22 ms·

Bradley Manning's Post-Sentencing Statement

412 points by llambda 13y ago

secstate 13y ago
I just wonder what city will arise as the capital of the Eastern American Empire. How long did the Roman Empire last after the split? 80 years (395-476, give or take). Yeah, I don't expect to live that long, but it's going to be rough downfall. Hopefully we can create some kind of planetary federation to keep a lid on this privacy/freedom shit before it gets too out of hand. It kills me that Joss wrote one of the better "tree of liberty" quotes in recent memory ... maybe that's just where we're at as a culture: "Sure as I know anything, I know this - they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that. So no more runnin'. I aim to misbehave."
argumentum 13y ago
I've always argued in defense of Manning's actions, but simultaneously that he did break military law and should we be a nation of laws, he should be treated accordingly. I was wrong. The State breaks the law. And it does so daily. For helping to point this out Mr. Manning deserves a prize, not a punishment.
- hobs 13y ago
  Yep, the rule of law argument is really only valid when the laws are not a shamble, otherwise you just come off as authoritarian as far as I can see.
  - argumentum 13y ago
    How do we get more people to evolve to this position?
    - WalterSear 13y ago
      That's the really bad news of the age: I don't think we can. "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." - http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Max_Planck http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Max_Planck Ideas, just like science, advance one funeral at a time.
      - thesteamboat 13y ago
        I'm not entirely sure that's true. Consider the rapid advances in the mainstream acceptability of LGBT concerns over the past 20 years, and the number of people who have come to `a new understanding'. Similarly, the shift in perspective over the acceptability of racism; James Meredith, the student whose enrollment at Ole Miss sparked riots, is still alive as are many of his schoolmates. I'm reasonably sure that most of them have had their opinions regarding integration changed by public opinion and the subsequent years.
        WalterSear 13y ago
        All good points.
        sophacles 13y ago
        It would be interesting to know the amount of background efforts in the years prior to these "sudden groundswells" (which makes me think of the overnight success myth). For example in the civil rights situation, a a t of stuff happened in the background of WWII and immediately after in the army, as well as having lots of academic and popular writing going on. I'm also interested inthe demographics of the social graph of the wave of support. I suspect it starts in the 20somehing crowd realizing that they are allowed to have their own valid opinions and taking up the banner that was conveniently placed there for years prior waiting for them to find it. All those years it was available were formative years for those people and the idea was floating in the background, therefore not foreign.
    - jaekwon 13y ago
      More leaks, more discussions.
    - tjmc 13y ago
      One of the best arguments I came across as an undergrad was Kohlberg's stages of moral development [1]. Of his 3 stages, I've come to the conclusion that most people never evolve past the second stage which is basically "against the law = wrong". The point of questioning whether the law itself is unjust, or could be appropriately ignored under certain circumstances either doesn't occur to people, or bothers them more than any injustice caused. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg's_stages_of_moral_development http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg's_stages_of_m...
      - vehementi 13y ago
        What's worse is the cognitive dissonance in people who in one discussion will lament how some particular law is fucked (usually it is a law pertinent to their lifestyle that they take issue with, e.g. gun control is too restrictive, or marijuana is not legal), and in another discussion will white wash that idea and say what amounts to "you do the crime you do the time" as so many posts here sadly boil down to. So we have in these discussions - everyone individually recognizes that the legal system is fucked, the laws are fucked, the way we make laws is fucked, the judges are corrupt, the prosecutors care only about case volume, the defense attorneys are underpaid and overworked, the jury is stupid and uninformed, the press sensationalizes everything, ... and drilling into any one of these topics will reveal miscarriages of justice and tragedies of procedure, but tl;dr "bradley manning was found guilty".
        ahomescu1 13y ago
        On the other hand, a lot of people are still upset that Zimmerman was found not guilty.
  - mixmastamyk 13y ago
    I believe the word is legitimate to describe laws which people can believe in.
    - einhverfr 13y ago
      Unfortunately people can believe in anything. I mentioned to a friend yesterday about the UK government demanding destruction of The Guardian's hard drives and I was told I was engaging in "conspiracy theories."
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
  - argumentum 13y ago
    Though it seems overblown I won't discount that some American casualties may have been suffered. Nonetheless, Manning revealed that many other innocent lives were destroyed. There is no action without both positive and negative consequence. In hindsight, Manning's actions seem far more positive than negative.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
      - ojbyrne 13y ago
        You can say the exact same thing about drone strikes.
      - jlgreco 13y ago
        Who?
      - jaekwon 13y ago
        You're just repeating propaganda. Get that bug out of your mind.
      - paradoja 13y ago
        Who died? Is there any evidence of that? This article http://www.thenation.com/blog/174622/seven-myths-about-bradley-manning http://www.thenation.com/blog/174622/seven-myths-about-bradl... (in the myth #5) shows some evidence, in fact, of the opposite. Even the military finds no deaths from the leaks: http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/07/31/59869.htm http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/07/31/59869.htm
        tzs 13y ago
        > Who died? Is there any evidence of that? Anyone who tries to seriously answer that question here will get down voted so far that their answer will be pretty much the same color as the background. This is a topic that simply cannot be discussed on HN.
- jaekwon 13y ago
  Agreed. I hope he gets a pardon as soon as possible.
  - masklinn 13y ago
    Sadly, I greatly doubt he'll get one at this point. Neither this administration nor the next one (whether D or R) would be willing to forgive, let alone rollback the programs he fought against. Best case, he'll get parole 8 years from now.
- wissler 13y ago
  Lex malla, lex nulla.
  - argumentum 13y ago
    Just looked that up and learned something. Thanks!
  - mindcrime 13y ago
    In a similar vein: "No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law" ~~ Frederick Bastiat[1] [1]: http://www.fluxneo.com/llbarnhart/bastiat.htm http://www.fluxneo.com/llbarnhart/bastiat.htm
    - einhverfr 13y ago
      I agree with this, but only to a certain degree. Very often laws exist in part to create legal fictions, and these laws are effectively broken all the time, but one can pretend that they are followed. These legal fictions can be extremely valuable. For example in Indonesia abortion is illegal. The primary effect of this is that abortion clinics pay off police a small amount generally, and get prosecuted if something bad happens. Paradoxically, this is important to ensuring the quality of care. Everyone gets to pretend that abortions are banned, but in actuality, they are accessible and regulated by a position of being relatively legally vulnerable. The problem is that when the fictions are unsustainable, then there is no semblance of respect that can be left. Once this is gone, though it isn't clear it can be salvaged. This is why this is so big. The government has shown that they have massively betrayed our trust and this means that certain tools of law enforcement just won't work in the future.
- rayiner 13y ago
  What law-breaking do you think Manning pointed out?
  - jussij 13y ago
    The Law of War: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_war http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_war From the prespecitve of the treatment of POWs Gitmo breaks most of those: http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/powerpoint/Military_Justice_Presentations/law-of-war-2.shtml http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/powerpoint/Military_Ju... From the prepective of civilians in war zones, some of the tactics used in Iraq broke those: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/721819/law-of-war/52931/Civilians http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/721819/law-of-war/...
    - rayiner 13y ago
      Which of these did Manning point out?
      - jussij 13y ago
        He released tens of thousands of secret documents that highlighted the fact the USA knew it was breaking the Law of War. One of the first releases and the one that got him arrested was the video showing a US Apache helicopter gunning down and killing unarmed civilians which is again a breach of the Law of War: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/22/apache-helicopters-kill-iraqi-civilians http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/22/apache-helicopt...
