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Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

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Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#171

Post by EdHominem »

phaus wrote: post #123
hendersoon wrote: post #108

I find it very sad that the bulk of comments on this matter are about Manning being trans rather than the injustice of jailing a kid for 30 years for blowing the whistle on war crimes.

I don't think Manning should spend 30 years in jail, but she wasn't convicted for whistleblowing. She was acquitted for leaking the few files related to war crimes; she was convicted of leaking 750000 unrelated documents.

Uh yeah. The charge is whatever will stick. Military courts will never uphold the law as written if they feel the need to punish a soldier for being non-soldierly. (The judge, Col. Denise Lind, intentionally came to an illegal ruling to punish someone she didn't like. She's a traitor.)

The law is very clear that it's your duty to stop illegal actions, not merely report them and carry on. Chelsea tried just reporting the problems but that didn't do anything and she was given direct orders to continue the illegal activities. The guilty party (us, our government) doesn't really have a leg to stand on when complaining about the measures she was forced to take.

Imagine a convicted kiddy fiddler complaining that their legal business files got examined in court with their illegal files. Nobody would case, It's the price of crime...

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#172

Post by smellf »

diyorgasms wrote: post #159
brobinson wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Saying you love or hate something to show off what a virtuous person you are, instead of actually trying to fix the problem."

Funny enough, the phrase "virtue signaling" itself acts as "virtue signaling", as at this point it is used almost exclusively by members of online communities who are opposed to political correctness and are often outwardly intolerant of transpeople. I don't mean to imply anything about the GP, just to observe a particular irony around that phrase.

You know, I've heard the same thing said of phrases like SJW, but it seems to me that both "virtue signaling" and "SJW" are useful phrases that describe real phenomena.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#173

Post by EdHominem »

hendersoon wrote: post #112
arca_vorago wrote: post #56

For those people who are curious about the act of disseminating information like Manning did, allow me to summarize. When you get a clearance, and often even when just working with confidential documents, the DoD has you sign an SF312, which is a classified information non-disclosure. When you join the military, one of your first acts is to be sworn in, and you swear an oath, "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I w…

I completely agree. Manning was clearly well-intentioned, but she leaked information including diplomatic cables that was not relevant to war crimes or any such malfeasance. The only effect of those leaks was to hurt the interests of the United States. Her case is certainly much less clear-cut than Snowden's, as she was not a contractor and was more likely to be covered by whistleblower protection going through chann…

> I completely agree. Manning was clearly well-intentioned, but she leaked information including diplomatic cables that was not relevant to war crimes or any such malfeasance.

Documents of illegal behavior were intermingled with the rest. It's not a whistleblower's responsibility to sort through the data, nor would we want it to be. They aren't qualified to know if those other files contribute to the understanding of the situation

Imagine if someone leaked documents of child molestation but didn't leak all of them, allowing the culprits to escape justice because of a weak case.

> The only effect of those leaks was to hurt the interests of the United States.

That's our fault for letting our soldiers break the law, and for not having any procedures in place to stop this before it got this far. (ie, a whistleblower hotline that actually got stuff done.)

Chelsea witnessed people in the US Armed Forces faking (and cooperating with external faking of) evidence, knowingly sending innocent people to US military prisons where we now know (and she and they knew at the time) they being were tortured and murdered. Any delay in whistleblowing to sort through thousands of files would simply get more people killed.

Delaying for even a minute would have been the morally irresponsible answer.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#174

Post by hendersoon »

EdHominem wrote: post #173
hendersoon wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree. Manning was clearly well-intentioned, but she leaked information including diplomatic cables that was not relevant to war crimes or any such malfeasance. The only effect of those leaks was to hurt the interests of the United States. Her case is certainly much less clear-cut than Snowden's, as she was not a contractor and was more likely to be covered by whistleblower protection going through chann…

> I completely agree. Manning was clearly well-intentioned, but she leaked information including diplomatic cables that was not relevant to war crimes or any such malfeasance. Documents of illegal behavior were intermingled with the rest. It's not a whistleblower's responsibility to sort through the data, nor would we want it to be. They aren't qualified to know if those other files contribute to the understanding of…

I disagree. Delaying would have been much smarter.

Snowden did it right, working with journalists to release his information in a way that did not hurt US and allied interests without benefit.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#175

Post by EdHominem »

hendersoon wrote: post #174
EdHominem wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I completely agree. Manning was clearly well-intentioned, but she leaked information including diplomatic cables that was not relevant to war crimes or any such malfeasance. Documents of illegal behavior were intermingled with the rest. It's not a whistleblower's responsibility to sort through the data, nor would we want it to be. They aren't qualified to know if those other files contribute to the understanding of…

I disagree. Delaying would have been much smarter. Snowden did it right, working with journalists to release his information in a way that did not hurt US and allied interests without benefit .

