In favor of Bradley Manning

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911 is the culmination of 50 years of Israeli strategic planning, yes... says who? The Israelis, that's who! They said from day one that the most important strategic plan is to set the US and Arabs at each other's throats. Everything else was secondary. Netanyahu, when he said "It's very good" on 11 Sept 2001 meant what he said. If you want I can describe how the Israelis drew the Americans in and provoked, provoked, provoked. I'll give you one key moment. The Reagan Administration, flush with Israel-worshipping Darbyists, gave Israel the Green Light to implement its New Order in Lebanon and some of these Darbyists even claimed that this was Armageddon imminent and that soon they'd cheat death via the Rapture. As soon as that was done Reagan sent US forces to guard the New Order. Not surprisingly, there was an attack on US forces in Beirut and they waved a bloody shirt in front of the American public. See these EVIL Ayrabs killing innocent American troops. Who put them there? The Israelis. A Mossad agent has revealed by the way that they knew of the planned bombing of the barracks but chose to not tip off the Americans. I wonder why?

While I don't disagree with the general case you make out, Manning's conduct is not consistent with such an interpretation.

If his intent was to expose US military and government misconduct in Iraq, what was he doing releasing diplomatic cables that had nothing to do with that subject?

It strikes me that he cannot have his cake and eat it, too. If his intent was to be a whistleblower, then all of the material released should have been substantively linked to the misconduct he sought to expose. His wholesale approach does not support a claim to whistleblowing intent, and looks far more like a mischievous intent to me.

IIRC, the diplomatic cables had evidence of misconduct in them as well, such as our covet program of collecting, among other things, DNA samples of foreign diplomatic staff. I'm reminded of something one of the Watergate judges said, that the American people have a right to prevent the corruption of our democracy, and I think Manning's action fall well within that guideline

Even if I was to concede that releasing the diplomatic cables went beyond the scope of whistleblowing, we still have the inhumane manner in which he's been treated up to this point, and the fact that he's been charged with a death penalty offense for the.military side leaks that you seem more sympathetic towards. That this has all transpired under The Most Transparent Administration In History™ just adds an extra, Orwellian, gloss to the whole thing. Not only is it "not illegal when we do it" it's "talk about it and we'll kill you". Nixon would be jealous. Hell, Nixon might actually be horrified.

This is solid intelligence work, assuming that it is covert (which Manning undermined).

Example: The Danish military intelligence service once managed to covertly acquire a feces sample from Nikita Khrushchev in order to learn more about his medical status. Given the complexity and serious nature of the Cold War, this was a major intelligence success. It might also have been illegal...


Why is this even remotely relevant to the issue at hand?

You are balancing the national interest of 315 million people against a single person who has already incriminated himself massively, not only by his actions but by his (preliminary) guilty plea where he explicitly stated that he leaked the documents because of his political views on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan...

I cringed when my parents gave me a Che Guevara T-shirt. I slept in it so nobody would see me walking around displaying that man's face.

Strange that all you seem to have is personal attacks.

Well, seeing as you keep trivialising the crimes of US soldiers because these are only a few dozen murders in a war with thousands of deaths, perhaps we could trivalise the dozen or so people put at risk because of Cablegate because thousands of people are killed, tortured or imprisoned every year by their governments?

The vast majority of the documents (those glossed over by everyone because they are mind-numbingly boring and do not threaten anyone) do not need a reason to be leaked.

I would not blame Manning for the publication of the unredacted cables, but rather Assange.

Oh, I have a wider repertoire of attacks. I just try to avoid collateral damage...

Manning might be a free man today if he had done the same...


Non Sequitor. Thousands (and perhaps hundreds of thousands) of people are killed, tortured or imprisoned every year by their governments. How has Cablegate changed or prevented this? Did the Saudi headsman develop a conscience because of Cablegate?

And how do you know that only a dozen or so people were put at risk because of Cablegate? Since when are you an expert on military intelligence, diplomacy and foreign policy?