        simoncion 13y ago
        Would you kindly point out precisely which part of the various directives and agreements the actions depicted in the first three-quarters of the Collateral Murder video violate? (You have seen the uncut video, right? It's forty minutes long. If not, I strongly recommend that you watch it. It gives a slightly different impression of what happened.) Anyway, I understand the need to be angry about heinous acts. However, I've discovered that when one plays the "What laws or regulations does this heinous act violate?" game, one somewhat frequently finds that the act in question does not violate the letter of the relevant laws or regulations. Similarly, when one examines footage that has not been edited for emotional punch, one often reaches a different conclusion about the events pictured.
scoofy 13y ago
This is actually a very nice sentiment. Unfortunately, given the jadedness i've aquired over the last few years have convinced me that it will do little good for his freedom. I only hope that, as demographics in america swing younger, the libertarians and progressives can put put aside our differences and get this guy a pardon down the road. Scooter Libby is free and Manning is in jail.
- jmaygarden 13y ago
  Scooter Libby was charged for obstructing an investigation. He didn't leak any secrets. I don't see the connection.
  - j2d3 13y ago
    I thought he exposed the identity of an undercover CIA agent. That seems like a fact that was supposed to be secret, which he leaked (supposedly.)
    - j2d3 13y ago
      You're right, he was convicted of obstructing the investigation about how Valerie Plame's identity was leaked... so it's not fair to say that he leaked it himself. He just protected Dick Cheney, who - semantics aside - was likely the actual leaker (in terms of responsibility for the leak and directing that the leak occur).
  - scottjad 13y ago
    Libby didn't do time. His sentence was commuted by Pres. Bush before it started iirc.
  - lemming 13y ago
    Libby never did time, Bush commuted his sentence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scooter_Libby#Presidential_commutation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scooter_Libby#Presidential_com...
sam-mueller 13y ago
FTA: One might wish that President Obama could put up such a principled defense for his scurrilous conduct in handing over the security of the American people to secret courts and universal surveillance. What exactly is Obama's defense? I know myself and others are extremely disappointed in his direction, despite voting him in for a second term. Yet it doesn't seem like he's made any attempt at justifying his direction. Does he even feel obligated? Has he directly addressed the issues of his hypocritical back-flopping on prosecuting whistleblowers, or blatant disregard to our privacy rights? Is he just ignoring the backlash?
- jaekwon 13y ago
  There was a blip of news last week or so when Obama said that somebody would be appointed to provide oversight over the NSA programs, and that thing would become more transparent. I don't think anything has happened since except a slow trickle of news that paint a picture that gets worse and worse. The closest we got to any change was the vote in Congress lead by Amash, which failed. People are getting disappointed, more people are wanting "out" in various ways.
- rayiner 13y ago
  Here's my hypothesis. Obama is thinking about the situation like a lawyer and as a result he can't understand why there would be such a vociferous objection now of all times. As the recently declassified FISC opinion shows, most of the NSA program is broadly within well-established law. Third-party doctrine means it's not illegal to get data from third parties like Google or Facebook, and it's well-accepted that 4th amendment protections don't apply to foreigners. The U.S. has been surveilling foreigners for decades now, and has been gathering records from third parties like banks, etc, for decades as well. The legal nit to pick with the NSA's recent efforts seems to be that it's doing searches on purely domestic communications that indadvertedly get caught in the nets (though it also seems that the NSA isn't trying very hard to make the nets finer). But you can't object to the very foundations of the program purely on legal principles. If you're looking at it from a legal point of view, it seems like a lot of uproar over something that's bad, but not something that's bad down to its foundations. But to the digerati, it's a much bigger deal, and as someone who is not in that group I think Obama can't appreciate that point of view. The idea of getting e-mails from Google strikes a chord with many people in a way that the idea of getting bank records from banks doesn't. The digerati oppose electronic surveillance on principle, and don't care if analogous programs have existed in other areas for decades. Incidentally, I don't expect Obama, or old line politicians like Feinstein or Pelosi to "get it" any time soon. This seems to be a "you either get it or you don't" issue. Either you have a visceral aversion to the idea of electronic surveillance or you don't. It's much more an emotional issue as anything else, and Obama's not an emotional guy. He's also a big government liberal, so he doesn't have any reason to oppose the NSA program on those grounds. He's got the most aggressive foreign policy and national security policy of any Democratic president since, well I don't even know who. He's the second-coming of Reagan on that front. He has no reason to view this as anything other than some NSA programs that stepped out of line and need to step back on the right side of the line.
spodek 13y ago
"I initially agreed with these methods and chose to volunteer to help defend my country. It was not until I was in Iraq and reading secret military reports on a daily basis that I started to question the morality of what we were doing. It was at this time I realized in our efforts to meet this risk posed to us by the enemy, we have forgotten our humanity." One of my best friends spoke similarly when I met him after his tour as a Marine in the first Gulf War in 1991. Based on what he saw, after long introspection, he applied for conscientious objector status. He felt he was sent around the world not to protect his country's freedom or safety, but government and corporate interests. He felt his conscience could only oppose all wars he could possibly imagine his country fighting. He could only learn that by going, not from what his government told him before going. The situation today seems more objectionable than then. I feel like the more we learn about the government's actions, the yet more objectionable they seem. I shudder when I connect the data point then to today's and extrapolate a few years out. But I still take inspiration from people who honor the Constitution over what seems opposing policy. (Edit: since people are asking about what happened to my friend, instead of evaluating his conscientious objector intent, they gave him bureaucratic run-around for years until it was easier for him to get his Honorable Discharge on schedule.)
- JoshTriplett 13y ago
  > Based on what he saw, after long introspection, he applied for conscientious objector status. Successfully? I'd think it would be much harder to do so after initially agreeing to fight.
  - jacquesm 13y ago
    It should be possible to change ones mind about something. Lots of conscientious objectors do so from a religious viewpoint, but having a conscience is not exclusively reserved for people of some religion, you are welcome to have one all by your lonesome. And that conscience can start to ask annoying questions about your actions and affiliations which can cause you to change your mind about something. What is more worrisome to me is that it would be something that could be refused. If someone states they have no will to obey the government entity they have applied for then they should be allowed to leave. The alternative feels too much like ownership to me.
grecy 13y ago
Americans seriously need to band together and find a way to punish those responsible for these crimes, not the people who are willing to risk their own lives by disclosing the crimes happened. Until you do, the legal system is a joke.
- BetterLateThan 13y ago
  > Americans seriously need to band together Not Americans - individuals. All wars and the state itself, which is war, are various manifestations of the same conflict: individuals vs the mob. There are no Americans, gay, feminists, unemployed, disabled in this war. There are no groups whose rights need to be protected more than those of individuals. This war will continue as long as we appoint somebody who promises the illusion of protection in exchange for our personal responsibility. There is nothing to lose, therefore nothing to fear, therefore nothing to protect. Imagine this taught in schools instead of warrior worship sprinkled with "because I said so".
  - Kequc 13y ago
    America the country is the thing causing these problems. Americans have more control and more responsibility for that country than anyone else in the world does. Everyone else belongs to another country they have to worry about, and do worry about, more successfully on the whole. You're not seeing Italy firing bombs at the Middle East right now.
    - mmphosis 13y ago