Yes, you, sitting coddled in comfort, think we should have given your paid killers more time to hide the evidence.

The "benefit" as you phrase it is not murdering innocent people, and for them, not being murdered. That's pretty huge!

You're condoning allowing ongoing murder because you don't like the reputation damage that comes from being proven to be a murderer.

Can't take the time, don't do the crime.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#176

Post by threebees »

lisper wrote: post #169
threebees wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're being very dramatic. As you point out, the comment hasn't even been deleted. I simply choose not to read it, and the community nicely made that choice very easy for me. Perhaps you believe I shouldn't have that choice, or it should come at a higher price. That's fine, you're entitled to your opinion. Just realize that what seems to you like a novel and reasoned argument could be, to someone closer, just one mo…

> You're being very dramatic Sorry about that. I'm trying very hard to be sober about this. > the comment hasn't even been deleted It was. I undeleted it. > Perhaps you believe I shouldn't have that choice Of course you should have that choice. But you wrote: "So thank you, community, for saying that if someone wants to make any more "cogent claims" about the validity of my existence, they're welcome to do so, elsewh…

> It was. I undeleted it.

Flagged is not deleted, as you have demonstrated. I didn't realize it's been vouched. In any case I still haven't read it, and still have no interest to, so don't worry about it.

> Please note that the reason I undeleted wtbob's comment was so that I could rebut it.

In the nicest possible way: I don't care. I appreciate that you're trying to be helpful, truly. But I think I've been clear on my perspective, and I hope you'll continue to think about it.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#177

Post by hendersoon »

EdHominem wrote: post #175
hendersoon wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Delaying would have been much smarter. Snowden did it right, working with journalists to release his information in a way that did not hurt US and allied interests without benefit .

Yes, you, sitting coddled in comfort, think we should have given your paid killers more time to hide the evidence. The "benefit" as you phrase it is not murdering innocent people, and for them, not being murdered. That's pretty huge! You're condoning allowing ongoing murder because you don't like the reputation damage that comes from being proven to be a murderer. Can't take the time, don't do the crime.

Your username seems appropriate. You deliberately misconstrued my post.

I'm all for blowing the whistle on warcrimes. Manning released information that was not criminal by any definition, like diplomatic cables.

Snowden's responsible disclosure method was more effective, too. Spread out over a year, every news cycle contained a new headline from him. He had far greater impact.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#178

Post by EdHominem »

hendersoon wrote: post #177
EdHominem wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you, sitting coddled in comfort, think we should have given your paid killers more time to hide the evidence. The "benefit" as you phrase it is not murdering innocent people, and for them, not being murdered. That's pretty huge! You're condoning allowing ongoing murder because you don't like the reputation damage that comes from being proven to be a murderer. Can't take the time, don't do the crime.

Your username seems appropriate. You deliberately misconstrued my post. I'm all for blowing the whistle on warcrimes. Manning released information that was not criminal by any definition, like diplomatic cables. Snowden's responsible disclosure method was more effective, too. Spread out over a year, every news cycle contained a new headline from him. He had far greater impact.

> Manning released information that was not criminal by any definition, like diplomatic cables.

Which was intermixed with all the evidence of warcrimes. It's not the whistleblower's job to clean up the criminal's papers before reporting them.

And who's to say (are you a judge?) what's relevant to the crimes? You'd have to read every document, in the context of all the others, to begin to know. It'd be wrong to try to pare the archive down, even if it was remotely possible.

Also, we learned a lot of other things that didn't rise to the level of warcrimes themselves but are a lot better exposed.

> I'm all for blowing the whistle on warcrimes.

Obviously not all for it. More like, mostly, or kinda, for it. Well, like, not totally against. Like, you're for it, but only if it's done in ways you approve of. Otherwise, fuck the victims...

> Snowden's responsible disclosure method was more effective, too.

Oh I see, you are totally for whistleblowers, you're even offering advice to Manning on how to make a bigger splash. Well why didn't you say so?

> in a way that did not hurt US and allied interests without benefit.

Yeah, you're clearly just upset that Manning leaked our shit but you've got to realize that nobody cares what the criminals want. We lost the right to complain when we let our soldiers murder people and covered it up.

> Your username seems appropriate. You deliberately misconstrued my post.

No Ad Hominem needed. (Do you even know what that is?) Your point was stupid on it own.

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