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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

#431

Post by mpyne »

aqme28 wrote: post #127
at-fates-hands wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>>and a bunch of diplomatic fiddle-faddle. Oh really? http://www.wavy.com/news/military/evidence-of-damage-from-ma... "The 250,000 diplomatic cables that Pfc. Bradley Manning disclosed through WikiLeaks endangered the lives of foreign citizens and made some international human-rights workers reluctant to seek U.S. help, a State Department official testified Friday." "Kozak said some of the cables that Manning downlo…

Can we please stop with this myth? The State Department itself has said that the cables were "not damaging." "...State Department officials concluded late last year that the publication of leaked United States diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks 'was embarrassing but not damaging.' Robert Gates, Defense Secretary at the time: "Consequences for U.S. foreign policy? I think fairly modest." http://thelede.blogs.nyti…

There is a difference between "consequences for foreign policy" and "consequences for the people actually on the ground".

Swift action on the part of the military and State Dept. after the leaks is what helped make it possible for there to be, in the end, little consequence to foreign policy and little to no fatalities for the people they knew about.

That does not mean, however, that there was no existential threat between the time the leaks were published and the time when that action was finally complete.

The fact that the State Dept. might have been able to salvage the situation doesn't mean there was never a problem in the first place.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#432

Post by mpyne »

aqme28 wrote: post #335
jaegerpicker wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing vague about endangering others when disclosing large amount of data. If he had just wanted to disclose the war crimes then I'd be incredibly outraged at his prosecution but he was reckless and put others into danger because of it. A whistle blower also has the responsibility to only disclose the important data, he failed at that.

Again, he didn't put anyone in danger so stop saying he did.

Dude, he released documents containing information about villages that were cooperating with the U.S. and even information on informants by name.

Don't you remember when Assange was pissed off at a journalist at The Guardian for leaking the password to the cables in his book and thereby revealing the actual names? Assange tried to turn it into a blame game instead of admitting that they hadn't properly redacted the documents.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#433

Post by dragonwriter »

zeteo wrote: post #248
enoch_r wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in the military have the right, and legal duty, to refuse unlawful orders, including orders that violate the international laws of war. They do not have the right to unilaterally decide to violate a lawful order because they think it is better for humanity at large. They do not have the right to expose classified information because they think it shouldn't be classified. They do not have the right to violate o…

>when enough members of the military decide to do what's better for the country against the lawful orders of the elected government that they serve, we call it a coup I'm not disputing that Manning broke the laws of the military. But calling his actions an incipient coup is laughable. In a world in which the worst offenders at Abu Ghraib got ten years (and were released much sooner), sentencing him to 35 years (as a…

> I don't see how you can defend the laws and regulations of an organization where it's much better to commit a crime against humanity than to publicize one and err on the side of too much info.

Abu Ghraib was a war crime, not a crime against humanity.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#434

Post by briandear »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #380
briandear wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Abu Ghraib a crime against humanity? Yes, that's similar to ethnic cleansing in the Balkans. That's nearly exactly the same thing as the genocide in Rwawanda. That's definitely on the same level as Pol Pot. The difference however is Abu Ghraib didn't put intelligence sources at risk, it didn't endanger the lives of people. How many people died in Abu Ghraib from being photographed with underwear on their head? How ma…

The difference however is Abu Ghraib didn't put intelligence sources at risk The hell it didn't. (I stopped reading there, so maybe you made some good points later on.) By discarding any pretense of adherence to the Geneva Convention, Abu Ghraib put every US soldier at risk.

Right because then the enemy might get really REALLY mad at US soldiers.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#435

Post by baddox »

baddox wrote: post #405
rayiner wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you married? Do you tell your wife every thing you think of her all the time?

I'm not married, but I doubt that I would tell her everything. That's not what I have an issue with. My issue is with the idea that society is some brittle construct that's reliant on honesty, and especially the idea that you would be angry at the person who leaked a secret rather than the person holding the secret.

^ I meant "reliant on dishonesty"

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#436

Post by baddox »

mpyne wrote: post #429
baddox wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone releases a huge dump of classified files, without any possible war crimes, would we still defend them? I would. I don't trust the government to decide what should and shouldn't be confidential, and I'd be curious to hear any justifications for why the government deserves even the slightest bit of trust.