      I love Americans. Some of the behaviour of the United States government I am not so sure about. Of course the behaviour of governments in other countries can be just as absurd. We are not so different. You're not seeing Italy firing bombs at the Middle East right now. The stories are different, the absurd behaviour is much the same. http://www.beppegrillo.it/en/ http://www.beppegrillo.it/en/
slg 13y ago
Does anyone else see the irony in this statement? Manning's defense in this argument is almost the exact thing he was supposedly rebelling against. The most glaring example is on one hand he says patriotism was used as the justification for many horrific actions and on the other he says he broke the law, disclosed classified information, and endangered others due to his own love of country.
- Jormundir 13y ago
  What don't you understand? Patriotism was the path of committing atrocious acts, so he did "unpatriotic" things in the eyes of those in power, who were manipulating patriotism to align it with their terrible actions.
  - slg 13y ago
    "I understand that my actions violated the law, and I regret if my actions hurt anyone or harmed the United States. It was never my intention to hurt anyone. I only wanted to help people. When I chose to disclose classified information, I did so out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to others." He explains away his actions as an act of patriotism. He acknowledges the laws were broken and lives were endangered in order to accomplish his goals, but he acted anyway out of love for country. That sounds like similar logic that could be used to explain a lot of the action he revealed.
    - bandushrew 13y ago
      Absolutely the same logic could be used to explain the actions he revealed, that is exactly the problem. We are being forced to choose between realities. Either his action is a noble one born of patriotism, or those that he revealed are. Both sides are claiming to be right, noble and patriotic, and both sides see themselves as acting appropriately. The question is which reality do we want to be true? which side do we want to be associated with and to support? Pick your side, and see where that decision takes you. There are no objective realities here. Just a personal decision regarding the reality we wish to support, encourage and stand with.
jlmorton 13y ago
I would have a much easier time supporting Manning if he did as Snowden did, and turned over select documents to a reputable media organization. Manning is white-washing his actions a bit here. He doesn't mention divulging years worth of diplomatic cables, including cables with countries uninvolved in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And he divulged them en masse, without regard for their content.
- redthrowaway 13y ago
  >I would have a much easier time supporting Manning if he did as Snowden did, and turned over select documents to a reputable media organization. Define reputable. If his objective were to have talking heads bicker about it on CNN, then handing it over to WaPo or NYT would have been well-advised. If, on the other hand, he wanted real people to have access to the information so they could participate in an informed debate (which is what he said he wanted), then those outlets would have been a terrible place to go. Wikileaks could at least guarantee that the material would reach the public unaltered; the MSM could not.
  - streptomycin 13y ago
    Also, it might not have even gotten to the level of talking heads. It could have been covered up. Assange said that WaPo had the Collateral Murder video for a year before WikiLeaks did, although WaPo has denied that.
- 205guy 13y ago
  I don't think the I-would-support-Manning-if-he-had-selectively-released-info position is morally tenable. You're saying that some of his releases were vital and necessary (you'd support those). And then somehow, the perceived damage or liability of the other releases negates the "useful" ones? But I don't see how it's a zero sum game. More importantly, Manning did give a bunch of unredacted content to people whom he trusted to release it appropriately. And they did for a while, redacting names in the cables. But then, "[t]he rest of the cables were published unredacted by WikiLeaks on 1 September 2011, after David Leigh and Luke Harding of The Guardian inadvertently published the passphrase for a file that was still online..." [1] Also, who's to judge the quality of each release of info? Divulging the name of operatives would be a bad thing (Wikipedia[1] says the state department had to relocate some people after the Cablegate leak), but not to pacifists who believe the US shouldn't be conducting secret ops overseas. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Manning#Diplomatic_cables.2C_Guantanamo_Bay_files http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Manning#Diplomatic_cabl...
sage_joch 13y ago
Largely forgotten in all this is the fact that Manning was tortured in retaliation for the leaks. That this is being treated like an afterthought, with no indication of any accountability, illustrates how far we have descended in such a short time. I hope Manning continues to speak out against torture during his time in prison.
- jusben1369 13y ago
  Odd that even he didn't mention that in this statement?
  - ctchocula 13y ago
    I think he was trying to appear heroic in the statement rather than seeking pity.
- 205guy 13y ago
  In the other article from WaPo about Manning sentencing, there was this quote: "Manning will receive a credit of 1,293 days for the time he has been confined prior to the sentence, including 112 days of credit for abusive treatment he was subjected to in the brig at the Quantico Marine Base."[1] The math isn't clear, but it seems to confirm he was somehow compensated for the horrible treatment. I would call it psychological abuse, not sure if it equates to torture. Given that it's a sort of admission of wrongdoing, I suspect the days of credit were part of the plea deal--otherwise he'd be persuing further actions over it. [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/judge-to-sentence-bradley-manning-today/2013/08/20/85bee184-09d0-11e3-b87c-476db8ac34cd_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/judge-...
  - Bishizel 13y ago
    While solitary confinement isn't considered torture today, there are psychologists who, after studying the effects of such confinement, have started trying to get it labeled as a form of torture.
    - 13y ago
jusben1369 13y ago
Philosophically this is always on really shaky ground. Those that strongly support Manning's actions are saying "We want to live in a nation of laws. However, if an individual believes those laws to be unjust or unfair, based solely on his determination, then he should be free to ignore those laws and act as he sees fit. He should not be punished" That's a pretty open ended precedent to set. There is absolutely no doubt that people die in the US every year who would not die in say a Western European country because of the choices this country makes around the role of government in helping the sick, the poor and the old. Is someone free to break the laws and put lives at risk in the name of rebelling against the injustice of those who die or suffer when we have the resources to ensure they don't? That's why even if Bradley is right he's wrong. And btw I have so much respect for the fact he is getting 1/10th of the coverage of Snowden but may actually be more worthy if anything of attention.
- _delirium 13y ago
  As far as I can tell, nearly everyone agrees that breaking the law when it is unjust is a good idea, in at least some cases. In the U.S., the illegal civil-rights marches and sit-ins now enjoy nearly universal praise (including quite a few retroactive converts), and the Boston Tea Party is even taught to schoolchildren in a positive light. The only real disagreement seems to be over what injustices are serious enough to warrant such actions, not over the principle. And I mean, trashing someone's ship while disguised as a Native American, in order to protest an import tax, doesn't exactly set a high bar.
- precisioncoder 13y ago
  That's not the situation. He exposed the fact that the US Military was breaking the law. Thus whistle-blowing. There are laws protecting him and he is still being punished.
  - uwotm8920 13y ago
    > He exposed the fact that the US Military was breaking the law. And what about the other 700,000 classified documents?
DigitalSea 13y ago
If there is one lesson we can all take from this it is: No matter how cruel or wrong the actions of your Government are, they are always right even when they are wrong. Democracy? I think not.
RyanMcGreal 13y ago
Bradley Manning is not a criminal. He's a prisoner of conscience. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner_of_conscience http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner_of_conscience
- dmerrick 13y ago
  I was unfamiliar with this term. That was a very interesting article.
chernevik 13y ago
[text deleted] At some point, I will learn that HN is not the place for intelligent expression of political expression divergent from its denizens' norms. My bad.
- burntsushi 13y ago
  > We cannot have a military like that. Instead, we have a military that slaughters innocent people with zero accountability. Fuck that.
- burntsushi 13y ago
