In fact, looking at the wording of the charges, each of the paragraphs ends with “…being of a nature to bring discredit on the armed forces.”

With language like that, one wonders under what circumstances it is acceptable to dare question the actions of the military.

This whole thing has been highly doctored for negative spin against the soldiers involved. If they did intentionally attack civilians, it will come out, and they will be tried for it.

What we’ve had so far is Instant Lynch Mob – Just Add Internet!

In the case of Manning, he clearly violated military law (which the pilots did not do), so fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your point of view – he has to face the judge.

Part of the problem here is that military law and procedure is very different from civilian law and procedure. Also, Bradley, right or wrong in your eyes, committed a very grave military crime, not a civilian crime.

If this were a declared war, he could very easily wind up being executed.

Right?

Hello?

No matter how outraged the lot of you are at watching a video of people being shot to death, he still broke the law. There’s no question about that.

When you start talking about the specifics of what the video is about, and if the information needed to be brought to light, or if you debate if we are in a “just” or legal war/occupation, you’re starting to confuse what the principal issue is and what the ideal is. Those are two separate matters in this case.

Bottom line is that people who hold security clearances have to be trustworthy. If they break that oath that they swore upon to upheld, they need to be drummed out.

I had a top secret clearance when I was in the Navy and what he did was way past the line. He’s going to serve time for this, just like he should.

DUH!

That’s how come it’s so hard to get a conviction, ever!

/sarcastic jag.

And for what it’s worth, yes, war is generally morally ambiguous. But that doesn’t mean it is always morally ambiguous, and where acts committed during wartime evidence knowing immoral conduct, their alleged perpetrators should be prosecuted.

“Indviduals have internaitonal duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience… therefore individual citizens have the duty to violate domestic law to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring.” Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunal,1950

Only exceptional people dare to resist atrocity…

- If you intend to help out somehow — which I strongly recommend you do if you’ve cared about this case since it became public — go into it with open expectations: For almost all of us, the only info we have about PFC Manning is what we’ve heard from Adrian Lamo, who is not a credible source. We have no idea what Manning has been doing / experiencing / thinking / etc for all the weeks that we’ve been hashing it out in various online forums. It can be discouraging to expect certain things out of a volunteer support effort and then find out that it isn’t anything automatically magical. It’s ultimately just a group of people — each with their own virtues and flaws. I can say that working on something like this can be extremely rewarding and educational.

- Keep in mind that PFC Manning is probably unaware of what’s been going on. He may not know that Lamo snitched him out, he might be forgiving towards Lamo until it really sinks in for him … he might not realize that he’s being called a hero around the world … who knows? However, I’m not a lawyer and I know a lot less about the military justice system … but, it seems that Lamo’s logs — if they are allowed in the trial — could be potentially disastrous for Manning. Because he was casual with Lamo, he said a lot of things that could be misconstrued by a prosecutor.

Specifically, Title 18 USC 1030 (Computer Crimes) puts a lot of weight on intent when it comes to sentencing. If it can be shown that Manning intentionally caused damage and that damage could put lives in danger, he could be sentenced to Life Imprisonment. Of course, this is what Lamo has told every single media outlet that will listen to him for weeks and weeks — that Manning was going to “risk lives”. The likelihood of that seems extremely remote but prosecutors will use whatever they can to get a conviction and then fight for as long of a sentence as they can get (it’s how they advance their careers).

Wired is now reporting a military spokesperson saying that Manning could get 50 – 70 years in prison. Compare this to the arrogant proclamations from Lamo that “he’ll probably just get 6 months, if that”. I would wager that Lamo has just been repeating what he was told by government investigators while they were convincing him to become an informant. In fact, I think that Lamo may begin to have second thoughts about his actions once this all starts to become more real and isn’t just an abstract argument on web forums.

