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Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

nytimes.com

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Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#691

Post by fornever »

golergka wrote: post #682
EdHominem wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd call the cops on bank robbers even knowing they may get "damaged" during capture because I think the benefits to society outweighs the harm. 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.

Repeating a discussion that is being mad in a neoghbour thread, I don't see any criminal or even incorrecr decisions by US military in that video. Making decisions based on incomplete information, with certain risk of bad outcomes abd collateral damage is a part of war.

> I don't see any criminal or even incorrecr decisions by US military in that video. Making decisions based on incomplete information, with certain risk of bad outcomes abd collateral damage is a part of war.

So to paraphrase "they did nothing wrong and even if they did it would have been okay".

First, they clearly shot civilians trying to take other civilians to the hospital by essentially inventing weapons they didn't and couldn't have seen. Secondly, in most countries when you get the responsibility to fly something like an attack helicopter, which takes a fairly long time to learn, you tend to have to be better than some random soldier. The "war is hell" excuse isn't really viable with the attitudes displayed in the video. But if you're trying to say that these are the kind of actions we should expect when the US invades a country then I guess we are in agreement.

Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#692

Post by macspoofing »

nfoz wrote: post #615
macspoofing wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Snowden released a large volume of information to well qualified journalists who very carefully combed through the data Snowden stole a huge amount of highly classified information and gave a tiny amount to journalists to comb through. Now we only have his word that none of it went to Russian intelligence though all signs point to the contrary.

We have "only the word" of everyone with security clearance that they are not leaking secrets to foreign agents. You don't have to be physically present in Russia to provide the Russians with intelligence. I don't know why it makes any sense to assume that Snowden is leaking any more than what he gave to the journalists. His entire mission was out of loyalty to the American public, he did not intend to end up in Russ…

>We have "only the word" of everyone with security clearance that they are not leaking secrets to foreign agents.

Don't be dense. Those other agents didn't make off with 1.7 million highly classified files, flee to China and then arrange a defection to Russia with Russian officials.

>I don't know why it makes any sense to assume that Snowden is leaking any more than what he gave to the journalists.

Because he has stolen much much more than he gave to the journalists and the stolen data was much more extensive than domestic surveillance programs.

>America is keeping him out because they will not guarantee him a trial that meets his criteria of fairness/openness.

I'm sorry the law doesn't meet his criteria.

Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#693

Post by golergka »

fornever wrote: post #691
golergka wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Repeating a discussion that is being mad in a neoghbour thread, I don't see any criminal or even incorrecr decisions by US military in that video. Making decisions based on incomplete information, with certain risk of bad outcomes abd collateral damage is a part of war.

> I don't see any criminal or even incorrecr decisions by US military in that video. Making decisions based on incomplete information, with certain risk of bad outcomes abd collateral damage is a part of war. So to paraphrase "they did nothing wrong and even if they did it would have been okay". First, they clearly shot civilians trying to take other civilians to the hospital by essentially inventing weapons they did…

How exactly could've you made out these figures as civilians and not enemy combatants? From POV of the camera, you already have seen one of them with an RPG, and the opposing force doesn't really use uniforms either.

Don't fall for a logical fallacy, and try to view the situatiom from the lens of the information that they actually had, not the hindsight.

Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#694

Post by interfixus »

andromeduck wrote: post #640
interfixus wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't rewrite history. Manning may be a woman today, but was unquestionably a man at the time of the leak. Hence, 'HE acted', not 'she'.

Works both ways really. Like she in her former life. English is flexible/ambiguous like that.

I got halfway through a dissenting reply, and then I realized you are probably right.

Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#695

Post by lucozade »

Daviey wrote: post #478

So Assange is booking a flight to the US now? "If Obama grants Manning clemency Assange will agree to US extradition despite clear unconstitutionality of DoJ caseWikiLeaks added" - wikileaks [ https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/819630102787059713 ]

> So Assange is booking a flight to the US now?

Doubt it, he'd need to persuade the US government to seek his extradition first then convince the UK government that the US has preference over the existing EAW.

That's quite a lot of persuading to get done just to ensure that a tweet comes to fruition. My guess is that he'll either keep schtum or come up with a narrative about how US Government still cares enough about the Manning leak to want to extradite him.

I'm glad that Obama has done this but I don't think this is great for Assange. His argument is quite a bit weaker now I think.

Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#696

Post by vvpan »

iaw wrote: post #498
saycheese wrote: post #145

>> "More than a million supporters of Edward Snowden have petitioned President Barack Obama to pardon him, but the former National Security Agency contractor hasn't submitted the required documents for clemency, according to the White House." Source: http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/17/politics/snowden-no-clemency-r... Forms: https://www.justice.gov/pardon/application-forms ____ EDIT: Appears the only way to contact Ed is…

I agree with the Manning pardon, I don't think Snowden deserves a pardon. Manning's motives and understanding of what she was doing is worlds different than Snowden's. Snowden sought a position to access more information for his leaks and he leaked information on valid espionage programs along side the unconstitutional ones. Let him live out his days in Russia, he paid for it with intelligence.

So you don't think Snowden has done great enough good for US citizens for anybody to consider a pardon for him?

Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#697

Post by fornever »

golergka wrote: post #693
fornever wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see any criminal or even incorrecr decisions by US military in that video. Making decisions based on incomplete information, with certain risk of bad outcomes abd collateral damage is a part of war. So to paraphrase "they did nothing wrong and even if they did it would have been okay". First, they clearly shot civilians trying to take other civilians to the hospital by essentially inventing weapons they did…

How exactly could've you made out these figures as civilians and not enemy combatants? From POV of the camera, you already have seen one of them with an RPG, and the opposing force doesn't really use uniforms either. Don't fall for a logical fallacy, and try to view the situatiom from the lens of the information that they actually had, not the hindsight.

International law and the rules of engagement requires you to positively identify enemy combatant as well as not engage enemy combatant that are incapacitated. There's nothing in the video indicating that they person getting picked up by the van or that the people picking him up has weapons.

(from the transcript [0])

05:30 There's one guy moving down there but he's uh, he's wounded. ... 06:01 He's getting up. 06:02 Maybe he has a weapon down in his hand? 06:04 No, I haven't seen one yet. ... 06:33 Come on, buddy. 06:38 All you gotta do is pick up a weapon. ... 06:54 This is Two-Six roger. I'll pop flares [drop flares]. We also have one individual moving. We're looking for weapons. If we see a weapon, we're gonna engage. ... 07:18 Bushmaster; Crazyhorse. We have individuals going to the scene, looks like possibly uh picking up bodies and weapons. .... 07:36 Picking up the wounded? 07:38 Yeah, we're trying to get permission to engage. ... 07:59 Roger. We have a black SUV-uh Bongo truck [van] picking up the bodies. Request permission to engage.

There's nothing unclear here or anything to be misunderstood. If they had seen weapons they would have engaged already instead of asking for permission. It's just that the crew of the helicopter really wants to shoot them and that they, the US military nor the US public don't really give a shit if they are civilian as long as they can get away with it, which they can.

[0] https://collateralmurder.wikileaks.org/en/transcript.html

Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#698

Post by lawless123 »

MicroBerto wrote: post #574
mongmong wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All that tells me is she was a politician playing the political game. Or do you think it is mutually exclusive to play politics and caring about doing good things with power? Do you think emails between Sanders campaign staff would not be discussing talking points and tactics if their campaign emails were leaked?

I'm upset enough that our politicians take monstrous amounts of money from corporate lobbyists... let alone foreign nations in questionable areas!! That part is unforgivable. Justify it however you want, there was some very chilling revelations in those emails. I want politicians solving problems, not building press angles.

>there was some very chilling revelations in those emails.

The most chilling part was that having your pizza restaurant mentioned in the emails can lead to lunatics showing up with guns to threaten your staff.

Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#699

Post by the_trapper »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #592
the_trapper wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How much time do you think someone on active duty in Iraq has to sort through data? You've clearly never been deployed. You have more free time than you know what to do with. Think about what you do when you get off shift at your job. Now remember that you have no family or friends that aren't also co-workers to hang out with. No alcohol, limited access to new movies and video games. You are also stuck within the c…

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?

> 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?

Most of the military intelligence Soldiers I deployed with brought their own personal laptops.

You really underestimate how much free alone time is available to you when you are deployed. Remember that Manning was also kind of a black sheep at the time. Spending hours alone on a laptop would not have been seen as out of the ordinary at all.

Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#700

Post by bjourne »

AwfulCaptain wrote: post #681
bjourne wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I oppose state secrets and the Hillary e-mails are actually very chilling when you start reading through them. Weren't they from the DNC leak? The DNC is not affiliated with the US state. I read some of the mails, and I found nothing chilling so I'm curious to know what chilling mails you found.

I think what's chilling is the inconsistent application of the law regarding sensitive information (for example, emails). Secretary of State Clinton, who deletes government emails and communicates state secrets through her own private email server, receives no punishment, while people who blow the whistle on questionable government behavior receive maximum punishment. That lack of consistency in applying the law is w…

You're on a different subject. What was chilling according to the parent was the contents of the leaked emails. The private email server controversy had nothing to do with that.
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