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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

#141

Post by aspensmonster »

cinquemb wrote: post #96
at-fates-hands wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>>The "State Department human-rights effort" is not exactly world-renown for its ethics. Quite the opposite. I guess helping people in oppressive regimes doesn't count to you then?? I guess this $28 million was wasted then huh? http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-20/u-s-funds-help-demo... "The U.S. State Department is set to announce $28 million in grants to help Internet activists, particularly in countries where…

I wonder how many billions go to helping subvert other sovereignties? Can we have some cherry picked examples for that?

Well, you can start with Iran. The reason it's such a mess today is because of our own meddling in 1953. Well, meddling isn't really the right word. More like a CIA-backed coup to overthrow Mossadegh and install a brutal dictator, all because BP didn't like Mossadegh's decision to push legislation nationalizing the oil fields. There's also Indonesia. We weren't exactly doing the communists any favors there either. We didn't mind that hundreds of thousands of people were being slaughtered then. We tacitly accepted it at best, because we didn't want another domino to fall in the wrong direction.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#143

Post by alan_cx »

dwrowe wrote: post #81
f1nch3r wrote: post #40

Growing up as a conservative, hyper-patriotic American it pains me to say that I hate my country. A young man exposes wrongdoing by the military and gets sentenced to 35 years in prison while the administration that started an illegal war with Iraq, costing untold American and Iraqi lives, are free.

You can love your country and despise the actions of its government. "America" is more than the government.

This is why I try so hard to separate the US government and the American people.

However.... I cant pretend that the US people didn't vote for Obama, and Bush and Clinton before him. In a democracy the people have to take responsibility for the governments they themselves vote for. And no, ignorance is still not a defense.

This equally applies to my country, the UK. In the end, my real disgust is with my fellow Brits who also voted for all this, and seem not to care. Again, not just this current regime, but the Blair one before it.

We all vote for the same people, the same system over and over again. So, why on earth should or would government ever change? "We" condone it.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#144

Post by D9u » 

    “National security crimes that undermine the entire system must be taken seriously.”
So when will Clapper, et al, be charged with perjury?

I consider lying before Congress to be an attempt to "undermine the entire system," and the truth is something which I take "seriously."

Selective application of the law is another symptom of the systemic illness which permeates our government, and this, coupled with the stream of deception flowing from the highest levels of the administration, is rapidly eroding that fabled "moral high ground" which is constantly invoked in justification for abrogations of the public trust.

The damage done to the reputation of the USA by the actions of those in high places is much more serious than the release of innocuous documents by Manning.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#145

Post by jellicle »

hullo wrote: post #124
rooshdi wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The article points out he is eligible for parole after a third of the sentence, and that he'll receive credit for time already served. They even do the math for us - he'll be eligible for release in 8 years.

Leonard Peltier is still in prison. It's extraordinarily unlikely that Manning will ever be paroled; the U.S. Government holds grudges, as Greenwald's spouse has so recently seen.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#146

Post by joering2 »

sp332 wrote: post #100
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…

There are whistleblower procedures even in the Army. Manning admits that he ignored them.

Suggestion: anyone should stop listening to what Manning says about 2 years ago as this kid was brainwashed to extreme [1]

After all, give me the toughest of the toughest, 3 years sleeping naked and being woken up every 2 hours to a loud music and put me behind closed door, and I will make him swear and admit he went back in time and killed Jesus Christ himself.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UR8OWtcj9Y

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#148

Post by monsterix »

rayiner wrote: post #129
dendory wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, especially when they saw the rescuers come and try to save the injured, they just had to kill those as well. How dare rescuers try to save lives! This is war, which clearly means shooting anything that moves is the best policy.

It's not just "war" in the abstract. The context of the video is that there is literally a firefight going on nearby in which U.S. soldiers are under attack. The helicopters shot at what appeared to be a group of armed men ("appeared" because some of the men actually were armed) and then shot at a van that appeared to be trying to pick up "bodies and weapons" (according to the soldier who radioed in for permission to…

Thank you for linking up these dots. I hadn't seen this side of the story, but I still think there have been too many deaths of civilians [1].

And you might want to read up exact transcript of the conversation in the chopper [2].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_in_the_War_...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6251512

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#149

Post by pionar »

zmb_ wrote: post #120
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…

Yes they both broke the laws and/or contracts. However, they did it only to expose alleged misconduct or illegal activities of their employers. Therefore whistleblower protections should apply, and they cannot be convicted of those actions. Whistleblowing always, by definition, includes breaking some law or contract to expose secret information (otherwise it would be public and already known). Since exposing alleged…

The problem with your argument is that it's not that he blew the whistle, it's that he didn't do it in a responsible manner.

Also, whistleblowing doesn't always include breaking a law or contract. Also, he also exposed things that WEREN'T wrongdoing, and even the "wrong" things he "exposed" were pretty much already known and "wrong" is VERY subjective in this circumstance. The "wrongdoing" was not in what happened in the video, nor the number of civilian casualties, those are accidents and mistakes, but in the misrepresentation of those events. That is not really in and of itself wrong.)

And really, the thing that got him most in trouble were the hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables that exposed no wrongdoing but still exposed state secrets.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#150

Post by nsxwolf »

monsterix wrote: post #85
nsxwolf wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So did you actually watch the video of the "three murderers" and think critically about it, or were you swayed by the heavily editorialized subtitles and its sensational title?

Let me ask this question to you instead: Did you think critically about the crime and figure out the murderers at all?

I'm not convinced I see a crime committed. From what I saw and heard, I don't believe three crew members woke up that morning and decided "let's kill some civilians today".

Remember "mens rea"? We HNers all seem to think that's an important concept, except apparently when it's people we don't like (US military).

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