After years of abuse in confinement from denying him a charge to denying him counsel, Pfc. Bradley Manning finally had a trial on the most serious charge against him: aiding the enemy. He was convicted on lesser charges. The verdict should again focus attention on the mistreatment of Manning by the Obama Administration for leaking classified reports and diplomatic cables. Many of these documents showed that the U.S. government was lying to the public and to its allies.
Manning previously pleaded guilty to 10 of 22 counts of lesser charges in giving the documents to Wikileaks. He could still face a long sentence and the Obama Administration has clearly worked to make an example of him after he embarrassed the government with both the public and allies.
The documented abuse of Manning by the Obama Administration while in custody will result in a four-month credit toward his sentencing. Yet there has been virtually no demand for the punishment of those responsible for the abuse.
The acquittal is a victory for military justice. There was never any evidence of an intent to aid the enemy and the overcharging of the case was indicative of the excessive response of the Administration — the same pattern shown with Snowden and Assange. Of course, those false or controversial communications in these documents have not been the focus of coverage by the media.
The verdict is also a vindication for the defense in taking a plea on the earlier charges to focus on the most serious charge.
Source: Politico
sonofthunderboanerges 1, July 30, 2013 at 6:23 pm
@Dredd – Mithras? No ancient source gives such a birth myth for him …
===========================
Of course you can provide a link to a source for your assertion.
But will you?
Ask your daddy Thunder or your sister Thumper and get back to us.
You actually need citations for the obvious? Oh well here you go:
Mithraic Studies: Proceedings of the First International Congress of Mithraic Studies. Manchester U. Press, 1975, p. 173
“…wearing his Phrygian cap, issues forth from the rocky mass. As yet only his bare torso is visible. In each hand he raises aloft a lighted torch and, as an unusual detail, red flames shoot out all around him from the petra genetrix.”
Justin Martyr, also known as Saint Justin (c. 100 – 165 CE), said it is all a diabolic plan by you-know-who… which it obviously is. Could it be…?
@sonofthumper:
No, I think they ought to lock the rascal up and throw away the key for quite a while. I was just saying that if I was Manning’s lawyer I would have really thought about pleading insanity for him, that his hormones were all messed up or something, and that he didn’t even know if he was a boy or a girl he was so mentally screwed up.
Maybe somebody higher up at the Army should be getting court martialed for letting the crazy freak anywhere near sensitive information. Sheeesh! My father, who was in the Air Force, always said that the Army was a pretty stupid outfit, and if it wasn’t for the Air Force, the Army couldn’t win a war period. It looks like he wasn’t just joking. Oh plus, since others are posting videos, here is one about where Operational Security can go with people like Manning around:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRUqpgg-8Ps
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
sonofthunderboanerges,
I’m here T’ tell son, as soon as you Tortured Manning or anyone else, you jumped the Ph…kin shark.
As soon as you Torture you are done & turn him loose!
You hear me, we don;’t torture here because we’re American!
Yeah, well,
I just signed a petition to some Norwegian folks, to award Manning the Nobel Peace Prize. Not that they are swayed by petitions. Maybe Manning will hear about it, and get some comfort from it.
So there.
sonofthunderboanerges 1, July 30, 2013 at 6:23 pm
@Dredd – Mithras? No I don’t confuse him with Jesus. It is said that the birth of Mithras was a virgin birth, like that of Jesus. No ancient source gives such a birth myth for him … I can only think of one thing:
===========================================
So, what do you mean by ancient source?
Older than Jesus stories?
“No ancient source gives such a birth myth for him”
Which him?
That would mean that there are no ancient birth myths for Jesus either … and that helps you how?
Ancient is better than modern?
I am sure you confuse Mithras with Jesus because you worship the god of war instead of peace, and “him” is the “Battle Him of The Republic” ans.
I am not sure why you warmongers can’t handle peace, and want to replace it with war (“war = peace”).
