Comments

1
If I hear one more person whining about the humiliating conditions in which Pfc. Bradley Manning is being held, I will fly into his/her kitchen tonight and make a mess of his/her pots and pans. He knew what he was doing; he leaked classified information to outside sources, and he is now facing the consequences. When you are under the jurisdiction of a military court, you don't get all the same rights as you would in the civilian justice system.
2
I have 19 mutual friends with Adrian Lamo on Facebook, and what I'm wondering is, "Fucking hell, you guys... why?"
3
@1: You might not get the same rights, but there's no good reason to keep a person in solitary confinement for the better part of a year. Come on, mess up my pots and pans. You'll be the one cleaning up that mess, I promise you.
5
Unless he's chatting in his own head, he's not chatting anymore. There's a tad self pity but not anything abnormal. No rage. No pledge to do damage or get even. If he did what some claim, he won't get much pity from me. I think he knew the consequences of those actions.
6
There is no excuse for treason.

None.
7
While what he did is easily proven as espionage, it may also legally be Treason. Lots of sad people who had problems in their life do bad things...Columbine, for example. Not an excuse I'm afraid.
He started as a whistleblower, perhaps, with the release of the video. Since we never got the whole story in context we can't know what was in the mind of the soldier/airman that took the shots...all we can say is that the shootings were clearly improper.
But, he then took the extra step of stealing many more documents, man MANY more documents, the kind that can do real damage to national security, and that's where any sympathy I had disappears.
I think "solitary" and so called "humiliating" conditions are well within context of the crime.
I don't think he should get any preferential treatment because he's gay, or confused, or whatever. Nor should those things mean he gets worse treatment. To me, they don't enter into it.
8
Agreed, venomlash & Vince, Daniel Ellsberg should rot in prison as well. Knowing you're working within an unjust system that is actively producing atrocities, one should always be beholden to that unjust system when trying to change it, no matter what. So what if Atul Gawande and countless other physicians called the conditions Manning was being held under torture, that doesn't matter right? This is America, we don't prosecute our own people for torture anymore.
9
@1,

What do you mean by "the consequences?" Do you mean, like, maybe, I don't know, a trial? Or is that just a formality we ought to dispense with?
11
@ 6 & 7, I don't think this rises to the level of treason. Not that I'm a legal scholar, or certain you can trust wikipedia, but this jibes with what I've learned over the years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason#Uni…
12
So everyone in this thread who thinks he's getting what's coming to him would have absolutely no problem with the situation if it were their loved ones in there in Manning's place.
13
There is absolutely no excuse, in ANY situation, to dehumanize another human being.
14
I'm sure Charlie Mansons Dad thought he got a raw deal too. That's a dumb argument.
"Dehumanizing"? That's highly subjective. Anyone in custody could say it was dehumanizing. I think my job is dehumanizing. Sounds like protest jargon to me.
15
@8 While you may be right about the nature of his motivation, anyone would expect the same results. It's when one person decides for the rest of us what is right and what is wrong that they must expect consequences for those actions, right or wrong. If you see him as a hero, that's your judgement. I'm sure there were people who thought Julius and Ethel Rosenburg were heroes. But I bet even they knew the possible consequences. That's all I'm saying.
16
@12 If I thought somebody in my family committed treason while in the military, frankly, I don't think I would expect much in the way of a trial.
17
It doesn't matter if he's committed treason; solitary confinement is torture, pure and simple. And he hasn't even been found guilty of anything. Just as with Jose Padilla, the military is trying to destroy him mentally, which is absolutely repellent in every possible way.
18
Agreed with many of the posts here, I hate to take to side of the GOV but this guy knowingly leaked highly classified documents and committed treason. I dont revel in his punishment but he should be in jail for a VERY long time
19
http://www.tgdaily.com/business-and-law-…

The military admits they screwed up in how they handled Manning's detention.

For all the people who are saying he got what he deserved. You need to read some history - specifically what happened in Nuremberg . It was his duty to report
war crimes - You cannot use the defense "I was just following orders," to justify looking the other way at law breaking.

21
Word is Bradley will be The Advocates "Homosexual of the Year".....
22
Bradly Manning was moved to Leavenworth back in April...do try to keep up Stranger.
23
I'm glad some of the people here have some sense. He didn't leak information for personal gain or to destroy the US Government- he leaked it because it exposed war crimes that would have otherwise been swept under the rug. Whether or not you see that as treason, he has shown himself to be a very passive person who would never physically harm anyone else, which makes his solitary confinement purely an act of petty retribution for crimes he hasn't even been charged with yet.
24
I'm a gay guy who was in the Army. Even had one or two soldiers in my company who did time at Quantico while I was stationed at Ft. Myer.

The guy's sexuality and gender identity is irrelevant to the discussion. Lots of people in his situation serve honorably in the military. Frankly, using his sexuality to excuse what he did demeans LGBT people who quietly do their duty.

Now I'm sympathetic to Wikileaks' program. I like the idea of transparency. And I don't think Manning should be held in solitary (though I understand the rationale; his sexual identity and his actions would make him doubly vulnerable in a military prison).

But I'm not going to excuse him violating his oath of enlistment.
25
@ 13, that's a funny sentiment coming from you.
26
I struggle with the "He released classified documents" argument. Time and again these things get de-classified, only to reveal the reason they were secret in the first place had everything to do with embarrassment and very little to do with security.
27
@1, thank you. I'm tired of people defending Manning because they like the results of his actions.
28
@venomlash and Vince, instead of calling what Manning did, "treason," why not just post that you don't know anything about what treason is. It's okay to be ignorant (I'm ignorant about lots of things), but stop pretending not to be on this subject.

