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
Published on Friday, August 2, 2013 by The Independent/UK
Manning Revealed Realities of War that Armchair Warriors Want Sanitized
by Owen Jones
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/08/02
Power has to be relentlessly fought. Without being constantly checked, exposed, harangued, mocked and driven back, it would swiftly devour all the rights that were won at its expense. There is invariably a cost. The powerful know that if those who chip away at their authority are not undermined, or humiliated, or even persecuted, others would be emboldened to strike blows at them, too.
And so it is with Bradley Manning. Although a military judge has found him not guilty of aiding the enemy, the guilty verdicts on other charges will leave him languishing in military custody for much, if not all, of his life: indeed, he faces a sentence of 130 years. Here is the sacrifice he has paid for exposing the secretive actions of a government that claims to act in the name of the US people.
Here’s why. Over a decade ago, the US initiated two calamitous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, with a terrible human cost that is still paid every single day. The then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan declared that the Iraq invasion was illegal; the country is today still awash with car bombings and gruesome sectarian bloodletting. It was always in the interests of the US elite to keep the consequences of their actions as far away from public consciousness as possible. The justification is that such secrecy is needed to protect the American people from the country’s enemies. “It’s for your own good” is the stock defence of every authoritarian. But the real aim is to stem opposition. Every US hawk still shivers at the photographs of naked Vietnamese children, faces contorted with panic, running with their skin burned after a napalm attack, which helped galvanise the anti-war movement of the 1960s and 70s.
By being responsible for the biggest leak of classified information in US history, Manning revealed the sordid realities of a war that the armchair warriors want sanitised. Like an Apache helicopter, bombing the life out of Iraqi civilians and a Reuters journalist, the corrupted pilots dismissing their victims as “dead bastards”. He found evidence of US-backed death squads and militias operating in Afghanistan. He helped reveal the rampant corruption of the US-backed Tunisian dictatorship, who basked in luxurious homes and extravagant lifestyles while their people suffered grinding poverty, providing ammunition for the revolutionaries who toppled Ben Ali.
It would have been a farce if Bradley Manning had been found guilty of aiding the enemy. After all, it was not Bradley Manning who funded and armed Afghan jihadis in the 1980s, some of whom evolved into al-Qa’ida elements; it was not Bradley Manning who propped up the thugs, thieves and murderers who dress themselves up as the rulers of the Middle East, provoking the fury of millions; it is not Bradley Manning who unleashed the bloody mayhem of Iraq, which attracted swarms of Islamist car-bombers and throat-slitters. The US government officials who doubled up as recruiting agents for al-Qa’ida remain at large.
Nonetheless, there is an important moral victory in the verdict. Manning is a whistleblower, not a traitor. If revealing information that was portrayed as playing into the hands of the enemy was officially declared to be treasonous, it could have had a crushing impact on investigative journalism and political dissent.
The US whistleblower Edward Snowden will have watched the verdict carefully from his banishment in a Russian airport. If he is unable to reach Venezuela, which has granted him political asylum, and falls into the hands of the US authorities, he too will face a lifetime of incarceration.
The US government will hope that an example has been set; that future whistleblowers will be deterred from uncovering injustices committed in the name of the US people without their knowledge or consent. That is why it is so important to offer gratitude and support for the Mannings and Snowdens of this world, when they sacrifice so much in the interests of openness, transparency and freedom. Only that will inspire other whistleblowers who know that – while their liberty is imperilled – millions will be cheering them on.
It should not come down to brave, one-off individuals, of course. The struggle for open governments, who are honest about what they do in our name, needs a mass movement to be truly successful.
Bradley Manning explained his actions by saying he wanted a debate about Western foreign policy. As this 5 foot 2 soldier continues a life without any liberty, we owe him that much. Even many of us who opposed or even marched against the Iraq war, then turned our eyes when the blood and chaos began: it was all too complicated, too distant, too unreal. We shrug off the support of our governments for dictatorships who torture, maim and kill as though it is simply a fact of life. Another shipment of arms for Saudi Arabia’s ruling thugs; another Afghan wedding party reduced to a pile of shredded organs and charred bones; a former Prime Minister working for a dictatorship, as with Tony Blair and Kazakhstan’s tyrant. Sometimes, it barely even registers.
Well said, Tony C.
Again: “Hero.”
SOTB: Yes I would agree with you if Manning was illegally ordered to kill somebody on his team or something. That’s different.