  I can be snooty too. At some point, I will learn that many people just aren't capable of pulling the blinders off and realizing that killing thousands of innocent people every year without any sort of accountability is just complete lunacy. Honestly, it seems like your definition of "intelligent" is "middle of the mainstream road." I can't really see how that holds up to tell you the truth.
  - chernevik 13y ago
    You assume that all consciences will reach the same conclusion as yours. They don't. They haven't. A military "accountability" of individual conscience would essentially be a reversion to feudalism, with armed power first migrating to leaders based on visions of conscience, then deteriorating to coalitions of interest. And now you're back at "might makes right" but without any ethic to get you out. Even granting we are killing thousands of innocents without accountability, Manning's statement is not a safe way out.
    - burntsushi 13y ago
      > You assume that all consciences will reach the same conclusion as yours. They don't. They haven't. That was my point. I was returning the undue egoism. > And now you're back at "might makes right" but without any ethic to get you out. That's where we are right now. It's the definition of democracy (close enough to republican government for the pedants). > Even granting we are killing thousands of innocents without accountability, Manning's statement is not a safe way out. Anything that reduces our imperialistic tendencies is safer than allowing the imperialistic tendencies to grow. To throw it back at you: might doesn't make right.
joshfraser 13y ago
This guy has spent 3 years in solitary confinement and is facing 35 more in the brig. And yet has the courage and clarity of mind to explain why he did what he did and say he will "gladly pay that price". Astounding.
graycat 13y ago
Poor guy; I take his statement at face value. But, he's misled: In simplest terms, "War is hell.", and this is not news. Germany bombed London and killed mostly civilians. Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and civilians were a large fraction of the deaths. The US fire bombed Japan and killed maybe 80,000 civilians in one night and did that on many nights. The two atom bombs killed many more civilians. The US and England bombed German cities and created horrific conditions for mostly civilians (although often war production workers) maybe best addressed just by hoping that the deaths came quickly, which no doubt often they didn't. Germany attacked to the East all the way to Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad and likely killed many more civilians than soldiers. Did I mention that "Was is hell"? It is. In Iraq, a civil war was going on, and the US, to its credit, eventually stopped it, but while it was going on no doubt many Iraqis did all they could to kill other Iraqis, and civilians got caught in the crossfire. Gitmo? Of course there is "due process", as defined and executed by the US DoD but, right, not as in the US criminal justice system. We treated them as prisoners of war out of uniform or some such. That's the form of "due process" they get from the US DoD fighting a war. Did we follow some statements of the UN? Maybe not, but the UN wasn't fighting the war, either. As prisoners of war, in many ways they are very well treated. If the US were to let them go, then a significant fraction of them would attack the US again. Last I read, it's costing the US $1 million per prisoner per year -- we are being very generous. The poor guy just is not looking at reality.
- simoncion 13y ago
  Gitmo? We tortured those poor SoBs. We never torture PoWs. You know why? So that we have a reputation of never torturing PoWs, so that when our soldiers are captured, they stand a good chance of also not being tortured. That reputation has been obliterated, and for what, exactly? What accurate, actionable intelligence ever came from Gitmo? We have put our soldiers in very real danger for absolutely no gain whatsoever. I hope to hell whatever real power we end up tangled with next can overlook our crimes and summon the basic human decency to treat its captured American soldiers with decency and respect.
  - graycat 13y ago
    Yes, you have a point. But, the standards have long been that easily a PoWs life can be so bad that maybe usually there will be little difference. Consider what the USSR did to German prisoners -- marched off to Siberia or some such and never heard from again. North Korea did to US prisoners in the Korean War? What North Viet Nam did to Senator McCain? And our torture was water boarding, cold rooms, loud music? Your "decency and respect" are asking a bit much. Did I mention, "War is hell"? Supposedly at times prisoner interrogation can yield quite useful results, but you may be correct that from Gitmo we didn't get much (at least that we didn't already have). But there is such a thing as a dumb ass clusterfuck, or the older FUBAR or SNAFU, and there's been a lot of that since 9/11. More narrowly we elected W, and with 9/11 he and Cheney seemed to get all super-hyper concerned about their oaths of office to "protect and defend the US", paid a bit too much attention to threat scenarios of Saddam putting a nuke in a cargo ship, sending it to a major US port city, and setting it off, etc. Yes, it was a difficult threat to evaluate -- small risk of a big loss. As we know now, Saddam was talking about WMDs mostly to scare his own people and neighbors, and our intelligence was so poor we didn't know better. So, W/Cheney convinced themselves that Saddam, definitely a bloody thug, following Stalin, was a threat to the US and that the US should invade and occupy Iraq and set up a democratic government and could do so quickly for maybe $60 billion. The guy who said $120 billion or some such got fired. The guy who said we'd need 500,000 troops to occupy the country got fired. Did I mention clusterfuck, FUBAR, SNAFU? Saddam had told us that it would be tough to hold the country together. We didn't listen and, instead, ignited essentially a several sided civil war. By the time we put down the civil war, likely more Iraqis had died a violent death, from us and/or other Iraqis, per month and in total than at any time under Saddam. We killed, what, 5000+ US soldiers? Seriously injured, what, 50,000+, 100,000+? Blew, what, net present value $3 trillion? SNAFU? FUBAR? There was a lot of really sick violence. E.g., when an angry Shiite captured a Sunni or an angry Kurd captured a Shiite, or an angry Sunni captured a Kurd, etc. new chapters in torture could be drafted. And several US workers where strung up from a bridge. So Manning didn't t like it. Easy enough to understand -- I didn't like it, either. But, W/Cheney were elected, about as fairly as the US can manage. Of really high importance, the US Congress authorized Gulf War II and appropriated the money for it. And the result was a bloody mess: The people really badly injured were the lucky ones because they died quickly and, thus, didn't suffer as much before they died. But, that was reality. It's not too difficult to see just why it happened. It's clearly what is likely to happen in many situations of military action and US national security. It's not really a big surprise. I'm sorry reality is like that, but in this universe, in this solar system, on this planet, now, that's the case. Heck, there were bloody battles in the US Civil War, Medieval wars, Roman wars, etc. There's been plenty of torture, as I recall, by some Spanish Roman Catholics. Again, the lucky ones were the ones who died quickly. Death? There's been a lot of that. Ugly? Once I was reading the Bible and got to where the pregnant women were cut open, threw the book across the room, and have not opened it again since then. For W/Cheney, as far as I can tell, they were superficial, simplistic, simple-minded, silly, sloppy, stupid, etc. and put in less thought and planning than needed for a good Sunday BBQ. The thing for a person to do is to try to stay out of the way of such a huge disaster. That's what Manning should have done. More generally all US mainstream media and all US voters should clearly understand that when a politician starts talking passionately about "protecting the US" (translation: covering his ass so that if something happens don't blame him) and US military action in foreign lands, firing experts with skeptical estimates, "to spread democracy, freedom, and prosperity", see a big chance of throwing away a lot of US blood and treasure, ugly, violent deaths of a lot of people "over there", and a really big clusterfuck, FUBAR, SNAFU. Track record: Korean war, mixed. Viet Nam war, total SNAFU, accomplished essentially nothing good. Gulf War I, pushed Saddam out of Kuwait quickly and relatively cleanly. Gulf War II, total clusterfuck and will likely result in just a Saddam II in Baghdad. Afghanistan, smaller scale clusterfuck, essentially nothing good. Syria, seed of a total clusterfuck -- just add military aid. Egypt, the US supplies the Egyptian military, and they keep down the radical Islamists, don't attack Israel very much, and keep the Suez canal open. It's mixed.
drderidder 13y ago
How many Americans died fighting to protect their country's ideals of freedom? When I hear about the "War on Terror", the TSA, the NSA, police militarization, etc. I wonder... "Is this the freedom they died to save?"
supercanuck 13y ago
Foreign Policy magazine stated that the Manning leaks was a catalyst for the revolutions in Tunisia which triggered the Arab Spring. It may not have been good for the US, but it was good for the world. Democracy spread to two arab countries.