And you should know that people like Michelle Bachman, Sarah Palin, and Mitch McConnell agree with you and Obama (who disgustingly already declared Manning to be guilty) on this.

Here's the perspective of someone who knows what he's talking about. (Though I must admit, I'll be surprised if you actually read it.)

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_…

29
Here's another informative post for the conservatives on this board:

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_…
30
Why is Bradly Manning in jail and Obama still walking free? Lock that motherfucker Obama up and throw a parade for Manning.

Why I'm supporting Bradley Manning

July 14, 2011

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Robert Meeropol is an attorney, author, activist and the younger son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. To support the struggle of children whose parents have been targeted for political persecution, he founded the Rosenberg Fund for Children. Here, he explains why he's joined the advisory board of the Bradley Manning Support Network, which is organizing to secure justice for the U.S. soldier who allegedly leaked information to WikiLeaks.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

LAST WEEK, I joined the advisory board of the Bradley Manning Support Network. I sought them out not only because it is an honor to join a board that includes Medea Benjamin of Code Pink, as well as Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame, and filmmaker Michael Moore, among others, but also because I believe it is imperative for as many people as possible to raise their voices in support of Manning.

Private First Class Manning is accused of being the source of the huge number of secret diplomatic cables, field intelligence reports and at least one military video published by WikiLeaks. He was held without charge for nine months in the brig at Quantico Marine Corps Base in Virginia, isolated for 23 hours a day in "Maximum Custody and under Prevention of Injury Watch."

I believe that the conditions of his imprisonment, including the Abu Ghraib-style humiliation of being forced to strip and surrender his clothing nightly, amounted to torture. Manning's rights were violated further when President Obama, the military's commander in chief, declared Manning guilty.

Since Manning faces a possible court martial by military officers, all of whom are under Obama's command, this makes it impossible for him to receive a fair trial.

I have several reasons to aid Pfc. Manning.

The first is my commitment to the concept of freedom of information. Bradley Manning has been imprisoned and threatened with death for providing the truth to the American people. In the words of Daniel Ellsberg: "If Bradley Manning did what he's accused of, then he's a hero of mine."

The free flow of information is absolutely essential to a functioning democracy. Since 2001, the burgeoning "national security state" has made it almost impossible for voters to make informed choices.

The people's right to know what their government is doing has been at the core of my activism for almost four decades. It was no accident that my brother and I chose to sue under the newly toughened Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) when we commenced our campaign to reopen our parents' case in 1974.

Reporters asked if we were worried that the material in the government's files we sought would point to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg's guilt rather than their innocence. We answered without hesitation that while we hoped the material would exonerate our parents, the public's right to know was more important than the vindication of our beliefs.

My brother and I spent 10 years of our lives fighting that case in the name of the public's right to know. The attack on Bradley Manning is an assault upon this right and must be resisted.

Also, I am virtually certain that the cruel and inhumane conditions Manning was subjected to in the Marine base brig were designed to coerce him into testifying against Julian Assange and the Wikileaks community.

In other words, the government wanted Manning to become the David Greenglass of the Wikileaks case. In my parent's case, the government offered David Greenglass a deal in return for falsely testifying that my parents engineered Greenglass's theft of what the government called "the secret of the atomic bomb," even though my parents did not participate in that theft, and there was no such secret.

Similarly, the government sought to use Manning as a pawn to spark a conspiracy trial against Julian Assange and his associates in order to expand the security state and inflame public fear that hackers threaten our national security.

Finally, it is reported that Bradley Manning may be charged with violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and face the death penalty if he is convicted. That's the same penalty my parents received for violating that act.

Under such circumstances, how could I stay away!

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

What you can do
For information about Bradley Manning's case and how you can help aid in his defense, visit the Bradley Manning Support Network [2] website.
31
@26,

It's only due to the discretion of Wikileaks that dangerous information hasn't been released. Manning stole shit-tons of classified information, some exposing war crimes, some merely exposing embarrassing diplomatic and political backbiting, some exposing God knows what. Do you really want one person to unilaterally decide to release sensitive information? We're lucky that Assange et al. had the scruples to consult real journalists about what was appropriate to publish. Too bad Manning lacks those scruples.

@8,

Do you think the government didn't try to prosecute Ellsberg?
32
Wow. I would expect these kinds of fascist comments on a Fox News comment thread, but this is SLOG, liberal SLOG. Sure, many of you employ the rhetorical mask of sensibility and reason (e.g. @31) but your ethos is a wretched loyalty to imperial interests. @20 is right, good Germans indeed.
33
god, he's practically still a kid. i don't think anyone's life should be fucked for something they did at twenty-two, especially something non-violent. especially something they believe to be right.
34
@32, the reason for this conservative behavior is that Obama is now President. So, even though Obama is killing innocent civilians abroad, prosecuting whistle blowers at decades high numbers, engaging in illegal wars, keeping secret prisons around the world and advocating for indefinite detentions without due process, denying sick and dying people access to medical marijuana, and just generally acting like a conservative, authoritarian asshole, he will still receive the support partisan tribalists who value the temporary emotional high of winning elections over any consistent moral philosophy.
35
@31, how do you know that there's "dangerous information" in the leaked material? Please, I'd love to know.

Also, of course the government prosecuted (and, like Manning, persecuted) Daniel Ellsberg. But even though the material Ellsberg leaked was classified at a higher security level, he wasn't charged with treason, as several conservatives here wish Manning would be.

I, along with lots of other liberals are very, very happy that Ellsberg and Manning did what they did, because that's what people do who believe in open government and oppose the devastation of unnecessary wars. Authoritarians and conservatives feel differently.

Again, from someone who's opinion is more valuable than any of ours:

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_…

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