It has to be because you can’t handle the …
sonofthunderboanerges 1, July 30, 2013 at 8:23 pm
Revealing something Mr. Obama wanted to be kept secret is no aspersion on Mr. Obama. He is acting like every other POTUS.
…
==========================
Who programs you lame sock puppets anyway?
The next Snowden?
Wouldn’t surprise me.
Anyone in the military or their puppets who utters the word “truth” is immediately busted.
You fugs are asserting that truth is another product of MOMCOM, like freedom.
Indoctrinated tool.
You can’t handle freedom.
AtenChun … gimme ten …
So Joy should we also release US Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan who also was a “truth-teller” about Mr. Obama (or so he feels)? Be careful what you wish for. You might want to Google him first. Bradley is a spy clear and simple (and for friends not enemies). Up there with Wienberger, Pollard, Ames*, and Hanssen.
*Ummmm didn’t some one here represent traitor Ames in court? I wonder who that was… Stop lurking and speak up… you started this ‘row’…
@Squeeky Fromm, Girl Reporter – So your saying that Manning should be admitted to BAMC in San Antonio like US Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan was? What Manning is suffering from BPD and maybe some PTSS? I mean can’t he take a pill for that and go to Leavenworth for the rest of his life for betraying his country? There are soldiers on deathrow at Leavenworth. He’s no hero. Revealing something Mr. Obama wanted to be kept secret is no aspersion on Mr. Obama. He is acting like every other POTUS. Just like the fictional GTMO Marine Col. Jessup “We can’t handle the truth?” Listen to Col Jessup. He is right in a way…
Gene H. 1, July 30, 2013 at 6:53 pm
Actually, I brought necessity and common law doctrine into it.
====================================
And I shall continue to oblige … necessity is the mother of invention, but now, with that addition, we must have the plurality.
Hence, the Mothers of Invention discuss the Manning judgment as discussed on JT blog:
Mike Spindell 1, July 30, 2013 at 7:00 pm
Siince my first comment I’ve given this some thought. The “not guilty” verdict might have been some clever PR to give the appearance that this was a fair trial. No trial is a fair trial when the defendant has been tortured and in solitary for years. With this judgment they can still sentence him for life and to many in the public they will be mollified thinking justice was served.
=================================
Good insight Mike.
Ode to the JAG that hates patriotic whistleblowers:
@Juliet Lester Neary – I feel your pain. It’s like talking to an elephant who already has it’s mind made up that Mr. Obama is a crook like Nixon, LBJ, et al. I just don’t see it. Manning revealed some sensitive stuff. However, since when is the world of cloak & dagger a pleasant world where everyone obeys the rules and the players wear kid-gloves? If that were true we would have never fooled the Germans in WW2 and won. Same applies to Japan. The Germans thought their brilliant Polish-inspired Enigma machine was unbreakable. And it was, until Alan Turing broke it at Bletchly Park UK.
Little did they (or any body else) that we had the most top-secret unbreakable encryption electronic device in the world. Still is quite impressive for 1940’s technology. It was called SIGSALY or the Green Hornet (because it made that sound over the air).
If someone like Manning back then had revealed that we actually had a few of them hidden underground around the world and on a USN ship and how they worked we would have lost the war. SIGSALY was so far ahead of it’s time you could actually say it was the first MPEG technology ever (kinda’/sorta’).
My prediction? Manning will go free after an obligatory cover-sentence at a low security military or federal prison. The kind where corrupt mayors and governors go for a brief stints (slap-on-the-wrist?). Maybe he can join Manuel Noriega at El Renacer Prison (i.e. allegedly)?
Yes MikeS definitely a PR stunt… But by who?
Only in America!
For those who want to tell the public what the government is doing with our money and in our name, there are new imperatives. Governmental secrecy, surveillance and the systematic silencing of whistleblowers require updated methods for journalists and journalism organizations of all kinds. Americans pursuing this craft have to understand the risks and find countermeasures.