412 points by llambda 13y ago

I just wonder what city will arise as the capital of the Eastern American Empire. How long did the Roman Empire last after the split? 80 years (395-476, give or take). Yeah, I don't expect to live that long, but it's going to be rough downfall. Hopefully we can create some kind of planetary federation to keep a lid on this privacy/freedom shit before it gets too out of hand. It kills me that Joss wrote one of the better "tree of liberty" quotes in recent memory ... maybe that's just where we're at as a culture: "Sure as I know anything, I know this - they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that. So no more runnin'. I aim to misbehave."

argumentum 13y ago

I've always argued in defense of Manning's actions, but simultaneously that he did break military law and should we be a nation of laws, he should be treated accordingly. I was wrong. The State breaks the law. And it does so daily. For helping to point this out Mr. Manning deserves a prize, not a punishment.

hobs 13y ago
Yep, the rule of law argument is really only valid when the laws are not a shamble, otherwise you just come off as authoritarian as far as I can see.
- argumentum 13y ago
  How do we get more people to evolve to this position?
  - WalterSear 13y ago
    That's the really bad news of the age: I don't think we can. "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." - http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Max_Planck http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Max_Planck Ideas, just like science, advance one funeral at a time.
    - thesteamboat 13y ago
      I'm not entirely sure that's true. Consider the rapid advances in the mainstream acceptability of LGBT concerns over the past 20 years, and the number of people who have come to `a new understanding'. Similarly, the shift in perspective over the acceptability of racism; James Meredith, the student whose enrollment at Ole Miss sparked riots, is still alive as are many of his schoolmates. I'm reasonably sure that most of them have had their opinions regarding integration changed by public opinion and the subsequent years.
      - WalterSear 13y ago
        All good points.
      - sophacles 13y ago
        It would be interesting to know the amount of background efforts in the years prior to these "sudden groundswells" (which makes me think of the overnight success myth). For example in the civil rights situation, a a t of stuff happened in the background of WWII and immediately after in the army, as well as having lots of academic and popular writing going on. I'm also interested inthe demographics of the social graph of the wave of support. I suspect it starts in the 20somehing crowd realizing that they are allowed to have their own valid opinions and taking up the banner that was conveniently placed there for years prior waiting for them to find it. All those years it was available were formative years for those people and the idea was floating in the background, therefore not foreign.
  - jaekwon 13y ago
    More leaks, more discussions.
  - tjmc 13y ago
    One of the best arguments I came across as an undergrad was Kohlberg's stages of moral development [1]. Of his 3 stages, I've come to the conclusion that most people never evolve past the second stage which is basically "against the law = wrong". The point of questioning whether the law itself is unjust, or could be appropriately ignored under certain circumstances either doesn't occur to people, or bothers them more than any injustice caused. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg's_stages_of_moral_development http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg's_stages_of_m...
    - vehementi 13y ago
      What's worse is the cognitive dissonance in people who in one discussion will lament how some particular law is fucked (usually it is a law pertinent to their lifestyle that they take issue with, e.g. gun control is too restrictive, or marijuana is not legal), and in another discussion will white wash that idea and say what amounts to "you do the crime you do the time" as so many posts here sadly boil down to. So we have in these discussions - everyone individually recognizes that the legal system is fucked, the laws are fucked, the way we make laws is fucked, the judges are corrupt, the prosecutors care only about case volume, the defense attorneys are underpaid and overworked, the jury is stupid and uninformed, the press sensationalizes everything, ... and drilling into any one of these topics will reveal miscarriages of justice and tragedies of procedure, but tl;dr "bradley manning was found guilty".
      - ahomescu1 13y ago
        On the other hand, a lot of people are still upset that Zimmerman was found not guilty.
- mixmastamyk 13y ago
  I believe the word is legitimate to describe laws which people can believe in.
  - einhverfr 13y ago
    Unfortunately people can believe in anything. I mentioned to a friend yesterday about the UK government demanding destruction of The Guardian's hard drives and I was told I was engaging in "conspiracy theories."
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- argumentum 13y ago
  Though it seems overblown I won't discount that some American casualties may have been suffered. Nonetheless, Manning revealed that many other innocent lives were destroyed. There is no action without both positive and negative consequence. In hindsight, Manning's actions seem far more positive than negative.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
    - ojbyrne 13y ago
      You can say the exact same thing about drone strikes.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      Who?
    - jaekwon 13y ago
      You're just repeating propaganda. Get that bug out of your mind.
    - paradoja 13y ago
      Who died? Is there any evidence of that? This article http://www.thenation.com/blog/174622/seven-myths-about-bradley-manning http://www.thenation.com/blog/174622/seven-myths-about-bradl... (in the myth #5) shows some evidence, in fact, of the opposite. Even the military finds no deaths from the leaks: http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/07/31/59869.htm http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/07/31/59869.htm
      - tzs 13y ago
        > Who died? Is there any evidence of that? Anyone who tries to seriously answer that question here will get down voted so far that their answer will be pretty much the same color as the background. This is a topic that simply cannot be discussed on HN.
jaekwon 13y ago
Agreed. I hope he gets a pardon as soon as possible.
- masklinn 13y ago
  Sadly, I greatly doubt he'll get one at this point. Neither this administration nor the next one (whether D or R) would be willing to forgive, let alone rollback the programs he fought against. Best case, he'll get parole 8 years from now.
wissler 13y ago
Lex malla, lex nulla.
- argumentum 13y ago
  Just looked that up and learned something. Thanks!
- mindcrime 13y ago
  In a similar vein: "No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law" ~~ Frederick Bastiat[1] [1]: http://www.fluxneo.com/llbarnhart/bastiat.htm http://www.fluxneo.com/llbarnhart/bastiat.htm
  - einhverfr 13y ago
    I agree with this, but only to a certain degree. Very often laws exist in part to create legal fictions, and these laws are effectively broken all the time, but one can pretend that they are followed. These legal fictions can be extremely valuable. For example in Indonesia abortion is illegal. The primary effect of this is that abortion clinics pay off police a small amount generally, and get prosecuted if something bad happens. Paradoxically, this is important to ensuring the quality of care. Everyone gets to pretend that abortions are banned, but in actuality, they are accessible and regulated by a position of being relatively legally vulnerable. The problem is that when the fictions are unsustainable, then there is no semblance of respect that can be left. Once this is gone, though it isn't clear it can be salvaged. This is why this is so big. The government has shown that they have massively betrayed our trust and this means that certain tools of law enforcement just won't work in the future.
rayiner 13y ago
What law-breaking do you think Manning pointed out?
- jussij 13y ago
  The Law of War: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_war http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_war From the prespecitve of the treatment of POWs Gitmo breaks most of those: http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/powerpoint/Military_Justice_Presentations/law-of-war-2.shtml http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/powerpoint/Military_Ju... From the prepective of civilians in war zones, some of the tactics used in Iraq broke those: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/721819/law-of-war/52931/Civilians http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/721819/law-of-war/...
  - rayiner 13y ago
    Which of these did Manning point out?
    - jussij 13y ago
      He released tens of thousands of secret documents that highlighted the fact the USA knew it was breaking the Law of War. One of the first releases and the one that got him arrested was the video showing a US Apache helicopter gunning down and killing unarmed civilians which is again a breach of the Law of War: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/22/apache-helicopters-kill-iraqi-civilians http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/22/apache-helicopt...
      - simoncion 13y ago
        Would you kindly point out precisely which part of the various directives and agreements the actions depicted in the first three-quarters of the Collateral Murder video violate? (You have seen the uncut video, right? It's forty minutes long. If not, I strongly recommend that you watch it. It gives a slightly different impression of what happened.) Anyway, I understand the need to be angry about heinous acts. However, I've discovered that when one plays the "What laws or regulations does this heinous act violate?" game, one somewhat frequently finds that the act in question does not violate the letter of the relevant laws or regulations. Similarly, when one examines footage that has not been edited for emotional punch, one often reaches a different conclusion about the events pictured.

