5 ms·

If Obama only pardons one person (hopefully unlikely) Chelsea is by far the correct choice imo. She did a great service to the world and has been horribly mistr

If Obama only pardons one person (hopefully unlikely) Chelsea is by far the correct choice imo. She did a great service to the world and has been horribly mistreated by the prison system for it.

frozenport 10y ago
I disagree, I think you can draw a straight line from him to the election of Donald Trump. The one sided, anti-us nature of WikiLeaks, including perhaps incomplete content, hint at editorial digression with a clear motivation. I can't come up with a single way this helped America, but it certainly hurt our prestige around the world.
- totalZero 10y ago
  The US wasn't founded to serve as a beacon of prestige. The point of the government has more to do with its obligations to, and relationship with, its people.
  - frozenport 10y ago
    But I don't see anything in the documents that showed a government working against its own people. The content of the documents is mostly matter-of-fact (or even sarcastic) analysis of other countries. In a few cases it reveled intelligence sources, for example Lebanese politicians politicians working against the destructive foreign influence in their country - more controversially, I think, there was a US "spy" in the German government. I'm not German, so I have no problem with this. In other cases, for example in South Sudan, it shows the US government working, perhaps clandestinely, to uphold justice and help the people avoid ethnic cleansing.
  - ionised 10y ago
    > The US wasn't founded to serve as a beacon of prestige. The point of the government has more to do with its obligations to, and relationship with, its people. Its rich people.
    - totalZero 10y ago
      Some comments go "zing!" without going "aha!"
- rasz_pl 10y ago
  Did you maybe mean anti-us nature of US foreign policy?
- interNeds 10y ago
  There's a bit of cognitive dissonance in your claims. America's prestige was destroyed by none other than George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Bremmer, Rupert Murdoch, Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice and several others, for a number of reasons, but most of all the 2003 invasion of Iraq, from which you can draw a straight line to ISIS. How you "connect the dots" and manage to wander your way from Manning and land on Trump is beyond me. How you digress from WikiLeaks to Trump is curious. Political influence may have elected Trump, but cones of silence, echo chambers and hacker mudslinging isn't really what got Trump elected. Republican incompetence permitted his candidacy in the first place. Republican spite invoking a broad mistrust among suburbanites and rural America put him in office. If the people who voted Trump, are so easily deceived by falsified evidence and dubious non-journalism, then they were stupid enough to be deceived by anything, but wanted to be spiteful and hate something, and would have found something dubious to latch onto and excuse their shitty vote anyway.
  - frozenport 10y ago
    I agree with most of your post, certainly the ideological bankruptcy of the GOP left trump the best candidate, and no doubt America's "good guy" image was harmed by Bush. Although as satire of the time ("Team America: World Police"), the USA was certainly not seen as impotent. Just dumb, maybe evil. >>How you digress from WikiLeaks to Trump is curious. I think Wikileaks has become the avenue for unilateral anti-US sentiment. For example,. Recent leaks like the DNC emails reinforced a sense of political disenfranchisement that leading to shockingly poor voter turnout. Perhaps most misleading was that the DNC emails were selective, possibly edited for maximum impact. For a similar opinion see Edward Snowden's(!) comments: http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2016/07/edward-snowden-wikileaks-dnc-226386 http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2016/07/edward... There is an information/spin war going on, with the military agencies of countries such as Russia directly participating. Wikileaks was the first shot at the USA, and Manning was a traitor who gave the ammo.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- rpedela 10y ago
  For the sake of argument, let's say that WikiLeaks is anti-US. How does that matter? The US itself is ruining it's reputation by conducting mass surveillance, torture (at least during Bush years), drone assainations, etc. WikiLeaks just happens to be the vehicle for releasing classified information about that. In other words, if the US wasn't doing that then there wouldn't be much "embarrassing" material for WikiLeaks to release.
dvdhnt 10y ago
What great service did he do? And mistreated? Perhaps, but not any more, and certainly quite less given the media scrutiny, than any generic prisoner. There are plenty of more deserving souls out there, people like this - https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/mom-of-young-man-jailed-for-three-years-without-charges-died-of-a-broken-heart https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/mom-of-young-man-jail... https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/5lc9z3/justice_dept_louisiana_parish_jailed_hundreds/ https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/5lc9z3/justice_dept_l... Or intervene on behalf of people who take a deal for the sake of not being able to defend themselves. http://www.innocenceproject.org http://www.innocenceproject.org
- vinay427 10y ago
  The first two links you posted don't seem to apply, as far as I know, because the President can only pardon people convicted of federal crimes against the US. Source: http://www.legalflip.com/Article.aspx?id=61&pageid=321 http://www.legalflip.com/Article.aspx?id=61&pageid=321
- ionised 10y ago
  Exposed American war crimes? https://www.chelseamanning.org/learn-more/collateral-murder-video https://www.chelseamanning.org/learn-more/collateral-murder-...