That is not enough. The public needs to awaken to the threat to its own freedoms from the Obama crackdown on leaks and, by extension, journalism and free speech itself. We are, more and more, a society where unaccountable people can commit unspeakable acts with impunity. They are creating a surveillance state that makes not just dissent, but knowledge itself, more and more dangerous. What we know about this is entirely due to leakers and their outlets. Ignorance is only bliss for the
unaccountable.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/30/bradley-manning-verdict-bad-news-for-journalists
“He thought the world should know it was being lied to, and he thought it was worth the risk to provide them the evidence of that. The only way his choices make any sense, immediately prior to doing anything that could get him in trouble, is if his motives were indeed altruistic.”
This reminds me of Ernest T. Bass on the Andy Griffith show, about whom the punchline was often, “I think he’s a nut.” From wiki:
[He}got a job as a developer with a software company, Zoto[. . .]but was let go after four months. His boss told The Washington Post that on a few occasions Manning had “just locked up,” and would simply sit and stare, and in the end communication became too difficult.
In March 2006 he reportedly threatened [stepmother] with a knife during an argument about his failure to get another job; she called the police and he was asked to leave the house.
Back at Fort Drum, he continued to display emotional problems and, by August 2009, had been referred to an Army mental-health counselor. A friend told Nicks that Manning could be emotionally fraught, describing an evening they had watched two movies together – The Last King of Scotland and Dancer in the Dark – after which Manning cried for hours.
On December 20, 2009, after being told he would lose his one day off a week for being persistently late, he overturned a table in a conference room and damaging a computer that was sitting on it before his arms were pinned behind his back.
It was during this visit that Manning first lived for a few days as a woman, dressing in women’s clothes, wearing a wig and going out.
On April 30, he posted on Facebook that he was utterly lost, and over the next few days that “Bradley Manning is not a piece of equipment,” that he was “beyond frustrated,” and “livid” after being “lectured by ex-boyfriend despite months of relationship ambiguity …
On May 7, he seemed to spiral out of control. According to army witnesses, he was found curled into a fetal position in a storage cupboard, with a knife at his feet, and had cut the words “I want” into a vinyl chair. A few hours later he had an altercation with a female intelligence analyst, Specialist Jihrleah Showman, during which he punched her in the face.
Sooo, IMHO maybe his lawyers should have tried an Insanity Defense for him.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
From Scahill on the verdict and media coverage (about 5 mins worth): “He said that the government knows how to manipulate the media to goad them into covering stories that they want covered and burying stories they want dismissed.
“There has been more coverage of the indictment of that Real Housewives lady and her husband than there has been of Bradley Manning,” Scahill observed. “This is the state of media in this country right now, and it is just devastating that we don’t have a media culture that says this should have been gavel-to-gavel coverage.”
Scahill charged that the secrecy surrounding the military trial of Manning and how that trail was conducted was an “attack on democratic values.”
“If you believe that those within government structures have an obligation and a duty to speak out when they see criminal activity, then you have to view Bradley Manning as a whistleblower,” Scahill later said. “You have to view him as someone who was motivated by love of country, and not wanting these kinds of war crimes to be committed in his name and those of other Americans.”
The Nation journalist concluded by observing that Manning’s conviction shows why National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden was right to flee abroad and seek asylum in Russia.” (Democracy Now)
OK1y – I watched that Alex Jones quoted movie. All I can say that it is retarded. It shows that Alex Jones, duToit, and all other Obama-dissenters are clueless about CIA drone strikes. Ask Robert Baer who is all over YoutUbe, Internet, etc. He went through all this. He is depicted in the movie Syrainna being KIA from a drone strike.
Before a “prosecution” a CIA agent on the ground is ACTUALLY looking at the target with binoculars near the target. He/she would have seen the “kid” and aborted the strike. Now whether the CIA officer in charge or the military SRO controlling the strike disagrees with the spook on the ground then you can’t blame the POTUS for that! Blame the personnel.
