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> In a world in which the worst offenders at Abu Ghraib got ten years (and were released much sooner), sentencing him to 35 years (as a deterrent!) is a disgrac

> In a world in which the worst offenders at Abu Ghraib got ten years (and were released much sooner), sentencing him to 35 years (as a deterrent!) is a disgrace. Does that mean that Manning doesn't deserve his sentence? If so, how? > I don't see how you can defend the laws and regulations of an organization where it's much better to commit a crime against humanity than to publicize one and err on the side of too much info. I hate this about Manning's supporters. He exposed a small amount of wrongdoing with his leaking. The majority of the stuff he leaked didn't show any kind of criminal behavior, and instead exposed internal communications by US govt officials for no legitimate purpose. These leaks damaged relationships with foreign governments and jeopardized the lives of people in foreign nations employed by or cooperating with the US. Stop pretending that he was a selfless warrior for truth and justice.

sarutahiko 13y ago
> and jeopardized the lives of people in foreign nations employed by or cooperating with the US. Didn't independent studies/orgs show that this wasn't true, and was just a phrase paraded around by the government to get the public against Manning?
- mpyne 13y ago
  I'd be interested in seeing such studies, especially the methodology. The Taliban themselves were quite clear that they would be on the hunt for any and all collaborators, and there are eyewitness accounts of foreign service agents who had to be rapidly withdrawn from their post (sometimes in the middle of the night while literally out in a field) due to their name being revealed in these leaks. And no offense, but what is the simplest explanation here? That a bunch of collaborator names were leaked and not a single person was put into harm's way as a result of that? Keep in mind that we're not talking about some random subdivision of the IRS, we're talking about the organization that gunned down Malala and detonated a bomb in the middle of a policeman's funeral.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  Yes.
scotty79 13y ago
> These leaks damaged relationships with foreign governments. If truth hurts it's not a good sign.
- meepmorp 13y ago
  This comment is so remarkably naive and juvenile, I have to assume it's parody.
  - scotty79 13y ago
    Well it wasn't a parody. From what I heard relationships with foreign governments were damaged by the fact that foreign governments found out that friendly diplomacy called them chumps behind their backs. When the truth about this talk and how american diplomats understand words "friend" or "ally" leaked out it did hurt. As I said, if revealing what you really think about others hurts you, that's not a good sign. It's a sign that you might be kind of an asshole.
  - aric 13y ago
    It's quite the opposite of naive and juvenile.
- rayiner 13y ago
  Hint: you don't really want to hear everything your friends might think of you, much less your frenemies, acquaintances, or coworkers.
  - scotty79 13y ago
    You'd be surprised but I really do want to know that and I believe it would benefit me greatly.
  - baddox 13y ago
    But would I get angry at my friend, or the person who told me what my friend secretly thinks of me?
_delirium 13y ago
> Does that mean that Manning doesn't deserve his sentence? If so, how? Because it is immoral to remove a fellow human's freedom for lengthy periods of time unless absolutely necessary, when there is no other way to protect the public from their future actions. For example, in the case of unreformable violent criminals, who must be physically restrained lest they injure others if unrestrained, there may be no other option than multiyear or even (in rare cases) multi-decade imprisonment. But that does not happen often, and even most people who committed violent crimes pose much less risk once they grow older. There is no way you would be sentenced to 35 years for a nonviolent crime here (Denmark), because the idea is preposterous. Not even if you leaked something that offended the fairly influential and US/NATO-loving military. Sentences longer than 2 years are rare, reserved only for extreme crimes (murder, rape, etc.), which seems quite correct. Americans seems somewhat vengeful, even sadistic on the subject, rather than rational. Somehow absurdly long sentences like confining someone in a cage for 5 years or even 10 years is seen as a "short" sentence, I guess because compared to locking people in a cage for 30 or 50 years or outright killing them, it seems lenient in comparison. You even hear people joking gleefully about prison rape. Not sure how you could approach fixing that culture.
zeteo 13y ago
>He exposed a small amount of wrongdoing with his leaking. [...] These leaks damaged relationships with foreign governments and jeopardized the lives of people Abu Ghraib also damaged international relations and placed American lives at increased risk from terrorism. Plus, you know, it involved physically torturing people, not chatting online with Julian Assange. Yet it is only Manning's crime that's judged worthy of deterrence (by a 3.5 times larger punishment). That's because his real fault is that of exposing the inner workings of a style of policy making that can only function effectively as long as the public is kept ignorant. Only this kind of a crime can "undermine the entire system", as the prosecutor very frankly put it. Abu Ghraib may have embarrassed America, but the real no-no is exposing its government.
- anologwintermut 13y ago
  No, Manning's real crime to the military is disregarding orders and showing his own judgement. Abu Ghraib was horrific, but it was close enough to what was ordered to be done by Mi, by the CIA, by special forces (water boarding, walling, stress positions, sleep deprivation) that no one thinks the soldiers really disregarded the chain of command (aside from the standing orders against prisoner treatment which others were by direct order ignoring), they just got out of hand. So from the military's point of view, it's not a discipline problem. Abu Ghraib, as a systemic thing, is deterred by simple never issuing orders to do that kind of thing again and making it explicitly clear that it's prohibited. After all, non of the soldiers involved thought they were explicitly disobeying their superiors, they thought they were doing what everyone else did. If ordered not to torture people, they would not torture people. Manning, on the other head, disregarded lawful orders stemming from the civilian command authority to protect information. He didn't do it because what he leaked exposed crimes against humanity(he leaked far more than leak the "collateral murder" video), he did it because he thought he knew what was best. Soldiers don't get to decide what they think is best with in the context of lawful orders. If they could, they might decide they know what is best for the country and stage a coup, or frag their commanding officer, or any number of other things. That's what they needed to deter.