scoofy 13y ago

This is actually a very nice sentiment. Unfortunately, given the jadedness i've aquired over the last few years have convinced me that it will do little good for his freedom. I only hope that, as demographics in america swing younger, the libertarians and progressives can put put aside our differences and get this guy a pardon down the road. Scooter Libby is free and Manning is in jail.

jmaygarden 13y ago
Scooter Libby was charged for obstructing an investigation. He didn't leak any secrets. I don't see the connection.
- j2d3 13y ago
  I thought he exposed the identity of an undercover CIA agent. That seems like a fact that was supposed to be secret, which he leaked (supposedly.)
  - j2d3 13y ago
    You're right, he was convicted of obstructing the investigation about how Valerie Plame's identity was leaked... so it's not fair to say that he leaked it himself. He just protected Dick Cheney, who - semantics aside - was likely the actual leaker (in terms of responsibility for the leak and directing that the leak occur).
- scottjad 13y ago
  Libby didn't do time. His sentence was commuted by Pres. Bush before it started iirc.
- lemming 13y ago
  Libby never did time, Bush commuted his sentence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scooter_Libby#Presidential_commutation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scooter_Libby#Presidential_com...

sam-mueller 13y ago

FTA: One might wish that President Obama could put up such a principled defense for his scurrilous conduct in handing over the security of the American people to secret courts and universal surveillance. What exactly is Obama's defense? I know myself and others are extremely disappointed in his direction, despite voting him in for a second term. Yet it doesn't seem like he's made any attempt at justifying his direction. Does he even feel obligated? Has he directly addressed the issues of his hypocritical back-flopping on prosecuting whistleblowers, or blatant disregard to our privacy rights? Is he just ignoring the backlash?

jaekwon 13y ago
There was a blip of news last week or so when Obama said that somebody would be appointed to provide oversight over the NSA programs, and that thing would become more transparent. I don't think anything has happened since except a slow trickle of news that paint a picture that gets worse and worse. The closest we got to any change was the vote in Congress lead by Amash, which failed. People are getting disappointed, more people are wanting "out" in various ways.
rayiner 13y ago
Here's my hypothesis. Obama is thinking about the situation like a lawyer and as a result he can't understand why there would be such a vociferous objection now of all times. As the recently declassified FISC opinion shows, most of the NSA program is broadly within well-established law. Third-party doctrine means it's not illegal to get data from third parties like Google or Facebook, and it's well-accepted that 4th amendment protections don't apply to foreigners. The U.S. has been surveilling foreigners for decades now, and has been gathering records from third parties like banks, etc, for decades as well. The legal nit to pick with the NSA's recent efforts seems to be that it's doing searches on purely domestic communications that indadvertedly get caught in the nets (though it also seems that the NSA isn't trying very hard to make the nets finer). But you can't object to the very foundations of the program purely on legal principles. If you're looking at it from a legal point of view, it seems like a lot of uproar over something that's bad, but not something that's bad down to its foundations. But to the digerati, it's a much bigger deal, and as someone who is not in that group I think Obama can't appreciate that point of view. The idea of getting e-mails from Google strikes a chord with many people in a way that the idea of getting bank records from banks doesn't. The digerati oppose electronic surveillance on principle, and don't care if analogous programs have existed in other areas for decades. Incidentally, I don't expect Obama, or old line politicians like Feinstein or Pelosi to "get it" any time soon. This seems to be a "you either get it or you don't" issue. Either you have a visceral aversion to the idea of electronic surveillance or you don't. It's much more an emotional issue as anything else, and Obama's not an emotional guy. He's also a big government liberal, so he doesn't have any reason to oppose the NSA program on those grounds. He's got the most aggressive foreign policy and national security policy of any Democratic president since, well I don't even know who. He's the second-coming of Reagan on that front. He has no reason to view this as anything other than some NSA programs that stepped out of line and need to step back on the right side of the line.

spodek 13y ago

"I initially agreed with these methods and chose to volunteer to help defend my country. It was not until I was in Iraq and reading secret military reports on a daily basis that I started to question the morality of what we were doing. It was at this time I realized in our efforts to meet this risk posed to us by the enemy, we have forgotten our humanity." One of my best friends spoke similarly when I met him after his tour as a Marine in the first Gulf War in 1991. Based on what he saw, after long introspection, he applied for conscientious objector status. He felt he was sent around the world not to protect his country's freedom or safety, but government and corporate interests. He felt his conscience could only oppose all wars he could possibly imagine his country fighting. He could only learn that by going, not from what his government told him before going. The situation today seems more objectionable than then. I feel like the more we learn about the government's actions, the yet more objectionable they seem. I shudder when I connect the data point then to today's and extrapolate a few years out. But I still take inspiration from people who honor the Constitution over what seems opposing policy. (Edit: since people are asking about what happened to my friend, instead of evaluating his conscientious objector intent, they gave him bureaucratic run-around for years until it was easier for him to get his Honorable Discharge on schedule.)

JoshTriplett 13y ago
> Based on what he saw, after long introspection, he applied for conscientious objector status. Successfully? I'd think it would be much harder to do so after initially agreeing to fight.
- jacquesm 13y ago
  It should be possible to change ones mind about something. Lots of conscientious objectors do so from a religious viewpoint, but having a conscience is not exclusively reserved for people of some religion, you are welcome to have one all by your lonesome. And that conscience can start to ask annoying questions about your actions and affiliations which can cause you to change your mind about something. What is more worrisome to me is that it would be something that could be refused. If someone states they have no will to obey the government entity they have applied for then they should be allowed to leave. The alternative feels too much like ownership to me.

grecy 13y ago

Americans seriously need to band together and find a way to punish those responsible for these crimes, not the people who are willing to risk their own lives by disclosing the crimes happened. Until you do, the legal system is a joke.

BetterLateThan 13y ago
> Americans seriously need to band together Not Americans - individuals. All wars and the state itself, which is war, are various manifestations of the same conflict: individuals vs the mob. There are no Americans, gay, feminists, unemployed, disabled in this war. There are no groups whose rights need to be protected more than those of individuals. This war will continue as long as we appoint somebody who promises the illusion of protection in exchange for our personal responsibility. There is nothing to lose, therefore nothing to fear, therefore nothing to protect. Imagine this taught in schools instead of warrior worship sprinkled with "because I said so".
- Kequc 13y ago
  America the country is the thing causing these problems. Americans have more control and more responsibility for that country than anyone else in the world does. Everyone else belongs to another country they have to worry about, and do worry about, more successfully on the whole. You're not seeing Italy firing bombs at the Middle East right now.
  - mmphosis 13y ago
    I love Americans. Some of the behaviour of the United States government I am not so sure about. Of course the behaviour of governments in other countries can be just as absurd. We are not so different. You're not seeing Italy firing bombs at the Middle East right now. The stories are different, the absurd behaviour is much the same. http://www.beppegrillo.it/en/ http://www.beppegrillo.it/en/

slg 13y ago

Does anyone else see the irony in this statement? Manning's defense in this argument is almost the exact thing he was supposedly rebelling against. The most glaring example is on one hand he says patriotism was used as the justification for many horrific actions and on the other he says he broke the law, disclosed classified information, and endangered others due to his own love of country.