It is only different in your mind. There is no characterization of severity that you can point at anywhere. The SCOTUS has put the burden of conscience on the soldier and nobody else, without any of the additional characterization or detailing or distinctions between actions that you are pulling out of your ass.
You simply do not know what you are talking about, and you are making it up as you go along.
Manning was courageous. He was acting on behalf of the American people with no intent of gain for himself. He is a hero. Because he was (from my reading) a little immature and trusting of an opportunistic sleaze because he had no other friends, he got caught, but it is quite clear from the agreed upon chain of events that it was never his intent at the time of the leak to get caught or reveal it was him that leaked.
Which means at the time of the leak, his actions were honorable and his motives altruistic, he was putting the truth out there because his fellow citizens were being misled and deceived. Hero. Breaking an oath, a law, or an NDA does not automatically preclude one from being a hero, it depends entirely upon his motivations and whether his actions were made to benefit others at his own risk or expense. Hero.
SOTB,
Haven’t read it but I see what you mean from a long review at metapsyc.
I wonder if he set it in Algiers because of ’79 … figuring that would give him some sort of cover.
As to setups for prison … that’s also a good way to keep the active from going inactive
@Tony C – My salient point was that a PFC (or any armed services member) can not break his/her oath and NDA by divulging classified information to the media or anyone else that does not have an adequate clearance to receive it. That’s no matter WHAT his conscience is telling him. The consequences for military intelligence members and civilian covert intelligence “employees” is in fact lengthy prison sentences or even worse during war-time. It’s not the same as the NDA’s you’re familiar with.
Definition of a “hero” is someone who used courage to do something or is of qualities stemming from his noble background. I’ll concede that Manning was courageous to do something so foolish. These intel people do not gain anything from “going off the reservation”. If your going to do something this crazy then do it like “Deep Throat” (The late FBI A.Dir. Mark Felt Sr with WashPost reporters Woodward & Bernstein?) in the Watergate scandal. Don’t let anybody know you did it and be very cloak & dagger about it. Mark finally admitted to it about 2.5 years before his death at 95 years old.
Yes I would agree with you if Manning was illegally ordered to kill somebody on his team or something. That’s different.
I would not keep using the NUREMBERG TRIALS as an example. I do not think we conducted them (could be wrong about that). I do know that the OSS/CIA circumvented it by disobeying POTUS Truman’s direct and legal executive orders. They snuck in over 1,600 NAZI war criminals under the radar (so to speak) so that we could enjoy a rare “other-worldly”-esque technology transfer (or brain drain) for which we are still enjoying to this day. I refer to OPERATION OVERCAST/PAPERCLIP which actually didn’t really sunset until 1990 only 23 years ago (believe it or not).
@Blouise – “I know BLOUISE will spot it almost immediately!”
Call it life imitating art or is it the other way around? When I read the Amazon review I nearly plotzed’… When was the book written? March 2002? 10-year prediction? Or just some clever copy-catting? Or something far worse?
SOTB: A PRIVATE does not get that luxury. He can not interpret a CINC executive order.
Yes, he can, and the Supreme Court has required him to do so and put the risk squarely on the soldier, without regard to his rank or status as an officer or enlisted man.
You are just wrong, inventing qualifications to suit your wrong interpretation. The oath taken by all soldiers is not specific to rank, and an NDA, no matter how draconian, is just a contract, and to my understanding it cannot require any person to perform an illegal act or aid in an illegal act, or be punished for reporting an illegal act. If the NDA does that (I haven’t read it) then that clause is invalid and separable from the contract.
I am not a lawyer, but I have been told that by more than one lawyer.
Contrary to your understanding, a contract (like an NDA) always leaves a choice: One can comply, or one can refuse to comply and suffer the contractual consequences. It is not illegal to break a contract with an employer, and the consequences cannot be prison.
You cannot invent new law and qualifications on the fly. You are not entitled to your own version of reality. Soldiers of all ranks are required to judge the legality of their orders on their own. Whether you admit that or not, it is the truth and has been stated as the law by the Supreme Court on multiple occasions, as well as by the International community at the Nuremberg trials.
@Tony C – “Neither oath nor NDA binds a soldier or person to commit a crime, aid a crime, keep a crime secret or cover up a crime.”
IMO I think they do bind him from that. Nowhere in the OATH or NDA or in the UMCJ does it say you can expose crimes of fellow soldiers, officers, and even CINC to the news media (i.e. ostensibly WikiLeaks too). Yes you can do so WITHIN the chain-of-command. They do say you can disobey a DIRECT order that is obviously illegal. CASE IN POINT: refusing to report for duty because you don’t agree with the CINC’s mission? That’s ludicrous! Sgt. Travis Bishop and Spc. Victor Agost tried that and failed.