Sometimes terrorists can see the MQ-1 Predators, as the movie suggests, they then run to human shields. So that means that HVT who could come to CONUS to kill us should be allowed to get away? We are at war with these criminal extremists. I admit they should come up with something better than a AGM-114. Maybe some sort of light-duty remote/control sniper rifle?
Yes SOLDIERS are executioners! No duh! Just because you sit in Nevada operating a drone near Abbotabad Pakistan doesn’t mean your no longer an active soldier.
You want a REAL drone video that’s worth watching:
http://www.mtv.com/videos/beavis-and-butt-head-season-9-ep-3-drones/1674141/playlist.jhtml
Alex is wrong… MQ-1’s are ALREADY here and they are SURVEILLANCE only no weapons. He’s a moron!
Juliet: I think you are; you said why not declassify everything….
If Manning was only interested in saving his own behind, he would not have provided WikiLeaks with the classified information. You seem to presume he is an idiot that did not know he was risking serious jail time when he did that.
Since his motive was not fame, and the risk was real, I think it is idiotic to conclude his motivation was any kind of protection for himself. He thought the world should know it was being lied to, and he thought it was worth the risk to provide them the evidence of that. The only way his choices make any sense, immediately prior to doing anything that could get him in trouble, is if his motives were indeed altruistic.
Anything he later does to minimize the damage of the realized risk is sensible as well.
Bradley Manning is a hero; he is suffering greatly for the common good of providing evidence that proves our elected officials are thoroughly corrupt and self serving liars.
BTW, I hope you’re on the mend.
Gene: Thank you. I am making progress. 😉
Actually, I brought necessity and common law doctrine into it.
That you mistook the doctrine as focusing on individual intent instead of circumstance was your response.
Also, I wasn’t aware that psychic was part of your skill set. Know for a fact that “saving his behind” was his motive, do you? Or is that what the media – which has been purposefully kept away from Manning by the government – telling you?
Juliet: How about, instead of being extremist binary thinkers, we just stop classifying material that is only classified because it would be embarrassing to the administration?
I don’t think anybody here argues that every secret must be exposed, we are arguing that if the decision to make things secret is left entirely in the hands of the government, then the government will, of course, simply “classify” anything they find remotely embarrassing, including corruption, theft, fraud (by them or upon them), self-serving decisions, politically motivated decisions (like classifying evidence that would prove a politician is a thief or pedophile or criminal that belongs in jail, or simply not angering large corporations or interest groups because they make big campaign donations), and even lethal decisions and acts that violate both the law and the Constitution because if revealed those would expose them to prosecution and trial.
We are, in fact, in that situation now. And the only hope that will ever be remedied is by way of what Bradley Manning has done, exposing to the citizens the lies and crimes the administration is hiding by “classifying” all sorts of things that really have nothing to do with national security, and everything to do with political security.
These people are supposed to be making decisions that are in the best interest of the country as a whole, and that are consistent with the law and constitution. Sometimes that requires secrecy, because some objectives will be thwarted or preempted if criminals and enemies become aware of the details of our plans, and can act to defeat them.
But absent showing some necessity to a civilian court that the government does not directly control, classification should be illegal.
Bradley Manning is a hero of the people.
Manning talks about people being held in GTMO without due process? They blame that on Mr. Obama. How come no one is saying squat about the ultimate POTUS war-criminal POTUS-36? Not only did he allow the attack and death of USN & NSA employees by an Israeli attack force on the USS Liberty in 1967, he Sarin gassed US soldiers in Vietnam for defecting to the commies. He also allowed a Russian defector (Nosenko) be held in a makeshift cinder-block dungeon at Langley HQ of CIA for 3 YEARS! And without due process either. Source: Robert “Bobby” Baer (ex-CIA)
Manning is NOT justified in violating his oath! Also aren’t they requred to sign NDA’s too? I think his MOS would demand it. Here’s the real story. Please stop misquoting what happened today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/us/bradley-manning-verdict.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0