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This is a disgrace. They send a young man to prison for 35 years for uncovering possible war crimes and a bunch of diplomatic fiddle-faddle. He is not eligible
by flexie 13y ago
This is a disgrace. They send a young man to prison for 35 years for uncovering possible war crimes and a bunch of diplomatic fiddle-faddle.
He is not eligible for parole until he has served 1/3 of the time.
- aspensmonster 13y agoObama could fix this with the stroke of a pen. Surely he will deliver. I'll wait.
- harrytuttle 13y agoI think Obama would open a meth lab before he did that. And if he did it would only be self-serving.
- at-fates-hands 13y agoTough to say. Although Liberal presidents tend to pardon more than their Conservative counterparts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_pardoned_by_Bill_Clinton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_pardoned_by_Bill... Clinton pardoned 150 people and commuted 39 people and their sentences during his four years. Most of these were done on his last day in office and caused some controversy. Of course his number of pardons paled in comparison to Carter and Reagan who both pardoned over 400 a piece. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_pardoned_by_George_H._W._Bush http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_pardoned_by_Geor... By comparison, George H. W. Bush only pardoned 75 people and commuted three sentences.
- tokenizer 13y agoYou'll be waiting about 35 years then.
- shaaaaawn 13y agoPardoning Manning is very unlikely. Sets a really bad precedence. Damage control is all about the perception of 'isolated incidents' . There's probably a greater (but slim) chance of some sort of exoneration with Snowden since his leaks are part of a larger conversation that has traction
- gavinlynch 13y agoThe President who has arguably undertaken the most aggressive campaign against information leakers in the modern American politics is going to do something about this. I agree.
- joering2 13y agoSeing how they treated him pre-trial, I was really thinking this will be Kangoro court with rubber stamp and maximum possible sentencing for all the "crimes" that Bradley did. Glad that the judge was semi-reasonable. Think on the positive side; 1/3 out of 35 years is about 10 years! (he already served 3).
- ck2 13y agoThey will never let him out in 10, imagine the crimes they will have to cover up by then and they will need examples to threaten the rest of the military with. They will make a show of his parole trial and be sure to send him back in for the next 20.
- ck2 13y agoHe won't get parole in 1/3rd the time - that will be the end of the fourth Clinton administration and they will be sure to send someone to argue against his release, which since it's military, they will all blindly fall in line and obey. Just imagine the crimes the government will be doing by then given what they are getting away with now. With what it will have to cover up they will need examples of people in prison forever to stop people from even thinking of talking about it.
- mcovey 13y ago>fourth Clinton administration I contemplate killing myself every time I imagine this possibility.
- coldcode 13y agoAnd what penalty did his superiors receive? Nothing. Privates should never have access to secret information without supervision. If he did someone else should be responsible and take the penalty.
- homosaur 13y agoIf you paid attention to the sentencing hearings, it was clear that the chain of command should be largely responsible for the happenings of the Manning case. They repeatedly ignored and swept under the rug issues related to his mental state and fitness for duty, and a lot of it was done for the reasons of DADT.
- jws 13y agoThe US military has subtle mechanisms that would not be obvious externally. I'm sure it varies and changes, but something as simple as the timing of an officer's promotion, or review without promotion, can signal an "end of career" event. Someone familiar with the branch and with access to the promotion data could tell you if an officer in the chain may have been held responsible. (A view from the outside, but not far outside.)
- sp332 13y agoHe used to be a specialist. He was demoted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Manning#Loss_of_rank_and_recommended_discharge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Manning#Loss_of_rank_an...
- caycep 13y agofrom what I read, I think there is still some level of appeals? The case could drag on for a long time...
- at-fates-hands 13y ago>>>and a bunch of diplomatic fiddle-faddle. Oh really? http://www.wavy.com/news/military/evidence-of-damage-from-manning-leaks-to-be-shown_48100432 http://www.wavy.com/news/military/evidence-of-damage-from-ma... "The 250,000 diplomatic cables that Pfc. Bradley Manning disclosed through WikiLeaks endangered the lives of foreign citizens and made some international human-rights workers reluctant to seek U.S. help, a State Department official testified Friday." "Kozak said some of the cables that Manning downloaded from a classified government computer network identified people as sources of information that would put them at risk of death, violence or incarceration if their involvement were publicly known" "Kozak said the greatest damage to State Department human-rights efforts was a "chilling effect" on foreign activists seeking U.S. help." "They can't be sure now whether what they say to us is going to remain confidential or whether it's going to be broadcast around," Kozak said." He basically outed a bunch of foreign activists that were helping us and put them in danger. Not exactly what I would refer to as "fiddle-faddle"
- flexie 13y agoYes, really. No one has died and I have never heard of anyone of those being in danger. Michael Kozak, whom you quote, works for the State Department.
- jaegerpicker 13y agoHow could you possibly know that? I'm all about war crimes being exposed but Manning did not do it the right way. 95% of the stuff he released was not needed and did put people in danger. A lot the people you and I have never heard of. I don't know for sure that no one died but you can't possibly know that no one has died. It seems very likely that if an informant or other foreign national in Iran(or other similar type country) was working with the US and was exposed that their fate isn't looking real healthy at the moment.
- veridies 13y ago> 95% of the stuff he released was not needed It is my personal opinion (and the intent of the FOIA and laws regarding classification) that everything should be released unless it is damaging, which almost nothing Manning released could have been. The fact that the US government hasn't been able to point to a single death resulting from Manning's leaks implies to me that everything he released should have been public to begin with. You say that "95% of the stuff he released was not needed". I would argue that 95% of it needed to be released.
- lil_cain 13y ago>They send a young man to prison for 35 years for uncovering possible war crimes If he was uncovering war crimes, did he first try to report them through his chain of command? If not, then I really don't think this is a defence.
- talmir 13y agoIf the guy committing the war crimes is your boss, do you go running to him to report him?