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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

#461

Post by AndrewKemendo »

scotty79 wrote: post #444
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> 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. And you don't believe bit more honesty might be in order?

I would love to see that happen, but I don't think we can handle it from a biological perspective. We are too emotional, vain and have too muddled an understanding of our own goals and volition to be able to be honest even with ourselves let alone the rest of the world. It just doesn't seem feasible without some kind of widespread cognitive change.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#462

Post by mpyne »

foobarbazqux wrote: post #445
mpyne wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one "chose" to kill civilians at Hiroshima or Nagasaki though. The U.S. dropped leaflets all over both cities warning them of the bomb. Either way by your logic firebombing attacks such as at Dresden or Tokyo would have been just fine (oh no, my bomb had to have hit a barracks, not a hospital!) even though they can't possibly all have been right. So it's not even true to say that conventional bombing wouldn't have…

I'm actually kind of curious, are you okay with nuking cities in the future? My point here was never that other war atrocities are somehow good. It's just my belief that intentionally killing unarmed civilians is murder, in a moral sense, irrespective of circumstance or nationality. If you must take out a military target and there are civilian casualties, then so be it, provided you did your best to minimize them. Ho…

> I'm actually kind of curious, are you okay with nuking cities in the future?

As a first strike, you mean? No, we have far more effective conventional military weapons that would obviate the need for the overkill that a nuclear strike would deliver.

They didn't have that in WWII though, which is the discussion everyone focuses on, and people always seem to conveniently ignore that the only thing stopping further American and Japanese bloodshed was ending the war ASAP.

To the extent that the A-bombs allowed to the Emperor to save face while still surrendering, those A-bombs saved untold hundreds of thousands or even millions of further Japanese lives, not to mention the cost in American (and Soviet!) casualties.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#463

Post by mpyne »

foobarbazqux wrote: post #442
mpyne wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Actually, Japan were ready to throw in the towel as a result of the tripartite pact being enacted, and Russia joining the fray. People say this a lot, but no one has clearly explained how the U.S.S.R. would have been able to stage an invasion of the Home Islands of Japan. It's not a matter of simply ferrying a bunch of people over the Trans-Siberian railroad, you also need a navy, sufficient air cover (which if I r…

> It either did or did not happen for the causes described. Well, whatever the actual reason for the surrender, any claims about it one way or the other are totally unfalsifiable. But, thanks for the historical analysis here nonetheless.

> Well, whatever the actual reason for the surrender, any claims about it one way or the other are totally unfalsifiable.

Fair enough. But the people with the best understanding of events as they were happening, were those actually making the decisions at the time.... and they decided to drop the bomb.

For years after that it's been 'backseat drivers' second-guessing that decision despite their own claims being totally unfalsifiable. While it might be nice to be able to look back on hindsight, no one had a crystal ball at the time, which is why it's inappropriate to pin decisions made in 1945 with the moral qualms of a generation that has never seen world-wide total war.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#464

Post by scotty79 »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #461
scotty79 wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. And you don't believe bit more honesty might be in order?

I would love to see that happen, but I don't think we can handle it from a biological perspective. We are too emotional, vain and have too muddled an understanding of our own goals and volition to be able to be honest even with ourselves let alone the rest of the world. It just doesn't seem feasible without some kind of widespread cognitive change.

In Europe we used to think that killing each other over some differences is a good idea. Two wars later, around 10% population lost and look how well we get along.

We used to like having slaves. All people used to hate gays and atheists. Women used to be perceived as incapable of having public lives.

At some point we might reach the conclusion that being lied to is not all that convenient because truth eventually comes out and if it's too far from perception it leads to shitstorms.

People can change. But they do not change by themselves. There is always some kind of technological advancement that forces people to change their ways. I sincerely hope that internet will lead us to more honest lives.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#465

Post by foobarbazqux »

mpyne wrote: post #463
foobarbazqux wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It either did or did not happen for the causes described. Well, whatever the actual reason for the surrender, any claims about it one way or the other are totally unfalsifiable. But, thanks for the historical analysis here nonetheless.

> Well, whatever the actual reason for the surrender, any claims about it one way or the other are totally unfalsifiable. Fair enough. But the people with the best understanding of events as they were happening, were those actually making the decisions at the time.... and they decided to drop the bomb. For years after that it's been 'backseat drivers' second-guessing that decision despite their own claims being total…

I guess I just project my own personal worldview onto world affairs. I do stupidly bad things with some frequency, and I only ever recognize them as such in hindsight. Nobody acts against their own morals at the time, right? But I believe it's helpful to say, "Look, I did a stupidly bad thing because I didn't feel or think I had any other options, and I wouldn't have done it if I'd known better." Einstein said as much when he wrote, "Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb, I would not have lifted a finger."

We don't know if there could have been an alternative that definitively ended the war and cost less lives. Things were winding down at that point anyway. I don't even necessarily feel that dropping those bombs was a bad thing in the grand scheme of things, because it shone a light on the darkness that we are capable of as a species. Maybe those two bombs were all that prevented mutual destruction during the cold war.