Please bear in mind that intelligence agencies have no incentive to confirm or deny assessments about the implications of Cablegate. The "Glomar response" is a tool of the trade in the intelligence community (and it is even an explicit official policy in my native country of Denmark).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_response


Really? And since when are you an expert on military intelligence, diplomacy and foreign policy?


From whom did Assange acquire the unredacted cables?

It hasn't. Once more, it seems that what I have said to you has been lost in translation.

You said the crimes revealed by Manning's leaks are insignificant in comparison to the wars they happened in, and thus don't matter. I said, in response, that the people threatened by the leaks are insignificant in comparison to the vast swathes of people threatened without the leaks.

I don't actually agree with your logic, in case you were wondering.


Equally, since when were you an expert on military intelligence, diplomacy and foreign policy?

I do not know for certain. It is possible that the Chinese government have covertly executed millions of people due to Cablegate.

I am going on reported incidents. The media have a rather large incentive to report implications of Cablegate (money). Additionally, the CIA and the American government at large, as well as other governments embarrassed by Cablegate, have incentives to discredit Manning and make him out to be a traitor.

Okay Mr. Expert, why shouldn't they be leaked? Because they are classified?

So you expect Manning to censor the cables himself in the limited time he had rather than get someone else to do them at leisure?

Funnily enough, the initial leak was redacted, but Assange then released the unredacted versions for reasons only he knows.

Except Manning had the choice between leaking the documents or not. If he had a responsible mindset, he would balance the "supposed" good of his leak compared with the potential damage of the leak of thousands of classified documents. These were factors under his control. Wartime casualties were not.

My reference to wartime casualties was simply an example of how insignificant his exposure of so-called "crimes" were...

Anyone having a rudimentary knowledge of military history would know that such incidents are neither rare nor surprising. Like I said before, the surprising thing is that Manning was surprised...

The Cablegate leak, on the other hand, was entirely unprecedented.


I am not (although I evidently know a hell a lot more these topics than you do). But I am not the one completely disregarding the largest intelligence leak in US history as insignificant, now am I?


Your most enlightened statement in this thread, so far. Welcome to reality.


... Not sure if serious...

But yes, that is the entire *point* of classifying information...


No, I expect Manning not to leak the cables in the first place... Problem solved...

The interest of 315 million people? Who claims to know what that is? Did Dick Cheney understand that when he was on the board of directors for JINSA and as such served as an Israeli agent?

The people who commit atrocities have a choice whether to commit them or not.

My reference to government oppression is an example of how insignificant the harm done as a result of his his called "crime" was. Although I don't think it is insignificant, just as I don't think the crimes of the US Army are insignificant.

The vast majority of it is insignificant.

The harm done by it is significant, but is balanced against the good done by his whistleblowing.


So they shouldn't be leaked because they are classified. They are classified because they shouldn't be leaked. Genius.

New problem created because the public don't have access to this information.

Bradley Manning has a moral compass unlike Dick Cheney and this makes him a far better judge of the interests of 315 million people...

Well, none of the US cables from the Embassy in Ottawa that I have seen reported touched on improper activity. (And let's recall not all covert activity constitutes misconduct. The passive collection of DNA from subjects of interest is not improper. Fingerprints left on glasses, skin cells sloughed off on tables and chairs, and the like are all likely fair game.)

So I am still left with the impression that a motivated, responsible whistleblower would have acted in a more critical fashion in choosing what he chose to expose.

As for his treatment since his arrest, I am not going to attempt to excuse that, and I am quite prepared to support an argument that says that his post-arrest treatment justifies either a stay of proceedings or a mitigation of sentence for his actions. But I do not believe that it can be used to justify his actions ex post facto.