Jormundir 13y ago
What don't you understand? Patriotism was the path of committing atrocious acts, so he did "unpatriotic" things in the eyes of those in power, who were manipulating patriotism to align it with their terrible actions.
- slg 13y ago
  "I understand that my actions violated the law, and I regret if my actions hurt anyone or harmed the United States. It was never my intention to hurt anyone. I only wanted to help people. When I chose to disclose classified information, I did so out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to others." He explains away his actions as an act of patriotism. He acknowledges the laws were broken and lives were endangered in order to accomplish his goals, but he acted anyway out of love for country. That sounds like similar logic that could be used to explain a lot of the action he revealed.
  - bandushrew 13y ago
    Absolutely the same logic could be used to explain the actions he revealed, that is exactly the problem. We are being forced to choose between realities. Either his action is a noble one born of patriotism, or those that he revealed are. Both sides are claiming to be right, noble and patriotic, and both sides see themselves as acting appropriately. The question is which reality do we want to be true? which side do we want to be associated with and to support? Pick your side, and see where that decision takes you. There are no objective realities here. Just a personal decision regarding the reality we wish to support, encourage and stand with.

jlmorton 13y ago

I would have a much easier time supporting Manning if he did as Snowden did, and turned over select documents to a reputable media organization. Manning is white-washing his actions a bit here. He doesn't mention divulging years worth of diplomatic cables, including cables with countries uninvolved in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And he divulged them en masse, without regard for their content.

redthrowaway 13y ago
>I would have a much easier time supporting Manning if he did as Snowden did, and turned over select documents to a reputable media organization. Define reputable. If his objective were to have talking heads bicker about it on CNN, then handing it over to WaPo or NYT would have been well-advised. If, on the other hand, he wanted real people to have access to the information so they could participate in an informed debate (which is what he said he wanted), then those outlets would have been a terrible place to go. Wikileaks could at least guarantee that the material would reach the public unaltered; the MSM could not.
- streptomycin 13y ago
  Also, it might not have even gotten to the level of talking heads. It could have been covered up. Assange said that WaPo had the Collateral Murder video for a year before WikiLeaks did, although WaPo has denied that.
205guy 13y ago
I don't think the I-would-support-Manning-if-he-had-selectively-released-info position is morally tenable. You're saying that some of his releases were vital and necessary (you'd support those). And then somehow, the perceived damage or liability of the other releases negates the "useful" ones? But I don't see how it's a zero sum game. More importantly, Manning did give a bunch of unredacted content to people whom he trusted to release it appropriately. And they did for a while, redacting names in the cables. But then, "[t]he rest of the cables were published unredacted by WikiLeaks on 1 September 2011, after David Leigh and Luke Harding of The Guardian inadvertently published the passphrase for a file that was still online..." [1] Also, who's to judge the quality of each release of info? Divulging the name of operatives would be a bad thing (Wikipedia[1] says the state department had to relocate some people after the Cablegate leak), but not to pacifists who believe the US shouldn't be conducting secret ops overseas. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Manning#Diplomatic_cables.2C_Guantanamo_Bay_files http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Manning#Diplomatic_cabl...

sage_joch 13y ago

Largely forgotten in all this is the fact that Manning was tortured in retaliation for the leaks. That this is being treated like an afterthought, with no indication of any accountability, illustrates how far we have descended in such a short time. I hope Manning continues to speak out against torture during his time in prison.

jusben1369 13y ago
Odd that even he didn't mention that in this statement?
- ctchocula 13y ago
  I think he was trying to appear heroic in the statement rather than seeking pity.
205guy 13y ago
In the other article from WaPo about Manning sentencing, there was this quote: "Manning will receive a credit of 1,293 days for the time he has been confined prior to the sentence, including 112 days of credit for abusive treatment he was subjected to in the brig at the Quantico Marine Base."[1] The math isn't clear, but it seems to confirm he was somehow compensated for the horrible treatment. I would call it psychological abuse, not sure if it equates to torture. Given that it's a sort of admission of wrongdoing, I suspect the days of credit were part of the plea deal--otherwise he'd be persuing further actions over it. [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/judge-to-sentence-bradley-manning-today/2013/08/20/85bee184-09d0-11e3-b87c-476db8ac34cd_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/judge-...
- Bishizel 13y ago
  While solitary confinement isn't considered torture today, there are psychologists who, after studying the effects of such confinement, have started trying to get it labeled as a form of torture.
  - 13y ago

jusben1369 13y ago

Philosophically this is always on really shaky ground. Those that strongly support Manning's actions are saying "We want to live in a nation of laws. However, if an individual believes those laws to be unjust or unfair, based solely on his determination, then he should be free to ignore those laws and act as he sees fit. He should not be punished" That's a pretty open ended precedent to set. There is absolutely no doubt that people die in the US every year who would not die in say a Western European country because of the choices this country makes around the role of government in helping the sick, the poor and the old. Is someone free to break the laws and put lives at risk in the name of rebelling against the injustice of those who die or suffer when we have the resources to ensure they don't? That's why even if Bradley is right he's wrong. And btw I have so much respect for the fact he is getting 1/10th of the coverage of Snowden but may actually be more worthy if anything of attention.

_delirium 13y ago
As far as I can tell, nearly everyone agrees that breaking the law when it is unjust is a good idea, in at least some cases. In the U.S., the illegal civil-rights marches and sit-ins now enjoy nearly universal praise (including quite a few retroactive converts), and the Boston Tea Party is even taught to schoolchildren in a positive light. The only real disagreement seems to be over what injustices are serious enough to warrant such actions, not over the principle. And I mean, trashing someone's ship while disguised as a Native American, in order to protest an import tax, doesn't exactly set a high bar.
precisioncoder 13y ago
That's not the situation. He exposed the fact that the US Military was breaking the law. Thus whistle-blowing. There are laws protecting him and he is still being punished.
- uwotm8920 13y ago
  > He exposed the fact that the US Military was breaking the law. And what about the other 700,000 classified documents?

DigitalSea 13y ago

If there is one lesson we can all take from this it is: No matter how cruel or wrong the actions of your Government are, they are always right even when they are wrong. Democracy? I think not.