I truly hope & encourage everyone to participate in the inevitable campaign to support PFC Manning as he now faces a trial that can either be a victory for whistle-blowers and everyone around the world opposed to the unchecked militarism of the US Government … or, it can be something that destroys a young man’s life and reinforces the power of the US Government to intimidate its own citizenry, encourage a culture of informants and start wars around the world based on false pretenses.

Right now, the best places to check for latest info is #wikileaks on Twitter (go to twitter.com and search for #wikileaks) or the website at http://www.bradleymanning.org/ (although I don’t know anything about that website or who runs it)

That said, that isn’t the only thing that Manning leaked. If it was? I’d feel a whole lot differently. It is probably safe to assume that he didn’t even read all of the materials that he is credited with leaking.

So he leaked tens of thousands of classified documents. Frankly, he’s lucky that he won’t end up like the Rosenbergs. As it is, he’ll never see the outside of a prison.

You acquire a snuff film in which a child is raped and murdered.

It is in danger of being discovered and destroyed at any minute.

Your only choice is to transmit it over the internet to an impartial intermediary, so that it may continue to exist as evidence of a crime, hopefully helping authorities to solve it.

…Ought you be prosecuted for transmitting a snuff child porno over the internet?

You keep saying that word… I do not think it means what you think it means.

any insight to the odd use of the term?

He will rightfully go to trail.

The real question is:

If he’s convicted, is what is the appropriate punishment for his actions?

Spaulding Grey once said that “morality is not a moving picnic”
But Im wondering, in the case of the Military, if it needs to move by necessity?

Now. Back to your regularly scheduled debate.

Manning worked in a privileged position with access to materials which are illegal to share outside the military and are of a sensitive nature to national security.

Manning chose to disseminate some of those materials to an outside organization.

Manning got caught. He will now face charges.

if anybody wants to help financially….

and yeah, how bout prosecutions for those who lied about this for years? or those who gunned down passers-by who were trying to help a wounded journalist?

As for all the folks still screaming about the chopper video – I’ve said this one elsewhere:

Whether they thought they were justified or not, whether they’re as callous as the video makes them out to be or not, YOU were not there. You can’t armchair quarterback this stuff. Period.

Can we please retire this ludicrous claim? I’m a veteran, and I declare it absolutely untrue. Got any facts to back it up? From whom, exactly, is our military defending our freedom of speech?

Military tribal apologists want to shut down criticism, so they squeal “You”re not allowed to talk!” Good try, but not gonna happen. (ie, screw you.)

Relevant points:

(1) We ***WERE*** there. The video takes us there, that’s the defining characteristic of full-motion photography.

(2) As citizens of a democratic state, qualified or not, it is our duty to participate in the civic discourse regarding these matters.

(3) The military culture (“cult” is completely apt) takes clueless, testosterone-overdosed, teen-age boys from podunk, and reworks them into gung-ho tribalists. This makes them compliant, but also even stupider than they were before. Consequently, the argument could be made that, because of their military indoctrination, their trained disconnect from reality, ***IT IS MILITARY PERSONNEL WHO ARE UNQUALIFIED TO COMMENT ON AND JUDGE THESE MATTERS***.

IF the U.S. government had the decency and lack of hypocrisy to actually be a signator/member state with the International Criminal Courts at the Hague, then the U.S. military would no longer be immune to criminal charges brought on by the ICC for their continual violations of international laws and of the Geneva Conventions ever since the start of Uncle Sam’s illegal “pre-emptive” wars and illegal occupations in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Prosecuting the “whistle-blower” of the U.S. military’s crimes is akin to a fascist, tyrannical state.

Again, rendering criminal evidence as “classified” is simply the legal loophole the U.S. military is using to avoid transparency and prosecution of their crimes. The underlings *might* be prosecuted, but it is the higher commands of these fuKKKed up trigger-friendly, racist, ignorant, inhumane soldiers that deserve full culpability for the crimes of the units they “supervise” and immorally protect from criminal proceedings via rendering their crimes as “classified” information.

I’m ashamed to be an American. As usual.

Peace in the Middle East!!