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Yeah, you're right. How dare a guy risk his own life for the sake of doing what's right and telling us about the injustices of the United Stated Government we o

Yeah, you're right. How dare a guy risk his own life for the sake of doing what's right and telling us about the injustices of the United Stated Government we otherwise would have never been told or heard about. How dare someone like Bradley Manning stand up for the people, how dare he stand up for the truth... If the Government are killing innocent people and leading the public astray unless they tell us, we don't have the right to know the truth, right? This guy is only looking at spending the rest of his life in prison for the sake of letting people know what was happening, no big deal. I'll be back later, just going to turn on my TV and watch some Fox News. You like that channel too? So informative and they always tell us the truth, who needs Wikileaks when we have unbiased televised news? Maybe we can watch it together sometime, eat some genetically modified corn, polish our military grade automatic guns and sip on fluorinated water, it'll be great.

MysticFear 14y ago
News alert to the uninformed about military conflict. Innocent people die when you go to war. Bradley Manning just leaked one instance of human error that caused innocent people to die. Now he will spend much of his life in prison. No idea why people call this guy a hero. If you read any history of any war, innocent people die because of human error.
- camus 14y ago
  drone killings is not war , it is state terrorism.
  - chc 14y ago
    Why is it "war" if done by humans holding machines and "state terrorism" if done by humans controlling machines from a greater distance?
    - jlgreco 14y ago
      Why is it "terror" if done with airplanes and "war" if done by humans holding machine guns?
      - chc 14y ago
        Killing people with airplanes is not categorically known as "terror" rather than "war." Lots of people were killed with airplanes in World War I, but while it was terrifying, WWI is pretty universally known as a war. So I don't take your point.
- nym 14y ago
  "Sunlight is the best disinfectant" --U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis Would we really go to war if we knew the true extent of human suffering? Maybe, but visibility to such suffering at least allows people to feel sympathy, instead of simply being ignorant to suffering.
  - MysticFear 14y ago
    So we should have updated detailed progress on our investigation of Osama Bin Laden and other criminals? Upload our latest nuclear technology as how-to videos on youtube? "Sunlight is the best disinfectant" --U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis Look a Supreme Court justice agrees with that because I put an out of context quote from him.
  - GHFigs 14y ago
    News reports describing the hundreds of innocent people intentionally murdered by the sort of people the US and its allies are fighting against appear on a weekly basis. The suffering has not been invisible: it just doesn't mean what people want it to mean. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents,_January–June_2013 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents,_Ja...
- jonknee 14y ago
  He also leaked a trove of diplomatic communications that revealed corruption all over the world. I'd imagine many in Tunisia would consider Manning a hero.
- rayiner 14y ago
  > No idea why people call this guy a hero. If you read any history of any war, innocent people die because of human error. You mostly don't read about innocent people dying in war. It's expected and nobody really cares. History books talk about how amazing the Roman or British empires were. When did you ever read anything more than vague lip-service about all the killing of innocent people that involved?
tzs 14y ago
Any thoughts on the Afghan civilians that US patrols were keeping a protective eye on because those civilians were doing things that would make them Taliban targets if the Taliban found out (such as cooperating with the Afghan government, or helping girls go to school). The reports of those patrols contained the names, addresses, and GPS coordinates of those civilians. Manning's leak basically gave the Taliban a target list of such people. How about human rights workers and democracy activists in repressive regimes like Iran, who rely on keeping anonymous to avoid jail, torture, and execution? Some of them secretly asked US diplomats for help. Well, secret until Manning released diplomatic cables concerning those requests. The above people were already in danger--educating girls in Afghanistan, or working underground against Iran is risky business--so we can't say for SURE that any deaths of such people since the leaks were due to information from the leaks, but the odds are pretty damn good that some were. What specific things in the leaks do you think were important enough to justify endangering and very likely killing innocent people such as those Afghan civilians, or freedom fighters in repressive regimes?
- lawnchair_larry 14y ago
  Any thoughts on continuing to use this rhetoric despite a lack of any reports that any one of these supposed people got so much as a papercut in the aftermath, despite all the fear mongering suggesting that those people might be "in serious trouble soon" shortly after the release?
  - tzs 14y ago
    I covered this. To repeat, we probably won't ever get proof of any particular death from the leaks, but we knew the leaks included information on groups of people that we know bad guys were actively seeking out for jailing, torturing, and killing, and so the odds are high that some are or will be killed from the leaks. It's similar to the way we can conclude that smoking has killed people via lung cancer, even though it is impossible or nearly so to pin any particular lung cancer death on smoking. People get lung cancer who do not smoke and do not spend time with smokers, and so any particular death might be due to one of those instances of lung cancer. There's also common sense. The Taliban is known to target people who they discover are committing certain acts that they consider to be offenses (which is why US forces were keeping an eye on those people, and thus why those people turned up in US reports). It seems unlikely that they would consider, say, educating girls, to no longer be an offense if they first learn about it through a leaked US report.
lotso 14y ago
Didn't he basically just dump a bunch of classified information, without actually going through it to see if it was worth releasing or if somethings were worth omitting from the release?
- tptacek 14y ago
  Yes.