But as an isolated event, nuking a city is just as horrific as pushing people into ovens - it's really quite comparable, actually - and I think it's best just to say, we did something awful, we thought we had to, it's over now, it won't happen again. Germany did this, for instance. And the only reason that didn't happen for the atomic bombs is because the US "won" the war.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#466

Post by anigbrowl »

chris_mahan wrote: post #454
anigbrowl wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's a totally different question. I asked what unconstitutional activity was revealed by all of those state department cables that were leaked. As best I can ascertain, the answer is 'none whatsoever.'

Torture?

Be more specific. There were 250,000 cables and it was several years ago, I don't remember any about us torturing people or about extraordinary rendition, but I'm happy to be corrected. I certainly don't remember any big smoking gun.

Information about Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq was revealed in 2004 by the Department of Defense itself pursuant to its own investigation. Information about waterboarding (which as far as I am concerned is illegal torture) was widely available and the subject of intense public discussion in 2007, before Manning even joined the army.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#467

Post by LekkoscPiwa »

bwaldrep wrote: post #446
LekkoscPiwa wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the US wasn't breaking its own Constitution all the time, this wouldn't be even a problem. PRISM for that example breaks 4th, 5th and probably 9th Amendment. That's about a third of the Bill of Rights. Each and every NSA employee is under Oath to protect the Constitution. And then a person who tries just doing that (Snowden) is the one called traitor! If not for things like PRISM the military and other branches of…

That was not the question. The question was if Manning specifically released ANY evidence of unconstitutional activity. The answer seems to be no.

Let me illustrate my point a little bit differently: you are a teacher at school. And there is this student Adam that constantly gets into trouble. On Monday he had a fight. On Tuesday he was absent on Math. On Wednesday he was calling names a younger girl from different class. Then on Thursday you find out that somebody broke window in a classroom. Are you surprised Adam is suspected?

Manning probably assumed that there must be some illegal stuff in the cables/documentation he revealed. And some documents show he was right.

So, the USG, similarly to Adam from my example has worked long and hard for its reputation. Don't blame some teachers/whistleblowers for suspecting usual suspects.

You are confusing wrongdoers here. All the wars are unconstitutional to begin with because Congress didn't declare them.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#468

Post by AndrewKemendo »

scotty79 wrote: post #464
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to see that happen, but I don't think we can handle it from a biological perspective. We are too emotional, vain and have too muddled an understanding of our own goals and volition to be able to be honest even with ourselves let alone the rest of the world. It just doesn't seem feasible without some kind of widespread cognitive change.

In Europe we used to think that killing each other over some differences is a good idea. Two wars later, around 10% population lost and look how well we get along. We used to like having slaves. All people used to hate gays and atheists. Women used to be perceived as incapable of having public lives. At some point we might reach the conclusion that being lied to is not all that convenient because truth eventually com…

To wit, from the front page of HN right now: "Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe" http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23779561

Indeed you are correct that the truth will come out and I am the first person to support full transparency. I do know however that in this example, if the Japanese said they don't know what they are doing, please help - the people in charge would lose their jobs immediately. So it's not just a one way street with people being honest, it is also the public and everyone who has a voice understanding that there is a difference between incompetence, hostile intent and accidents.

People at the basic level demand perfection from people in power - so those in power do everything that they can to make it look like they are either infallible, or are victims. In one way or another how we as a society respond to failure that will determine how truthful we can be. If we continue to have the zero fault mindset for those in power, they will continue to lie.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#469

Post by clarky07 »

sp332 wrote: post #458
clarky07 wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>clarky07 tried to make it sound like I said that 35 years was no big deal, but I didn't say that. >35 isn't even half a lifetime. He was born in 1987 (geez, he's younger than I am) How is this not minimizing the severity again? At the very least it's more than half his remaining lifetime, and possibly all of his remaining lifetime. He also gets to miss out on pretty much any chance at having a family. His only frien…

Calling 35 years "a lifetime" is exaggerating. Calling 35 years less than half a lifetime is accurate, not minimizing. "Half his remaining lifetime" is probably true, and that's also a valid way to look at it. But it doesn't really contradict what I said, because what I said is true. ("Possibly all of his remaining lifetime" is incredibly cynical, but technically true.)

First off, it's not that cynical. Plenty of people die before the age of 60. Male life expectancy is 76, so 35 years is 70% of expected remaining.

Also, the point I was originally making, is that for most people the quality of life between 25-60 is far higher than the quality of life from 60-95. Even if he does happen to live to 95 and it's "only half", most people are going to enjoy age 35 more than they are going to enjoy age 95.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#470

Post by smsm42 »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #456
smsm42 wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>>> In future conventional wars, we will need the moral authority to demand that our prisoners be treated in accordance with international laws and treaty obligations. A little wrinkle here is that most US adversaries in recent wars didn't give a flying duck about US moral authority. And there's no reason why that would change - it's not like US is going to war with Sweden or Canada. Not that supposedly civilized co…

You mean, actions of US government don't have positive consequences? I think you're getting way ahead of the facts here. (Shrug) Unless you owned a lot of HAL or another big contractor, the Iraq war didn't have a lot of upside.

For you, maybe. Some would think removal of homicidal maniac dictator that openly paid terrorists, invaded neighboring countries, used chemical weapons, mass-murdered his own population and bribed top functionaries of the UN[1] to look other way is some upside. But I guess who cares what foreigners do to foreigners, there are billions of them anyway.

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/feb/04/iraq.unitednati...

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