I'm glad you think the war in Iraq was bad, because so do I. But why would it be OK for someone to have a hand in 116,000+ deaths for democracy but not be OK t

I'm glad you think the war in Iraq was bad, because so do I. But why would it be OK for someone to have a hand in 116,000+ deaths for democracy but not be OK to have a hand in 600,000+? There's no good answer to this question, which is why I don't see why Manning would want to be known as the instigator of it all. The rest of your points, even if we simply specify them as true, don't really explain why Manning's own supporters engage in lies and propaganda. So while it's nice to see them again after so long, we pretty much do already know about those claims. E.g. the maltreatment; the trial judge agrees with you and Amnesty International, so why was that not put on the website? At least that would have been truthful. I would think it would also further the cause of the site in getting the "aiding the enemy" charge dropped, if that's really what they were about. > I know the reason why they put him through that - it is because Manning was expecting life in prison or to be executed for what he did. If what you say is true, then the military would also have mistreated Sgt. Bales, but they didn't. Murder is a capital offense too, in the military. On the other hand, Manning's own lawyer said that Manning "joked" about killing himself, which is typically a fairly solid plan for landing yourself on Prevention of Suicide Watch status in a military prison. Doesn't excuse keeping him in that status after his military psychiatrist deemed him not a suicide risk, which is why the judge reduced his sentence, but nor does it require some massive conspiracy to explain his treatment. So, if I were a supporter of Manning I wouldn't even worry a bit about the charge of "aiding the enemy", which is almost trivially proven by the prosecution given the way the UCMJ is written. All they really have to prove is that there exists at least one classified document that Manning felt would be posted to the Internet by WikiLeaks, and that there exists at least one enemy of the U.S. with direct or indirect access to WikiLeaks. Instead his supporters should focus on getting his eventual sentence reduced (though Manning himself is doing far better to help his cause than his supporters are, IMHO).