81–90 of 484 posts
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.
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 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. Lawyers, priests, doctors, and psychologies who is all under strict confidentiality sometimes has to break that rule of secrecy when particular crimes is heard or observed. It doesn't matter how classified the conversation is, or t…
The key point here is that they call the police, not blindly dump thousands of private documents onto the internet.
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.
Obama could fix this with the stroke of a pen. Surely he will deliver. I'll wait.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_pardoned_by_Bill...
Clinton pardoned 150 people and commuted 39 people and their sentences during his four years. Most of these were done on his last day in office and caused some controversy. Of course his number of pardons paled in comparison to Carter and Reagan who both pardoned over 400 a piece.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_pardoned_by_Geor...
By comparison, George H. W. Bush only pardoned 75 people and commuted three sentences.
>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…
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The question is: Why should he be in prison at all? and why the other three murderers in the army who were exposed in the 'collateral damage' video be left free outside untried? The question is why would someone end up leaking state secrets at all?: Hint: Those secrets are about wrong doings!
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?
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 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. Lawyers, priests, doctors, and psychologies who is all under strict confidentiality sometimes has to break that rule of secrecy when particular crimes is heard or observed. It doesn't matter how classified the conversation is, or t…
Very sad. So the guys who murdered innocents in another country using machine guns sitting on top of a helicopter are yet to be tried. While the guys who stood up for humanity and true spirit of serving forces for good is sentenced 35 years. And I know a lot of people would troll me on this opinion itself.
Specifically:
1) The company had been under fire all morning and the Apaches were called in by a soldier on the ground under attack at the location where the journalists were;
2) Among the group of men the two Reuters journalists were with, there were armed men an AK-47 and two RPG launchers, one loaded (and if you can tell that what the journalists are carrying are cameras and not weapons from the grainy video, in real time, you've got sharper eyes than me);
3) A portion of the tape is missing in which the helicopters engage armed insurgents that are seen running into a building; this portion precedes a section visible on the tape that shows the Apaches firing at the building with a missile.
So no, the soldiers in the helicopter should not be tried. If soldiers are in a theater of war, are called in because other soldiers are under attack, and see people with weapons, they should shoot, and that's what happened here. This was not one of those cases like you saw in Vietnam when soldiers just started shooting up civilians with no threat in sight.
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.
Obama could fix this with the stroke of a pen. Surely he will deliver. I'll wait.
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.
>They send a young man to prison for 35 years for uncovering possible war crimes If he was uncovering war crimes, did he first try to report them through his chain of command? If not, then I really don't think this is a defence.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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. Lawyers, priests, doctors, and psychologies who is all under strict confidentiality sometimes has to break that rule of secrecy when particular crimes is heard or observed. It doesn't matter how classified the conversation is, or t…
If Manning had just released documents related to specific illegal activities this would be a different conversation. That's not what he did though, in your doctor analogy what he did would be releasing the medical files of all 200 of his patients because he saw evidence of child abuse in one of them.