661–670 of 797 posts
What exactly did Manning blow the whistle on? While Snowden exposed what he believed was illegal spying on Americans, Manning just leaked a bunch of classified information about war that he/she believed was immoral .
https://www.thenation.com/article/long-list-what-we-know-tha...
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This has been discussed before. A President can pardon people for crimes they may be charged with in the future.
Yes, but politically, "we dropped her sentence to seven years in jail" is more tenable than "we pardoned someone who never stood trial nor served a day in jail".
Seven years is still a long time for whistle blowing. I'm glad to see she is still getting released though. It's important to note commuting the sentence is not a pardon. Chelsea will still have this conviction for the rest of her life. I know there is a lot of controversy with Manning compared to Wikileaks et. al. as far as not redacting documents or using a discriminating news source to filter them. Still, I oppose…
I have mixed feelings on this. Manning did commit a crime. They were entrusted with classified information and they released it on purpose. For all of the corruption and wrongdoing the release of those cables uncovered, didn't it also do things like give away the positions of some undercover agents? And harm US diplomatic relations with other countries? Look at it from the POV of the government: How could they not pu…
Not actually. Manning was required by law to refuse and report illegal orders. And not just make a show of reporting it and then back to business as usual.
> didn't it also do things like give away the positions of some undercover agents?
No, but that'd be our fault anyways, for mixing legal and illegal.
> And harm US diplomatic relations with other countries?
The truth didn't harm relations, doing the things that the allies found out about in the first place was the problem.
> Look at it from the POV of the government: How could they not punish Manning?
Um, admitting fault and correcting it. But yeah, we know that'd never happen so what could they do but shoot the messenger?
> It would do a lot to encourage others to indiscriminately leak classified info.
Doubtful. The motivator in Manning's case wasn't the ease or difficulty of leaking, but the crimes that needed exposing.
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The "collateral murder" video, which was based on Manning's leaks, is really quite chilling and definitely shows wrong doings that were then covered up by the government. There was more, but this was the most visual/memorable. I suggest you turn your scepticism to 11 and go watch it, see if you still feel the same way. https://collateralmurder.wikileaks.org/ (warning: if watching civilians, journalists and children b…
And right after watching this video, I understood that Manning really deserved the sentence. This is war. The video clearly shows that soldiers made a decision made on an honest, although tragic, mistake. They have to make this kind of decisions all the time - and I fail to see how anyone can say, from information that was available to them, that the decision was in any way wrong. The fact that this story had to be c…
Um, they fired on a van despite realizing that it had come to pick up the wounded. Geneva Conventions clearly state that hospitals, both fixed and mobile, ambulances, hospital ships, medical aircraft, and medical personnel are not to be fired upon.
https://youtu.be/5rXPrfnU3G0?t=9m10s
(You'll also note the trigger-happy attitude of the gunner. He kept begging for permission to engage, and at one point got pretty frustrated that he was having to wait. Like the OP said: chilling.)
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And you think you could use that free time to sort through thousands of pages of classified documents without your fellow soldiers or your superiors knowing? Time isn't the only relevant resource. Maybe I'm an asshole, but the "put lives at risk" line seems like nationalistic swill. Even if it risked American combatants, why should that justify hiding the deaths of possibly fifteen thousand Iraqi civilians?
How does it not justify it? Deaths that already happen vs quite real damage that you cause in the future?
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> Manning released a large volume of information to the public en masse No. She leaked the documents to Wikileaks, who decided to publish them uncensored. She had no control over what Wikileaks would do. Other media outlets opted not to release information they considered dangerous. And, as @mhurron pointed out, there is no record of someone who was harmed by that information being released.
> She had no control over what Wikileaks would do Then she should've released it to someone else. She is ultimately responsible for deciding to give it to Wikileaks.
Neither reason nor morality made our government listen to criticism from within but maybe the pain of suffering these leaks will.
With apologies to William Burroughs. (To the whistleblowers, in hope that they stay alive.) Thanks for systemic corruption and disregard for the rule of law. Thanks for the transparent lies and carefully framed talking points. Thanks for the profitable arms sales to be used against us in next year's war. Thanks for manufactured consent. "You all saw him. He had a gun." Thanks for the American dream, placing profit fi…
I'm always torn on these things. Chelsea Manning did break the law. If she hadn't at least spent some time in jail, it could have potentially turned into a much larger political nightmare.
So did the government. But no one from the government spent any time in prison (much less solitary confinement) for it.
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And you think you could use that free time to sort through thousands of pages of classified documents without your fellow soldiers or your superiors knowing? Time isn't the only relevant resource. Maybe I'm an asshole, but the "put lives at risk" line seems like nationalistic swill. Even if it risked American combatants, why should that justify hiding the deaths of possibly fifteen thousand Iraqi civilians?
How does it not justify it? Deaths that already happen vs quite real damage that you cause in the future?
Besides, we saw ~10 people blown away in that one video. That's a fair number of eggs you'd get to break by leaking before even being at parity with that one instance, let alone all the others.
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> Manning released a large volume of information to the public en masse No. She leaked the documents to Wikileaks, who decided to publish them uncensored. She had no control over what Wikileaks would do. Other media outlets opted not to release information they considered dangerous. And, as @mhurron pointed out, there is no record of someone who was harmed by that information being released.
"She leaked the documents to Wikileaks , who decided to publish them uncensored. She had no control over what Wikileaks would do." The first part of your sentence shows why the second part is nonsense. Manning dumped a bunch of classified information on a third party. Manning left the ethical decisions to that third party. That is certainly preventable as many others have prevented it. I've done so many times with co…
Yes, like her supervisor being absolutely willing to go along with faking information against innocent Iraqis that got them jailed and killed.
> damaging, criminal decision to turn all of that over to Wikileaks rather than pure whistleblowing
Ummm, her commanders refused to listen to pure whistleblowing. Didn't you read about the case?
As someone required to report a crime, you aren't required to put in a show of effort and declare it done, you're required to do your best to stop it.
> Manning left the ethical decisions to that third party.
No, Manning made the ethical decision knowing what Wikileaks promised - to get the information seen. And she made the right one.