If you don’t agree with the CINC then report it to your commanding officer. Failing that quit the service. What a few years and write a fiction novel which details your “package”. If the Pentagon censors don’t pick it up you may be clear and free if you have run out your NDA term (usually 5 years for overt employees – lifetime for covert).
That’s what Richard Alan Clarke did. And he was successful with it. Dick was former National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism for the United States. He literally “knows where all the bodies are buried”. Yet I think he wrote SOME of his books as fiction novels but but in REAL stuff (i.e. Scorpion’s Gate, etc.)
However, some times that tactic fails. A CIA Algerian Station Chief/North Africa (an African-American fluent in Arabic) wrote a fiction novel “The People of the Veil” and really pissed of DCI Leon Panetta as the book was UNVETTED by CIA. So in comes the “fixers” and Andy goes down for bogus rape charges of several Algerian Muslim women (who incidently live in Germany) and then sent come to face bogus cocaine and weapons charges in Virginia. He’s now in prison. SO WHAT? Read an excerpt from the book or a review. See if you can spot the “problem” with his so-called “fictional” revelations. I know BLOUISE will spot it almost immediately!
@Elaine M. – I think Jeff was not an “operative”. Jeff was a NOC. That is a “non-offical-cover” officer in the National Clandestine Service (NCS) formerly Directorate of Operations (DOO). Jeff’s job was in the CIA Near East /South Asia Task Force. His job was to recruit operatives or agents for President Clinton’s Operation Merlin. OM was basically a disinformation op to get nuclear weapons plans to Tehran. However, the plans were deliberately screwed up to slow down Iran’s WMD progress.
It backfired because the ex-Russian scientist he recruited to bring the plans to Vienna got cold feet and spotted the fake parts of the blueprint. So he screwed the pooch and pointed out the flaws to save his own arse from the Iranian backlash that would come once they discovered the flaws.
It’s obvious from all this and the things done to Iran under the Bush Admin with Israel’s help that an invasion was in the works – which still may be being planned.
What Jeff did was give Risen the information here at John Young’s I.C. Expose website called Cryptome..org: http://cryptome.org/0001/cia-merlin.htm There you can read the story “A Rogue Operation” that got Jeff’s t*ts-caught-in-the-wringer (so to speak). Was Jeff a hero here for breaking his NDA?
You see a Intelligence Community NDA is NOTHING at all like what TonyC was analogizing. Manning was in the IC too just like Jeff. However, Manning was not a real spook. But the NDA is the same. The penalties of violation are staggering. What I think some are failing to see (for some unknown reason) is that a soldier or spook is legally allowed to disobey a DIRECT order from an immediate supervisor or senior raking officer if that officer gives an OBVIOUS illegal order: “Shot that kid running away! Do it now soldier!”
But to say that a soldier or spook can be allowed to speculate the intentions and motivations of the CINC, and an Executive Order from him, as to it’s legality is quite naive. Only an executive officer like Admiral Mullen (JCOS) can “legally” disobey an order from the CINC, like he did in August 2007 when he told the Minot ND B-52’S to stand-down at Barksdale LA en-route to Israel for an illegal invasion of Iranian airspace using US nukes.
A PRIVATE does not get that luxury. He can not interpret a CINC executive order. However, if his Sargent, Corporal, or senior ranking private tells him to “shoot that reporter now!” HELL yeah he can disobey. But if he is told to report for duty to ship out to Afghanistan tonight… he must obey without question or suffer the consequences. The same goes for keeping sensitive compartmentalize information to yourself and not share with anyone not even your wife!
Sure Manning’s information exposed something very bad and possibly illegal that POTUS Bush had sanctioned. But it’s not up to a private to decide that even if it bothers his conscience. What if Manning was a ICBM jockey and all of a sudden his conscience tells him that killing millions of Russians is bad, I must tell someone what we did or are doing? What if another private sees what happens to Manning and says “Oh well I guess that was painless. I’ll do it too. I don’t like my mission either.”
I still don’t see how this has anything to do with Obama being a war-criminal and a hypocrite like this clueless Irish MP is barking. Her colleagues are right. She was rude and unprofessional. Too bad they can’t censure* her like we do in USA.
*no not censor… look it up folks
SOTB: I just can not fathom how violating an oath and NDA by revealing classified information can be viewed as heroic.