The most interesting question you raise is the "right to prevent the corruption of our democracy." But I think the concept of such a right raises many questions:

-Can the right be exercised only to prevent corrupt actions from taking place, or can it be used to expose corrupt actions that are already perfected?
-What is the standard of belief? Is it every person that believes that he is exposing misconduct that is entitled to act, or is it limited to a person who has actual knowledge of acts that a reasonable person would determine to be corrupt? What of a person who has reasonable grounds to believe that misconduct exists, without actual knowledge?
-Does it matter whether or not the person came into possession of the knowledge legitimately?
-Does such a right serve to protect all collateral conduct, or only conduct that directly goes to the prevention of corruption?

-And perhaps, most importantly, what constitutes "corruption of democracy?" Watergate went directly to the issue of how the American people choose their leaders, and whether their choice was corrupted by the actions of the CREEP. But in the case of the United States' activities in Iraq, and elsewhere, these were actions undertaken by leaders whose elections were legitimated. (Even if we question the results in 2000, we don't question the results in 2004, 2008 and 2012).

Is democracy corrupted when a democratically elected leader undertakes corrupt actions that do not negate the fact of his election? I tend to the view that it can--but I am not certain that I view that as a necessary conclusion. For example, the mayor who embezzles money is a criminal, but I have trouble seeing that democracy has suffered by his corruption. He is properly prosecuted, removed from office and punished for those crimes, but I do not think that the crimes of an individual throw the system of government into disrepute. On the other hand, the President who uses extra-judicial lethal force on an American citizen is in a much shakier place.

There you go again, assuming that you are an expert in making assessments about the significance of the Cablegate leak. Bold claim by someone who hasn't even understood why information is classified in the first place (see below).


In the US, information is classified by government agencies on the basis of the following (Executive order 13526):

(1) “Top Secret” shall be applied to information, the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security that the original classification authority is able to identify or describe.
(2) “Secret” shall be applied to information, the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause serious damage to the national security that the original classification authority is able to identify or describe.
(3) “Confidential” shall be applied to information, the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause damage to the national security that the original classification authority is able to identify or describe.

(My underlining added).

I might not be a genius (I have never taken an official IQ test, so I wouldn't know), but I can read... So yes... Prevention of leaks is the rationale behind classifying information.


The public is not supposed to have access to this information according to US law, as per the executive order mentioned above. The executive order was signed and implemented by the president of The United States of America, a man democratically elected and held accountable to the people of the United States of America.

So, what is the problem?

Once more, GGP, you spectacularly misunderstand what I say. I pointed out your use of circular reasoning (it is bad that these documents have been leaked because they are classified; they are classified because they shouldn't be leaked).

The emphasis should have been added on "damage to the national security". If you'd have said "they shouldn't be leaked because doing so might damage the national security" from the start, then at least your argument would make some logical sense. Is "damage to the national security" necessarily a bad thing? Well, no. Frankly, I am strongly in favour of anything that damages North Korea's national security, or Zimbabwe's, if it were to lead to the downfall of the dictators in those countries.

Additionally, what constitutes "damage to the national security"? The executive order says: "the national defense has required that certain information be maintained in confidence in order to protect our citizens, our democratic institutions, our homeland security, and our interactions with foreign nations. " Though that sounds great, that's a pretty broad definition- what if it were deemed that civilians needed protection from pornography? It gets broader:

"(d) The unauthorized disclosure of foreign government information is presumed to cause damage to the national security."

So anything related to another government can automatically be called "confidential". Can you see any issues arising there? It certainly doesn't seem to me that any leak of US government interaction with another government will cause the US government to crumble. Given how well it has held up since Cablegate, that would certainly seem to be the case.

Finally, your assertion that nobody should have a problem with governments keeping secrets because these laws were signed by a democratically elected leader is almost as good as your assertion that secrets should be kept because they are secret.

[Edit: Post deleted due to inappropriate content]

Last edited by GGPViper on 02 Apr 2013, 8:54 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Whilst I appreciate this is PPR and the normal rules don't quite apply, and WrongPlanet is a forum for people who don't have a natural grasp for social norms, would it kill you to not be so extraordinarily rude?