MysticFear 14y ago

News alert to the uninformed about military conflict. Innocent people die when you go to war. Bradley Manning just leaked one instance of human error that caused innocent people to die. Now he will spend much of his life in prison. No idea why people call this guy a hero. If you read any history of any war, innocent people die because of human error.

camus 14y ago
drone killings is not war , it is state terrorism.
- chc 14y ago
  Why is it "war" if done by humans holding machines and "state terrorism" if done by humans controlling machines from a greater distance?
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    Why is it "terror" if done with airplanes and "war" if done by humans holding machine guns?
    - chc 14y ago
      Killing people with airplanes is not categorically known as "terror" rather than "war." Lots of people were killed with airplanes in World War I, but while it was terrifying, WWI is pretty universally known as a war. So I don't take your point.
nym 14y ago
"Sunlight is the best disinfectant" --U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis Would we really go to war if we knew the true extent of human suffering? Maybe, but visibility to such suffering at least allows people to feel sympathy, instead of simply being ignorant to suffering.
- MysticFear 14y ago
  So we should have updated detailed progress on our investigation of Osama Bin Laden and other criminals? Upload our latest nuclear technology as how-to videos on youtube? "Sunlight is the best disinfectant" --U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis Look a Supreme Court justice agrees with that because I put an out of context quote from him.
- GHFigs 14y ago
  News reports describing the hundreds of innocent people intentionally murdered by the sort of people the US and its allies are fighting against appear on a weekly basis. The suffering has not been invisible: it just doesn't mean what people want it to mean. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents,_January–June_2013 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents,_Ja...
jonknee 14y ago
He also leaked a trove of diplomatic communications that revealed corruption all over the world. I'd imagine many in Tunisia would consider Manning a hero.
rayiner 14y ago
> No idea why people call this guy a hero. If you read any history of any war, innocent people die because of human error. You mostly don't read about innocent people dying in war. It's expected and nobody really cares. History books talk about how amazing the Roman or British empires were. When did you ever read anything more than vague lip-service about all the killing of innocent people that involved?

tzs 14y ago

Any thoughts on the Afghan civilians that US patrols were keeping a protective eye on because those civilians were doing things that would make them Taliban targets if the Taliban found out (such as cooperating with the Afghan government, or helping girls go to school). The reports of those patrols contained the names, addresses, and GPS coordinates of those civilians. Manning's leak basically gave the Taliban a target list of such people. How about human rights workers and democracy activists in repressive regimes like Iran, who rely on keeping anonymous to avoid jail, torture, and execution? Some of them secretly asked US diplomats for help. Well, secret until Manning released diplomatic cables concerning those requests. The above people were already in danger--educating girls in Afghanistan, or working underground against Iran is risky business--so we can't say for SURE that any deaths of such people since the leaks were due to information from the leaks, but the odds are pretty damn good that some were. What specific things in the leaks do you think were important enough to justify endangering and very likely killing innocent people such as those Afghan civilians, or freedom fighters in repressive regimes?

lawnchair_larry 14y ago
Any thoughts on continuing to use this rhetoric despite a lack of any reports that any one of these supposed people got so much as a papercut in the aftermath, despite all the fear mongering suggesting that those people might be "in serious trouble soon" shortly after the release?
- tzs 14y ago
  I covered this. To repeat, we probably won't ever get proof of any particular death from the leaks, but we knew the leaks included information on groups of people that we know bad guys were actively seeking out for jailing, torturing, and killing, and so the odds are high that some are or will be killed from the leaks. It's similar to the way we can conclude that smoking has killed people via lung cancer, even though it is impossible or nearly so to pin any particular lung cancer death on smoking. People get lung cancer who do not smoke and do not spend time with smokers, and so any particular death might be due to one of those instances of lung cancer. There's also common sense. The Taliban is known to target people who they discover are committing certain acts that they consider to be offenses (which is why US forces were keeping an eye on those people, and thus why those people turned up in US reports). It seems unlikely that they would consider, say, educating girls, to no longer be an offense if they first learn about it through a leaked US report.

lotso 14y ago

Didn't he basically just dump a bunch of classified information, without actually going through it to see if it was worth releasing or if somethings were worth omitting from the release?

tptacek 14y ago
Yes.