I know you cannot, because you are incapable of thinking even one fathom deep. But let me try to help you with that: An NDA is just a contract, it isn’t an agreement to sell your soul or violate your conscience.
I have signed many an NDA in my three decades of consulting, but if I should stumble across evidence of a murder, theft or what I suspected was criminal fraud in records protected by the NDA, I would violate it. I am not a lawyer (and neither was Manning), my NDA does not bind me to the level of confidentiality of a lawyer representing a client.
Because I have more life experience than Manning I would almost certainly consult with one of my own attorneys (with a payment and attorney client privilege in force) in order to find out how to reveal that damning information to authorities in a way that minimized my exposure, but I do know enough about the law to know that no contract (including NDAs) can obligate one to commit a crime or be an accessory to one.
So that should do away with your “NDA” complaint.
As for violating an oath, I think of it the same way: I took that oath, forty years ago. Here it is:
I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
HOWEVER, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held to the principle that soldiers are only required to follow lawful orders, and do not have to follow any order that requires them to commit a crime, aid a crime, or be complicit in a crime. In fact, the SCOTUS has also held that soldiers can be individually prosecuted for following an order that commits a crime or aids in a crime being committed; Lt. Calley was found guilty of premeditated murder in the Vietnam Mai Lai incident despite the fact that he was, in fact, following orders of superior officers to commit a crime (and he knew it).
Which puts the burden on the soldier to decide whether to follow orders, and the SCOTUS has said so; the soldier assumes the risk in both obedience and disobedience, and if the obedient act turns out to be a crime they can be prosecuted for it, and if they disobey an order they think is illegal and it turns out to have been legal they can be militarily prosecuted for that.
The soldier must follow his conscience. Manning had one, and my hypothesis is that he thought his unconditional oath to support and defend the Constitution and therefore the people of the United States would be violated if he did not leak the evidence he had of massive fraud and deception at a level he found rose to criminality; particularly the evidence of war crimes, bribery, corruption, and the callous murder of civilians and rescuers.
Neither oath nor NDA binds a soldier or person to commit a crime, aid a crime, keep a crime secret or cover up a crime. I know the law is different for actual lawyers representing clients, but we are talking about Manning, not a lawyer representing a client.
Manning was a hero, I think he took the risk that he did because of his oath to the American People, not in spite of it.
August 1, 2013
In Defense of Leakers: Snowden and Manning
Posted by John Cassidy
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/08/in-defense-of-leakers.html
Excerpt:
We still don’t know for sure what will happen to Snowden or Manning: the former appears destined to a life of exile, for now, at least, in a repressive country; the latter, for many more years in a military jail. (He’s already been in custody for almost three years, including in solitary confinement for eleven months—a treatment that a senior United Nations official charged with investigating allegations of torture described as cruel and inhuman.) We do know that, at great cost to themselves and their families, Snowden and Manning have illuminated much that the authorities would have preferred to keep hidden, and that they have sparked a long overdue public debate about what the Times, in its editorial about the Manning verdict, justly described as “a national security apparatus that has metastasized into a vast and largely unchecked exercise of government secrecy and the overzealous prosecution of those who breach it.” In short, the two leakers have performed a valuable public service.
sonofthunder,
Federal Prosecutors Try To Force New York Times Reporter To Reveal Sources
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/james-risen-subpoenaed-jeffrey-sterling-case/story?id=13684074
Excerpt:
Sterling, an ex-CIA operative, was indicted in December 2010 for allegedly giving Risen information about the CIA’s attempt to use a Russian scientist to feed Iran faulty blueprints for a nuclear trigger device. The information about the operation, which Risen characterized as unsuccessful, ultimately appeared in his 2006 book “State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration.” It never appeared in the New York Times
I believe that Mr. Obama is just a man. He is not a king nor a Messiah. He has never purported to be that either. Therefore, those that voted for him, as I did not, may have had too high expectations for a mere human to fix the mess his predecessor made. He even alluded to that many times.
The “corporate” mind he seems to have and his “right-wing”-esque ways may be his misguided method of finding middle ground on every issue. Like trying to make bi-partisan decisions on things (i.e. Obamacare?). Has it screwed up? Maybe. I think he would probably agree that he has on some things. I mean his advisers are NOT the pick of the crop.
I think Rahm Emanuel really ham-stringed him. I think his picks for CIA director was terribly wrong. As Petreaus and Brennan are both Bush men and both have condoned torture (aka EIT). He has made even more bad choices for office. SCOTUS choices were good I think. Eric Holder was not a bad one despite the Republican falsehoods purported against him.
