a bunch of convicted felons.

Which strikes me as stupid. Someone's in jail for stabbing a guy to death with a broken bottle because he was pissed off, and you think he's the right person to decide whether Manning should live or die?

You're overextending yourself. A person who says, "put him in with the criminals and they'll take care of him" are actually saying, "He should suffer X, but I won't do that myself, so we'll get some other guys who I presume all think like me but who have no fear of the subsequent punishment for doing so, or who I would not care if they suffered a subsequent punishment for doing so. That way I get my revenge fantasy but my hands can remain clean and pure." They're not asking for a person to dispense justice; they're asking for a person to serve as a disposable executioner.

[Simon_Jester]

Maybe so, but on the other hand that kind of amounts to the same thing. By relying on convicted felons in prison to decide that a given person is an acceptable target to be killed/raped/beaten/whatever, and implicitly endorsing that, you're placing yourself on the same ethical plane as the convicted felons.

It's one thing to note that yes, this person will probably have to go into solitary confinement of some kind to be safe from the general population. It's another matter entirely to gloat over it. I've seen that enough times to disgust me.

[Thanas]

More info on Manning's confinement:

In late January, Amnesty International wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates denouncing the conditions of Bradley Manning's detention as "unnecessarily harsh and punitive" and in "breach the USA’s obligations under international standards and treaties." In the wake of the prolonged forced nudity to which Manning is now being subjected, Amnesty has escalated its denunciations: as the Associated Press put it today, the group is now "urging people to complain to the Obama administration about the confinement."

In particular, Amnesty said that "the conditions inflicted on Bradley Manning . . . amount to inhumane treatment by the US authorities" and "appear to breach the USA’s human rights obligations." As a result, the group is encouraging as many Americans as possible to demand an end to these conditions (independent of Amnesty, there is a planned protest outside the Quantico brig on March 20, expected to be fairly large in size, with others being planned at military detention facilities around the country for later dates). In case anyone is wondering what Amnesty is: it's the world's premiere human rights organization which Democrats once held up as authoritative on issues on detainee abuse circa 2001- January 20, 2009 -- remember that?

Yesterday, the Quantico base commander denied Manning's formal request for less harsh treatment -- including an end to his forced nudity and 23-hour-a-day solitary confinement. That request -- which is really a formal complaint of mistreatment -- will now be forwarded to the Secretary of Navy, and if he also rejects it, then Manning's lawyer will file a Writ of Habeas Corpus with the Army Court of Criminal Appeals. Manning's counsel today released his rebuttal to the Commander's decision and it supplies much more detailed information about just how harsh and punitive is Manning's treatment; Marcy Wheeler documents how similar in language and content is this treatment to many of the core methods of degradation popularized during the Bush administration. But as we well know, caring about what Amnesty thinks is -- just like concerns over detainee abuse and indefinite detention -- so very 2005.

For the formal complaint, see here.