sarutahiko 13y ago

> and jeopardized the lives of people in foreign nations employed by or cooperating with the US. Didn't independent studies/orgs show that this wasn't true, and was just a phrase paraded around by the government to get the public against Manning?

mpyne 13y ago
I'd be interested in seeing such studies, especially the methodology. The Taliban themselves were quite clear that they would be on the hunt for any and all collaborators, and there are eyewitness accounts of foreign service agents who had to be rapidly withdrawn from their post (sometimes in the middle of the night while literally out in a field) due to their name being revealed in these leaks. And no offense, but what is the simplest explanation here? That a bunch of collaborator names were leaked and not a single person was put into harm's way as a result of that? Keep in mind that we're not talking about some random subdivision of the IRS, we're talking about the organization that gunned down Malala and detonated a bomb in the middle of a policeman's funeral.
jlgreco 13y ago
Yes.

scotty79 13y ago

> These leaks damaged relationships with foreign governments. If truth hurts it's not a good sign.

meepmorp 13y ago
This comment is so remarkably naive and juvenile, I have to assume it's parody.
- scotty79 13y ago
  Well it wasn't a parody. From what I heard relationships with foreign governments were damaged by the fact that foreign governments found out that friendly diplomacy called them chumps behind their backs. When the truth about this talk and how american diplomats understand words "friend" or "ally" leaked out it did hurt. As I said, if revealing what you really think about others hurts you, that's not a good sign. It's a sign that you might be kind of an asshole.
- aric 13y ago
  It's quite the opposite of naive and juvenile.
rayiner 13y ago
Hint: you don't really want to hear everything your friends might think of you, much less your frenemies, acquaintances, or coworkers.
- scotty79 13y ago
  You'd be surprised but I really do want to know that and I believe it would benefit me greatly.
- baddox 13y ago
  But would I get angry at my friend, or the person who told me what my friend secretly thinks of me?

_delirium 13y ago

> Does that mean that Manning doesn't deserve his sentence? If so, how? Because it is immoral to remove a fellow human's freedom for lengthy periods of time unless absolutely necessary, when there is no other way to protect the public from their future actions. For example, in the case of unreformable violent criminals, who must be physically restrained lest they injure others if unrestrained, there may be no other option than multiyear or even (in rare cases) multi-decade imprisonment. But that does not happen often, and even most people who committed violent crimes pose much less risk once they grow older. There is no way you would be sentenced to 35 years for a nonviolent crime here (Denmark), because the idea is preposterous. Not even if you leaked something that offended the fairly influential and US/NATO-loving military. Sentences longer than 2 years are rare, reserved only for extreme crimes (murder, rape, etc.), which seems quite correct. Americans seems somewhat vengeful, even sadistic on the subject, rather than rational. Somehow absurdly long sentences like confining someone in a cage for 5 years or even 10 years is seen as a "short" sentence, I guess because compared to locking people in a cage for 30 or 50 years or outright killing them, it seems lenient in comparison. You even hear people joking gleefully about prison rape. Not sure how you could approach fixing that culture.

zeteo 13y ago

>He exposed a small amount of wrongdoing with his leaking. [...] These leaks damaged relationships with foreign governments and jeopardized the lives of people Abu Ghraib also damaged international relations and placed American lives at increased risk from terrorism. Plus, you know, it involved physically torturing people, not chatting online with Julian Assange. Yet it is only Manning's crime that's judged worthy of deterrence (by a 3.5 times larger punishment). That's because his real fault is that of exposing the inner workings of a style of policy making that can only function effectively as long as the public is kept ignorant. Only this kind of a crime can "undermine the entire system", as the prosecutor very frankly put it. Abu Ghraib may have embarrassed America, but the real no-no is exposing its government.

anologwintermut 13y ago
No, Manning's real crime to the military is disregarding orders and showing his own judgement. Abu Ghraib was horrific, but it was close enough to what was ordered to be done by Mi, by the CIA, by special forces (water boarding, walling, stress positions, sleep deprivation) that no one thinks the soldiers really disregarded the chain of command (aside from the standing orders against prisoner treatment which others were by direct order ignoring), they just got out of hand. So from the military's point of view, it's not a discipline problem. Abu Ghraib, as a systemic thing, is deterred by simple never issuing orders to do that kind of thing again and making it explicitly clear that it's prohibited. After all, non of the soldiers involved thought they were explicitly disobeying their superiors, they thought they were doing what everyone else did. If ordered not to torture people, they would not torture people. Manning, on the other head, disregarded lawful orders stemming from the civilian command authority to protect information. He didn't do it because what he leaked exposed crimes against humanity(he leaked far more than leak the "collateral murder" video), he did it because he thought he knew what was best. Soldiers don't get to decide what they think is best with in the context of lawful orders. If they could, they might decide they know what is best for the country and stage a coup, or frag their commanding officer, or any number of other things. That's what they needed to deter.