Has he tried to fix what was terribly broken? Yes. Has he been successful? No. Who would have been successful after a seriously corrupt POTUS feathered his nest for 8 years and screwed us? (i.e. Cheney’s seriously corrupt back-door deals, off-shore outsourcing, bankruptcy reform, tort reform, etc.)
All in all Mr. Obama’s efforts have been honorable. I do not think he is driven by greed and avarice like his predecessor proved on many occasions. I think ObamaCare will not be so horrible as predicted. Emergency Rooms will no longer be used as FREE medical centers for the fully employed 20-30 year old male Caucasians who were capable of paying for it. That’s what was killing hospital budgets in America and driving some to the brink of bankruptcy. Also insurance companies were really racking in the dough by refusing payments for per-existing conditions. That will be gone as of Jan 2014. Yes the fines seem harsh but is a necessary evil to get things in line. We are one of the few countries in the world without socialized medicine. We have Medicare/Medicaid/and SS under socialized medicine but it’s just not enough as there is an age limit.
Obama is not perfect but he has made a darn good effort at doig the right thing. His bipartisan actions may be what’s screwing him but he had to try. His love of Globalization is what worries me. We don’t need that but it’s inevitable that it will come in some fashion within next decade.
Tony C – I just can not fathom how violating an oath and NDA by revealing classified information can be viewed as heroic. There are ways to whistleblow that doesn’t involve “screwing the pooch”. Typical whistleblowers (like Wayne Madsen) expose things like sexual harassment in the military, or fraud, abuse of office, murders, etc. Jeffrey Sterling (ex-CIA and African-American) recently exposed the invasion plans on Iran – Operation Merlin (I think). Now how was that heroic? He has been indicted on the Espionage Act too.
You see you just can’t go around unilaterally deciding what top-secrets you will expose to the MSM. If you get caught you will go to jail. And rightly so. Manning revealed secrets that impacted George W. Bush. OK that’s cool but still is illegal nonetheless. Snowden did too and if he doesn’t shut up Putin will make sure he is handed over to US.
The SCOTUS upheld that the EA of 1917 did NOT violate the 1st amendment. It doesn’t matter how you feel about the SCOUTUS its the law of the land now and no one has tried to change that like Jim Crow was. We have to have some secrets from US. Remember everything you can see the enemy can too.
Even Associated Press International hasn’t heard the end of Eric Holder pressing charges of EA. CIA assets may have been killed in Yemen over their actions. Everybody gets prosecuted that violates our OPSEC. That’s the only way to put the fear of god in them (so to speak).
If you want to whistle-blow, quit your post, wait five years then write a fictional novel the kinda’ alludes to your “secrets” . That way you have plausible deniability CIA officer Andrew Warren (another African-American) tried that but did it the wrong way and now he’s in jail. He pissed off DCI Pannetta and paid the price and got burned.
Mike S,
I continue to see in most cases, & even with Gene H in many cases, our only differences in opinion are basically no more then a brand of beer one guy likes vs the other guy.
None of us have the time to respond to every foolish comment on the Internet nor should we, but I appreciate your taking time to try on the more important ones.
I know I will.
@MikeS:
To make it worse, Obama is seriously thinking about making Larry Summers the Fed Head. OMG!!! You may like this:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/11/obama%E2%80%99s-problem-simply-defined-it-was-the-banks.html
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky,
He began to lose me when he appointed Tim Geithner at Larry Summers recommendation. Summers is a Corpotate tool.
SOTB: IMO you are only cheesed off that Mr. Obama got into office. So anything he does is suspect to you. Manning BETRAYED his oath of office and did NOT uphold the Constitution.
I voted for Obama in 2004, both in the primary and in the general, and I donated several hundred dollars to his campaign.
I did not vote for McCain, I did not vote for Romney. Your perception of my politics is fatally flawed.
That said, Obama has also betrayed his oath of office and did not uphold the Constitution; he has executed American citizens without charges or trial, and still insists he has a right to do so. He has tortured Bradley Manning, in direct violation of his Constitutional rights and in direct violation of Constitutionally sound treaty.
If Manning is a traitor, so is Obama, he has intentionally violated the Constitution many more times than Manning ever did.
All of that said, violating the law does not automatically preclude being a hero. The law, and orders, can be violated because they are wrong or criminal and a person of conscience sees a need to violate them in order to uphold his oath to protect the Constitution, due process, and human rights.
