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Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#101

Post by jws »

coldcode wrote: post #46
flexie wrote: post #14

This is a disgrace. They send a young man to prison for 35 years for uncovering possible war crimes and a bunch of diplomatic fiddle-faddle. He is not eligible for parole until he has served 1/3 of the time.

And what penalty did his superiors receive? Nothing. Privates should never have access to secret information without supervision. If he did someone else should be responsible and take the penalty.

The US military has subtle mechanisms that would not be obvious externally. I'm sure it varies and changes, but something as simple as the timing of an officer's promotion, or review without promotion, can signal an "end of career" event. Someone familiar with the branch and with access to the promotion data could tell you if an officer in the chain may have been held responsible.

(A view from the outside, but not far outside.)

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#102

Post by pavanred »

It baffles me, if you look at the bigger picture, had Bradley Manning chosen to abuse human rights, murder a few civilians himself instead, he would have been living a free life now and probably would have been awarded medals too. The law and constitution we hold to such a high standard and protect and hope it protects us, is not working anymore.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#103

Post by kaolinite »

lotso wrote: post #66
zeteo wrote: post #35

>Manning, 25, was convicted last month [...] The government had asked [for] 60 years. “There is value in deterrence, your honor; this court must send a message [...] National security crimes that undermine the entire system must be taken seriously.” This is not the rule of law. It is a government that is increasingly relying on citizen ignorance to secretly make and implement policy, and on savage reprisals to terror…

Bradley Manning released a dump of over 700,000 files. Although there were some documents that revealed possible war crimes, there was no do due diligence performed to verify that the rest of the files were not putting people in danger. I'm curious as to how people are justifying those actions? If someone releases a huge dump of classified files, without any possible war crimes, would we still defend them?

I may be wrong but I believe at the time they said that they had gone through the documents to check for information that could put people in danger. They did a good job seemingly as the US govt said, internally, that nobody was endangered by the release of the documents.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#104

Post by sp332 »

gizzlon wrote: post #72
pinaceae wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is the Armed Forces code of conduct. He broke the laws of his organization, was before a court of that same org. This is internal. Once you wear a uniform, other rules apply. secrecy has a different impact, loyalty as well. Civilians might not like it or even understand, but Manning hopefully did when he chose to join the Armed Forces. Snowden is different, just a contractor. But Manning joined the club, bro…

So, once you put on that uniform you have to keep your mouth shut even if you witness the worst atrocities imaginable. Is that your opinion? If it is not, where do you draw the line? When is it okay to break the loyalty for the greater good?

You should at least attempt to follow the chain of command before deciding to break it.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#105

Post by vonmoltke »

revelation wrote: post #37
kevincennis wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally understand that sentiment, but at the same time, the whole concept of classified information breaks down pretty quickly if you start saying it's okay for people to exercise their own judgement and break the rules. There are always paths to responsible disclosure. From what I understand, many of them are pretty badly broken, and we certainly need to fix that. But ultimately, you really don't want to set a pr…

What he leaked was available to 1.5+ million people in the USA. It is not by any reasonable meaning of the word classified, it is the proceedings of a seperate class of society.

Where are you getting that number from?

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#106

Post by kevincennis »

Amadou wrote: post #50
kevincennis wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally understand that sentiment, but at the same time, the whole concept of classified information breaks down pretty quickly if you start saying it's okay for people to exercise their own judgement and break the rules. There are always paths to responsible disclosure. From what I understand, many of them are pretty badly broken, and we certainly need to fix that. But ultimately, you really don't want to set a pr…

But ultimately, you really don't want to set a precedent of "well, if you leak something and you really believe in your heart that it was morally justified, then we won't send you to jail." The precedent would be, "Go ahead and break the law, if you think your cause is worth serving the time. Then when it is all over and done, we will judge if your cause was worth breaking the law. If your cause was worthy, then we w…

I'm kind of divided on this. On the one hand, it's obviously horrible to think that someone who leaked only information about something as serious as war crimes, and only after exhausting all legal avenues, would go to jail.

On the other hand, if we adopt a policy of exonerating people whose causes were found to be just, the number of people leaking things that really shouldn't have been leaked is pretty likely to increase. And we're talking about information that would possibly put lives at risk in the wrong hands.

I really don't know what the right answer is. But I know it's not cut and dry.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#107

Post by drcode »

harrytuttle wrote: post #39
aspensmonster wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obama could fix this with the stroke of a pen. Surely he will deliver. I'll wait.

I think Obama would open a meth lab before he did that. And if he did it would only be self-serving.

He would open a self-serve meth lab?

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#108

Post by sophacles »

lotso wrote: post #66
zeteo wrote: post #35

>Manning, 25, was convicted last month [...] The government had asked [for] 60 years. “There is value in deterrence, your honor; this court must send a message [...] National security crimes that undermine the entire system must be taken seriously.” This is not the rule of law. It is a government that is increasingly relying on citizen ignorance to secretly make and implement policy, and on savage reprisals to terror…

Bradley Manning released a dump of over 700,000 files. Although there were some documents that revealed possible war crimes, there was no do due diligence performed to verify that the rest of the files were not putting people in danger. I'm curious as to how people are justifying those actions? If someone releases a huge dump of classified files, without any possible war crimes, would we still defend them?

Probably - see Snowden.

Further, the exclusion of possible war crimes is setting up a false equivalence. It is the crux of the situation, determines motive, and is the fundamental point of the release. Removing that, changes the situation enough that it is no longer a good comparison or rough equivalence.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#109

Post by sp332 »

rooshdi wrote: post #75
pinaceae wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is the Armed Forces code of conduct. He broke the laws of his organization, was before a court of that same org. This is internal. Once you wear a uniform, other rules apply. secrecy has a different impact, loyalty as well. Civilians might not like it or even understand, but Manning hopefully did when he chose to join the Armed Forces. Snowden is different, just a contractor. But Manning joined the club, bro…

The charges are propped up to make the sentence seem soft. 35 is still a lifetime. He may not live long enough to be free.

35 isn't even half a lifetime. He was born in 1987 (geez, he's younger than I am) so with "time served" he'll be about 60 when he gets out.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#110

Post by jlgreco »

jusben1369 wrote: post #99
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Civilians might not understand." Fuck you. It doesn't take a military mind to understand the difference between right and wrong and how little either has to do with institutional rules. This country once took a firm stand that military orders were no excuse for committing or condoning evil acts, when it suited our purposes at Nuremberg. We abandoned that stand the moment it became inconvenient, in Vietnam if not ear…

"Fuck you"?! You do realize you're trying to bully and intimidate someone whose opinion you don't agree with i. (and just happens to be factually correct and fairly balanced in delivery) Kind of ironic I'd say.

The "fuck you" is in response to a transparent attempt to exclude others from the discussion by asserting that they lack the credentials to participate in it, even though such "credentials" are plainly not required.

Although uncivil, it was not entirely unwarranted.

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