If Obama only pardons one person (hopefully unlikely) Chelsea is by far the correct choice imo. She did a great service to the world and has been horribly mistreated by the prison system for it.

frozenport 10y ago

I disagree, I think you can draw a straight line from him to the election of Donald Trump. The one sided, anti-us nature of WikiLeaks, including perhaps incomplete content, hint at editorial digression with a clear motivation. I can't come up with a single way this helped America, but it certainly hurt our prestige around the world.

totalZero 10y ago
The US wasn't founded to serve as a beacon of prestige. The point of the government has more to do with its obligations to, and relationship with, its people.
- frozenport 10y ago
  But I don't see anything in the documents that showed a government working against its own people. The content of the documents is mostly matter-of-fact (or even sarcastic) analysis of other countries. In a few cases it reveled intelligence sources, for example Lebanese politicians politicians working against the destructive foreign influence in their country - more controversially, I think, there was a US "spy" in the German government. I'm not German, so I have no problem with this. In other cases, for example in South Sudan, it shows the US government working, perhaps clandestinely, to uphold justice and help the people avoid ethnic cleansing.
- ionised 10y ago
  > The US wasn't founded to serve as a beacon of prestige. The point of the government has more to do with its obligations to, and relationship with, its people. Its rich people.
  - totalZero 10y ago
    Some comments go "zing!" without going "aha!"
rasz_pl 10y ago
Did you maybe mean anti-us nature of US foreign policy?
interNeds 10y ago
There's a bit of cognitive dissonance in your claims. America's prestige was destroyed by none other than George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Bremmer, Rupert Murdoch, Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice and several others, for a number of reasons, but most of all the 2003 invasion of Iraq, from which you can draw a straight line to ISIS. How you "connect the dots" and manage to wander your way from Manning and land on Trump is beyond me. How you digress from WikiLeaks to Trump is curious. Political influence may have elected Trump, but cones of silence, echo chambers and hacker mudslinging isn't really what got Trump elected. Republican incompetence permitted his candidacy in the first place. Republican spite invoking a broad mistrust among suburbanites and rural America put him in office. If the people who voted Trump, are so easily deceived by falsified evidence and dubious non-journalism, then they were stupid enough to be deceived by anything, but wanted to be spiteful and hate something, and would have found something dubious to latch onto and excuse their shitty vote anyway.
- frozenport 10y ago
  I agree with most of your post, certainly the ideological bankruptcy of the GOP left trump the best candidate, and no doubt America's "good guy" image was harmed by Bush. Although as satire of the time ("Team America: World Police"), the USA was certainly not seen as impotent. Just dumb, maybe evil. >>How you digress from WikiLeaks to Trump is curious. I think Wikileaks has become the avenue for unilateral anti-US sentiment. For example,. Recent leaks like the DNC emails reinforced a sense of political disenfranchisement that leading to shockingly poor voter turnout. Perhaps most misleading was that the DNC emails were selective, possibly edited for maximum impact. For a similar opinion see Edward Snowden's(!) comments: http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2016/07/edward-snowden-wikileaks-dnc-226386 http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2016/07/edward... There is an information/spin war going on, with the military agencies of countries such as Russia directly participating. Wikileaks was the first shot at the USA, and Manning was a traitor who gave the ammo.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
rpedela 10y ago
For the sake of argument, let's say that WikiLeaks is anti-US. How does that matter? The US itself is ruining it's reputation by conducting mass surveillance, torture (at least during Bush years), drone assainations, etc. WikiLeaks just happens to be the vehicle for releasing classified information about that. In other words, if the US wasn't doing that then there wouldn't be much "embarrassing" material for WikiLeaks to release.

dvdhnt 10y ago

What great service did he do? And mistreated? Perhaps, but not any more, and certainly quite less given the media scrutiny, than any generic prisoner. There are plenty of more deserving souls out there, people like this - https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/mom-of-young-man-jailed-for-three-years-without-charges-died-of-a-broken-heart https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/mom-of-young-man-jail... https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/5lc9z3/justice_dept_louisiana_parish_jailed_hundreds/ https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/5lc9z3/justice_dept_l... Or intervene on behalf of people who take a deal for the sake of not being able to defend themselves. http://www.innocenceproject.org http://www.innocenceproject.org

vinay427 10y ago
The first two links you posted don't seem to apply, as far as I know, because the President can only pardon people convicted of federal crimes against the US. Source: http://www.legalflip.com/Article.aspx?id=61&pageid=321 http://www.legalflip.com/Article.aspx?id=61&pageid=321
ionised 10y ago
Exposed American war crimes? https://www.chelseamanning.org/learn-more/collateral-murder-video https://www.chelseamanning.org/learn-more/collateral-murder-...