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Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

nytimes.com

761–770 of 797 posts

Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#761
post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also worth noting that the only reason Snowden is currently in Russia is due to actions by the US State Department. Snowden left Hong Kong with a plane ticket to Cuba by way of Moscow. While he was on the plane, the US State Department revoked his passport, forcing him to miss his connecting flight. To make it seem like it was in any way a deliberate choice on his part is rewriting history.

I'm a bit unclear how this works. How can the US revoke the passport of a citizen? WTF? http://news.passportoffices.us/help/passport-denial-and-revo... Passport was obtained illegally or fraudulently Non-Payment of child support Passport was misused or changed/altered Passport holder’s Certificate of Naturalization or Certificate of Citizenship is cancelled Certain drug trafficking convictions Those convicted of sex…

"As is routine and consistent with US regulations, persons with felony arrest warrants are subject to having their passport revoked," said Psaki. "Such a revocation does not affect citizenship status."

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/307253-repo...

Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#762

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that the US murdered innocent civilians was highly embarrassing and hurt the interests of the US, not the fact that Manning leaked that information itself. Punish the murderers, not the messengers. The only people were actually harmed were the innocent children and journalists on the receiving end of US machine guns.

I see what you're saying here but it might not be so simple. These types of countries are all competing doing all kinds of evil stuff to do so. All or most would have to be hit with whistleblowing & often for what you say to matter. What we've seen is large scale whistleblowing in some countries but not others. A few of those crying "Foul!" are almost certainly doing equivalent or worse but benefit from being the mor…

A country is hit by whistleblowers when these people find their government doing things that are against their principles. That's much harder to happen when the people employed has no such thing.

Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#763

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see what you're saying here but it might not be so simple. These types of countries are all competing doing all kinds of evil stuff to do so. All or most would have to be hit with whistleblowing & often for what you say to matter. What we've seen is large scale whistleblowing in some countries but not others. A few of those crying "Foul!" are almost certainly doing equivalent or worse but benefit from being the mor…

A country is hit by whistleblowers when these people find their government doing things that are against their principles. That's much harder to happen when the people employed has no such thing.

The country is hit by "leakers" when arbitrary people on inside leak secrets for arbitrary reasons. Even the leakers themselves disagreed on morality of various things at various points. The problem is much broader and more subjective than you're hinting at if we adopted a policy of letting anyone leak anything they personally thought was bad. Especially if only one country in a world of nations competing was doing it.

Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#764

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If both Russia and Cuba were ok with this, what is the reason he can't just get on a plane to Cuba now?

The Americans put pressure on Cuba to not admit Snowden: "Snowden failed to board an onward flight to Cuba the next day, the paper says, again citing Russian officials, because the US put intense pressure on Cuba, warning of "adverse consequences" if Snowden were allowed to board the plane. The Cubans subsequently informed Moscow that the regular Aeroflot flight would not be permitted to land in Havana if Snowden was…

So, Snowden is deliberately choosing not to go to Cuba because he will probably be deported to the US?

Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#765

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is everyone here forgetting the millions given by foreign nations?? Not terribly, since we can see where a lot of it went and we're not terribly upset with the outcomes? > The outright collusion with media? Yeah emails that emails went emails really emails well emails, right emails? > The lack of sensitivity to LGBT rights? Clinton has a mixed track record on LGBT rights, but I trust her infinitely more than I do T…

At this point, I'd only like to know why you're making personal attacks on someone you've never met in order to support and defend a politician who's committed federal crimes -- one who you've likely also never met. Might be time to step back and take a deep breath, my friend. Have you actually read the emails in question? I've referenced them elsewhere in this thread.

    > I'd only like to know why 
    > you're making personal
    > attacks
I don't see any personal attacks? He's mocking your delusional and dull talking points, not you.

Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#766

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the DNC led the Democrats to political disaster by discouraging anyone other than HRC from running, and running an atrociously hubris-filled campaign

> No, the DNC led the Democrats ... The President is the head of the party; the DNC traditionally is run by his people AFAIK.

That is incorrect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_National_Committee

Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#767

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?

This is exactly the sort of thing intellos do all day if they are good. The only covert part was the exfil.

I don't think the war diary stuff made much of an impact, or the apache video. The diplomatic traffic OTOH was the spark into the tinder of the middle east autocracies that set off the so-called Arab Spring.

Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#768

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell that to the Ukranians, Georgians, Poles, Balts... Russia may have an economy the size of Italy's, but geopolitically they are still the bear, a gangster state that seeks to disrupt all order so that they can bully on a one-to-one basis.

tell that to the iraqis, libyans, afghanis... emphasis on regional power in my prior comment. my heart goes out to the ukrainian people but the actions of russia are not worth escalating over with a nuclear state on the part of the american people.

If you don't hang together you'll all hang separately.

Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#769
post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He went to Hong Kong. In parent we can see you conveniently call that China, but that isn't the same. Besides, we have his word, and two (or three) witnesses who saw him destroy the content of the SD card.

> In parent we can see you conveniently call that China, but that isn't the same. Diplomatic relations are handled by China's foreign ministry. There is no way Snowden's status would not be handled by the Chinese government.

There is still only one reason to say he went to China instead of simply mentioning he went to Hong Kong: to deliberately inaccurately describe and deceive what happened ie. a political reason. Don't resort to such lame rhetoric. It won't fly here.

Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#770
post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

he did pardon Marine General James Cartwright who released details about the cyber attacks on Iran. That one is was a surprise

He didn't release details. He lied to investigators to deflect their attention from the real leaker. Sort of like how Martha Stewart was convicted of making false statements to Federal agents.

Is that the conventional wisdom? I thought the consensus was that he probably was the source for David Sanger's book, but that the federal government didn't want the exposure of litigating the case, so it was resolved in the end by him agreeing to plead guilty to a lesser offense of, roughly, "lying under oath about not being the leaker", without being actually charged with the leak itself.
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