So your position is that what that person did is OK because you personally don't trust the government? What other crimes would you then permit because you don't trust the government? Would it be OK to stab soldiers then? They work the government. How about robbing postal workers? Which crimes no longer are crimes when the government is the victim, and which rules do you use to determine that? And then take the same q…

> So your position is that what that person did is OK because you personally don't trust the government?

What do you mean by "OK"? The question I was responding to was whether I would defend him, and I said yes. I'm not making a legal or moral argument, I'm just expressing my personal preference.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#437

Post by Nrsolis »

vectorjohn wrote: post #362
Justsignedup wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In layman's: Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Moral of this story: Don't join the military for any reason whatsoever. And if you are drafted in, claim on your defense: "I would have been executed otherwise"

Basically this is the only answer. I think of this (but rarely say it) when I hear people talk about supporting our troops and honoring their service. I don't honor people who willingly decide to be put in situations that almost certainly will be immoral. The immoral act starts when you volunteer to join the gang that commits it.

LOL. SERIOUSLY?

I just met a guy who lost his legs to an IED that he KNEW was on the route he was ordered to take because they needed to get from A to B in the quickest possible time. He volunteered to go himself (he was the Captain of the platoon) but his team refused to let him make the run himself.

That was the THIRD IED he was hit by.

I'm glad we have people who are willing to risk their lives for us, no questions asked. They willingly go into hellish situations where they could lose life and limb and with little expectation of reward. Frequently the opposite.

You benefit from this sacrifice. You PROFIT from it. Don't pretend you're morally superior. Police go out and beat up bad guys so you can be safe.

If you were more of a man, you'd admit your cowardice and stay quiet otherwise.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#438

Post by AndrewKemendo »

baddox wrote: post #405
rayiner wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you married? Do you tell your wife every thing you think of her all the time?

I'm not married, but I doubt that I would tell her everything. That's not what I have an issue with. My issue is with the idea that society is some brittle construct that's reliant on honesty, and especially the idea that you would be angry at the person who leaked a secret rather than the person holding the secret.

>My issue is with the idea that society is some brittle construct that's reliant on (dis)honesty, and especially the idea that you would be angry at the person who leaked a secret rather than the person holding the secret.

Well, I am sorry to say that in fact society is that brittle and you are being lied to in one fashion or another most of the time.

I do want to clarify what I mean by lying though because it would be easy to interpret what I am saying as conspiratorial. In fact what I mean is that your information diet is nearly completely full with selective information, weasel words, legalese and implied trust. The constructs between nations and even within our nation are the same and often worse than interpersonal relations. So the reason that you trust any entity is not because they are moral pillars, its because they don't show you the questionable things that people do on a day to day basis that make little difference. This is exactly the argument against the widespread intelligence gathering - everyone is doing something illegal at pretty much any time. Similarly everyone, whether they know it or not lies to others on a daily basis (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/homo-consumericus/201111...)

So yes, it really is that fragile and it is insanely magnified at the global politics level way beyond you would even imagine.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#439

Post by Spooky23 »

foobarbazqux wrote: post #260
Spooky23 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Winning the war is obviously the biggest factor in terms of who goes to the gallows. But there's a difference between loss of life in combat versus deliberate murder of noncombatants outside of a combat situation or of prisoners who are in your care. It's not about who has the highest scorecard of death and depravity. Ask the same question about incendiary bombing, which happened throughout the war. The B-29s droppin…

Yeah, I only meant the atomic bombs, which was quite clearly "deliberate murder of noncombatants outside of a combat situation" as far as I can tell. I mean, it was essentially, "We have unlimited capacity to randomly murder 100,000 of your civilians at once, we've demonstrated it twice now, so submit to our authority." Well, they did.

Under the military doctrine of the day, the enemy's means of production were legitimate targets. That included industry, transit points, and other things associated with urban areas. The Japanese adopted a similar strategy, especially in China.

FYI I'm not personally advocating that obliterating cities is ok. I find it morally repugnant. I'm Just recounting the generally accepted standard of the time.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#440

Post by PhasmaFelis »

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.

They don't work, they have never worked, and there's plenty of people who tried to make them work who have been testifying that they don't work, as loudly as possible, for years. I'm sure someone somewhere had idealistic purposes in mind when they drafted them, but in practice the primary purpose of whistleblower procedures in the military is to let the brass know who the troublemakers are.
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