RyanMcGreal 13y ago

Bradley Manning is not a criminal. He's a prisoner of conscience. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner_of_conscience http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner_of_conscience

dmerrick 13y ago
I was unfamiliar with this term. That was a very interesting article.

chernevik 13y ago

[text deleted] At some point, I will learn that HN is not the place for intelligent expression of political expression divergent from its denizens' norms. My bad.

burntsushi 13y ago
> We cannot have a military like that. Instead, we have a military that slaughters innocent people with zero accountability. Fuck that.
burntsushi 13y ago
I can be snooty too. At some point, I will learn that many people just aren't capable of pulling the blinders off and realizing that killing thousands of innocent people every year without any sort of accountability is just complete lunacy. Honestly, it seems like your definition of "intelligent" is "middle of the mainstream road." I can't really see how that holds up to tell you the truth.
- chernevik 13y ago
  You assume that all consciences will reach the same conclusion as yours. They don't. They haven't. A military "accountability" of individual conscience would essentially be a reversion to feudalism, with armed power first migrating to leaders based on visions of conscience, then deteriorating to coalitions of interest. And now you're back at "might makes right" but without any ethic to get you out. Even granting we are killing thousands of innocents without accountability, Manning's statement is not a safe way out.
  - burntsushi 13y ago
    > You assume that all consciences will reach the same conclusion as yours. They don't. They haven't. That was my point. I was returning the undue egoism. > And now you're back at "might makes right" but without any ethic to get you out. That's where we are right now. It's the definition of democracy (close enough to republican government for the pedants). > Even granting we are killing thousands of innocents without accountability, Manning's statement is not a safe way out. Anything that reduces our imperialistic tendencies is safer than allowing the imperialistic tendencies to grow. To throw it back at you: might doesn't make right.

joshfraser 13y ago

This guy has spent 3 years in solitary confinement and is facing 35 more in the brig. And yet has the courage and clarity of mind to explain why he did what he did and say he will "gladly pay that price". Astounding.

graycat 13y ago

Poor guy; I take his statement at face value. But, he's misled: In simplest terms, "War is hell.", and this is not news. Germany bombed London and killed mostly civilians. Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and civilians were a large fraction of the deaths. The US fire bombed Japan and killed maybe 80,000 civilians in one night and did that on many nights. The two atom bombs killed many more civilians. The US and England bombed German cities and created horrific conditions for mostly civilians (although often war production workers) maybe best addressed just by hoping that the deaths came quickly, which no doubt often they didn't. Germany attacked to the East all the way to Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad and likely killed many more civilians than soldiers. Did I mention that "Was is hell"? It is. In Iraq, a civil war was going on, and the US, to its credit, eventually stopped it, but while it was going on no doubt many Iraqis did all they could to kill other Iraqis, and civilians got caught in the crossfire. Gitmo? Of course there is "due process", as defined and executed by the US DoD but, right, not as in the US criminal justice system. We treated them as prisoners of war out of uniform or some such. That's the form of "due process" they get from the US DoD fighting a war. Did we follow some statements of the UN? Maybe not, but the UN wasn't fighting the war, either. As prisoners of war, in many ways they are very well treated. If the US were to let them go, then a significant fraction of them would attack the US again. Last I read, it's costing the US $1 million per prisoner per year -- we are being very generous. The poor guy just is not looking at reality.

simoncion 13y ago
Gitmo? We tortured those poor SoBs. We never torture PoWs. You know why? So that we have a reputation of never torturing PoWs, so that when our soldiers are captured, they stand a good chance of also not being tortured. That reputation has been obliterated, and for what, exactly? What accurate, actionable intelligence ever came from Gitmo? We have put our soldiers in very real danger for absolutely no gain whatsoever. I hope to hell whatever real power we end up tangled with next can overlook our crimes and summon the basic human decency to treat its captured American soldiers with decency and respect.
- graycat 13y ago
  Yes, you have a point. But, the standards have long been that easily a PoWs life can be so bad that maybe usually there will be little difference. Consider what the USSR did to German prisoners -- marched off to Siberia or some such and never heard from again. North Korea did to US prisoners in the Korean War? What North Viet Nam did to Senator McCain? And our torture was water boarding, cold rooms, loud music? Your "decency and respect" are asking a bit much. Did I mention, "War is hell"? Supposedly at times prisoner interrogation can yield quite useful results, but you may be correct that from Gitmo we didn't get much (at least that we didn't already have). But there is such a thing as a dumb ass clusterfuck, or the older FUBAR or SNAFU, and there's been a lot of that since 9/11. More narrowly we elected W, and with 9/11 he and Cheney seemed to get all super-hyper concerned about their oaths of office to "protect and defend the US", paid a bit too much attention to threat scenarios of Saddam putting a nuke in a cargo ship, sending it to a major US port city, and setting it off, etc. Yes, it was a difficult threat to evaluate -- small risk of a big loss. As we know now, Saddam was talking about WMDs mostly to scare his own people and neighbors, and our intelligence was so poor we didn't know better. So, W/Cheney convinced themselves that Saddam, definitely a bloody thug, following Stalin, was a threat to the US and that the US should invade and occupy Iraq and set up a democratic government and could do so quickly for maybe $60 billion. The guy who said $120 billion or some such got fired. The guy who said we'd need 500,000 troops to occupy the country got fired. Did I mention clusterfuck, FUBAR, SNAFU? Saddam had told us that it would be tough to hold the country together. We didn't listen and, instead, ignited essentially a several sided civil war. By the time we put down the civil war, likely more Iraqis had died a violent death, from us and/or other Iraqis, per month and in total than at any time under Saddam. We killed, what, 5000+ US soldiers? Seriously injured, what, 50,000+, 100,000+? Blew, what, net present value $3 trillion? SNAFU? FUBAR? There was a lot of really sick violence. E.g., when an angry Shiite captured a Sunni or an angry Kurd captured a Shiite, or an angry Sunni captured a Kurd, etc. new chapters in torture could be drafted. And several US workers where strung up from a bridge. So Manning didn't t like it. Easy enough to understand -- I didn't like it, either. But, W/Cheney were elected, about as fairly as the US can manage. Of really high importance, the US Congress authorized Gulf War II and appropriated the money for it. And the result was a bloody mess: The people really badly injured were the lucky ones because they died quickly and, thus, didn't suffer as much before they died. But, that was reality. It's not too difficult to see just why it happened. It's clearly what is likely to happen in many situations of military action and US national security. It's not really a big surprise. I'm sorry reality is like that, but in this universe, in this solar system, on this planet, now, that's the case. Heck, there were bloody battles in the US Civil War, Medieval wars, Roman wars, etc. There's been plenty of torture, as I recall, by some Spanish Roman Catholics. Again, the lucky ones were the ones who died quickly. Death? There's been a lot of that. Ugly? Once I was reading the Bible and got to where the pregnant women were cut open, threw the book across the room, and have not opened it again since then. For W/Cheney, as far as I can tell, they were superficial, simplistic, simple-minded, silly, sloppy, stupid, etc. and put in less thought and planning than needed for a good Sunday BBQ. The thing for a person to do is to try to stay out of the way of such a huge disaster. That's what Manning should have done. More generally all US mainstream media and all US voters should clearly understand that when a politician starts talking passionately about "protecting the US" (translation: covering his ass so that if something happens don't blame him) and US military action in foreign lands, firing experts with skeptical estimates, "to spread democracy, freedom, and prosperity", see a big chance of throwing away a lot of US blood and treasure, ugly, violent deaths of a lot of people "over there", and a really big clusterfuck, FUBAR, SNAFU. Track record: Korean war, mixed. Viet Nam war, total SNAFU, accomplished essentially nothing good. Gulf War I, pushed Saddam out of Kuwait quickly and relatively cleanly. Gulf War II, total clusterfuck and will likely result in just a Saddam II in Baghdad. Afghanistan, smaller scale clusterfuck, essentially nothing good. Syria, seed of a total clusterfuck -- just add military aid. Egypt, the US supplies the Egyptian military, and they keep down the radical Islamists, don't attack Israel very much, and keep the Suez canal open. It's mixed.

drderidder 13y ago

How many Americans died fighting to protect their country's ideals of freedom? When I hear about the "War on Terror", the TSA, the NSA, police militarization, etc. I wonder... "Is this the freedom they died to save?"

supercanuck 13y ago

Foreign Policy magazine stated that the Manning leaks was a catalyst for the revolutions in Tunisia which triggered the Arab Spring. It may not have been good for the US, but it was good for the world. Democracy spread to two arab countries.