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Unfortunately, he's being subjected to a military justice process with a different set of rules which is largely biased or inherently unfair against people the
by Joakal 16y ago
Unfortunately, he's being subjected to a military justice process with a different set of rules which is largely biased or inherently unfair against people the military doesn't like.
- philwelch 16y agoAs I said in another comment, nearly every veteran I've discussed the matter with would rather be prosecuted under the UCMJ than the civilian justice system. The process is fair. It's also a rather simple matter of fact that what Bradley Manning did is, in fact, illegal. You might think it should be legal to leak classified information, but in that case your complaint isn't with the justice system at all, it's with the laws it is enforcing.
- acabal 16y agoYou give up many of your civilian rights when joining the military and agree to be bound by the UCMJ, not civilian court. How can the UCMJ be biased against people the military doesn't like if it only applies to the military? I agree his detention is horrific, but he's bound by rules he agreed to, and rules which are probably not (I assume, and in general) that biased or "inherently unfair" when viewed from the perspective of the military--which is the perspective to which they solely apply.
- Qz 16y agoSee DADT for how the military can easily be biased against people it doesn't like while only applying to the military...
- jbooth 16y agoWell, there is the matter of discretion. The collateral murder video put a lot of egg on a lot of people's faces and I bet some of those people were the one who declared him a "suicide risk" and put him in indefinite solitary.
- vaksel 16y agothat always seemed weird to me. The constitution guarantees inalienable rights, yet apparently the government thinks that you can sign your rights away
- radu_floricica 16y agoGood point. Plus there is that bit about people not being able to give up those rights, even if they want to.
- Joakal 16y agoI didn't say stuff along the lines of signing the rights away, or the like. I said the military justice system is designed that the military prosecutors have an inherent unfair advantage in how they decide and control the process of justice. eg indefinite detention under the guise 'building case', suicide call checks every 5 minutes under 'suicide watch', loss of time perception under 'terrorists use watches' etc. I don't see why the military, a well-armed arm of the USA government to carry out extreme activities, can't have a neutral court that takes reasonable care of their own accused soldiers and has fair due process.
- tzs 16y agoWhat would you consider to be fair for someone who (allegedly) copied a huge number of documents, which he KNEW contained information that would get hundreds of innocent people killed if it were ever released without redaction, and released it to third party, which he had good reason to know would in turn release the documents to the press? Due to Manning, at least six outside organizations have copies of the documents, without redaction, including one newspaper outside the group that Wikileaks distributed them to for help with the redacting. This shows that Wikileaks is unable to control distribution of the full documents.
- anthonyb 16y agoA hundred thousand civilians have died in Iraq already, and I've yet to hear of anyone who's died as a direct result of the leaks.
- tptacek 16y agoSo, because a hundred thousand civilians have died in Iraq, your logic is that a few more would be a rounding error and thus an acceptable cost for getting the documents out? I don't agree with that logic.
- anthonyb 16y agoThanks for putting words in my mouth. No, my logic is that the current status quo in Iraq is secrecy, and it makes it much easier for human rights abuses or slack rules of engagement to be swept under the rug. At least some proportion of those deaths would have been prevented if there was greater oversight from the general public, both American and overseas.
- tptacek 16y agoNone of that is responsive to the original comment you tried to rebut. I don't support the Iraq war either, but that doesn't mean I share your opinion about Manning.
- tptacek 16y agoThe UCMJ is different from civilian court, but it's worth pointing out that the military very much is bound by a civilian court, in that decisions of the military appeals court can be overturned by SCOTUS.