You are really going to haul out a 1919 SCOTUS decision? The SCOTUS can be wrong, they have sided with segregationists, misogynists, homophobes, racists and bigots and made all sorts of decisions that we realize in the light of education and science were very wrong.
After WW-II, we prosecuted as war criminals people that were “just following orders” and we completely rejected that as an excuse, we claimed as the world that people had a responsibility to exercise their own conscience, and simply following orders or laws that resulted in the violation of commonly held human rights was wrong.
Manning is a hero for taking the risk of following his conscience. You are the villain that apparently does not possess a conscience, but simply worships authority and brutality as an end in itself.
“My GWU comment was not meant to be pejorative.” (SOTB)
I know that, I was just yankin’ your chain and taking the opportunity to mention a fairly good archive.
But then you presented a really, really interesting possibility when you mentioned the bomber’s parents and the movie “White Nights” and gave Snowden a passing reference in that context. Hey … you and I looove a good conspiracy theory … a good what if scenario. Wouldn’t that be a hoot?!
@TonyC – Let’s call a SPADE a SPADE here… IMO you are only cheesed off that Mr. Obama got into office. So anything he does is suspect to you. Manning BETRAYED his oath of office and did NOT uphold the Constitution. The SCOTUS said Espionage Act of 1917 was constitutionally sound in 1919. So Manning intentionally violated it making him a traitor to the USA and it’s principles.
Now who did his revelations hurt? George W. Bush not Mr. Obama. I am tickled pink that Bush gets a bad rep from all of this. BUT that does not make it right or heroic to expose or disclose classified information no matter how damning it is to a bad POTUS. The criminal CLEARLY is Mr. Bush. But since Manning took an oath AND signed an NDA (non disclosure agreement), that makes him one too.
What gets me is that I don’t think you are here to support the American public and it’s rights. I think you are here as you are ostensibly part of the organized screed to discredit Mr. Obama and tarnish his legacy. If that’s not true then why have you NEVER once differentiated the POTUS players in this flap? Never once have you come to Mr. Obama defense and pointed out Manning’s evidence points to ANOTHER POTUS than the present one.
If Mr. Obama is recycling the last guy’s equipments and motives than I say that makes sense. Why re-invent the wheel? Mr. Obama does NOT condone torture, Bush did. Mr. Obama is not targeting American citizens with Predator drones. Bush did not give a f&&&. Apache heklo friendly fire incident was not ANY POTUS’ fault. Blame the actual in-country players. The CIA literally hated Bush/Cheney. Not so with Mr. Obama. He doesn’t micro-manage them.
So judging from the dictionary definition of a traitor I would venture a guess that Manning is NOT a hero. Unless you mean a hero among fellow-traitors? OK I’ll buy that…
There’s only one person in this thread that has anything legitimate to say against Mr. Obama (and is worth further investigation)… you are not him.
“IMO you are only cheesed off that Mr. Obama got into office. So anything he does is suspect to you.”
SOTB,
I voted for Obama twice and urged people vote for him on this blog. What am I cheesed off about? Obama has been a terrible disappointment as President and this spying thing is only one part of why I’m unhappy with him. He has been a right wing President, contrary to what he ran on and he has screwed up both on domestic and foreign issues. The only positive thing I could say about him is he is not Mitt Romney, nor is he John McCain, but sometimes he acts like there is no difference between them all and he has been a corporate tool.
SOTB: Manning is a traitor to USA. […] No need to debate this.
On the contrary, you do not get to set the rules of debate, and I think there is a need to debate it, because I think you are wrong.
Manning is a hero to the USA. The USA is not about the politicians in charge of it, or the military, or the wealthy: The USA is about the Constitution. That is what we, as soldiers, swore to uphold and protect, that is what politicians and judges and lawmakers swear to uphold and protect and defend.
Manning took personal risk to inform the public of widespread corruption and underhanded dealing by the State Department, and that makes his a hero to the USA.
Betraying the trust of a criminal or politician or military commander is betraying the trust of a person, not the country, and if one is acting in the best interest of their country, as Manning was, then one should be considered a hero to their country.
You are an authority-worshiping dupe, incapable of argument, incapable of debate, incapable of reason, because you are apparently emotionally captured by the idiotic idea of having a king and royal court with Knights, all of whom can do no wrong.
Grow up.
DEFINITIONS
trai·tor
/ˈtrātər/
Noun
A person who betrays a friend, country, principle, etc.
Synonyms
“Pulling a Manning” betrayer – recreant – renegade – rat – quisling