In favor of Bradley Manning

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Well, he might actually be one of us. Or, if he's not flatly Spectrum (which is admittedly statistically unlikely), he may be Aspie-lite, or Spectrum-friendly, something like that. For afterall, he expected us to actually live up to our values.

Here are two quotes from the Bradley Manning Support Network, on the page "What did WikiLeaks reveal?"
http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/what ... ent-page-1

These are difficult issues. And here's where we need to be very careful. As effective activists and as just plain effective citizens, it is almost always better to slightly understate the case. I mean, no matter how serious, if the case is overstated one-tenth of one percent, people tend to feel played and cheated. I think this might almost be a cognitive processing error on the part of human beings. But be that as it may, this sociological fact is as real as any other fact and needs to be taken into account.

And governments have a difficult time acknowledging wrongdoing, of course they do.

Daniel Ellsberg was recently on the radio show "Democracy Now" (a show on the political left, and I will try and find link). He said Bradley Manning had access to highly classified information which might endanger U.S. soldiers. But that's not what he released. What Bradley Manning released was information embarrassing to U.S. officials.
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/3/12/d ... ey_manning

A lot of us might think if we were adults during the time of the Vietnam War, we would of course support Daniel Ellsberg. Maybe, maybe not, things are always a lot cloudier during the time itself.

Let's assume Bradley Manning was on the autistic spectrum. Why, then, should we support him?

I don't see a lot of Adam Lanza supporters around here. Do you?

Bradley Manning is charged with leaking classified information (some of which were at the level of SECRET), a charge of committing a criminal offence. Leave it to the courts to find out what is left, right and wrong.

Furthermore, have you personally reviewed every single one of the 115,000+ classified documents released and concluded that the publication of these did not endanger U.S. soldiers, but simply embarrassed U.S. officials? Do you (or those WikiLeaks "heroes") have the appropriate intelligence training, security clearance and experience to assess if a document endangers U.S. soldiers or simply embarrasses U.S. officials? Or are you relying on the statements by a person who has been outside the intelligence community for 40 years?

Whether or not he's on the spectrum, I'm still in favor of him and what he did.

I could care less if he's on the spectrum or not, that's irrelevant to evaluating his actions. I happen to support what he did, as I see it as whistleblowing, and am horrified that he's facing a death penalty/LWOP charge over it, from The Most Transparent Administration In History™ no less. I find the (non)reaction of much of the public more horrifying still.

and the pentagon papers were all TOP SECRET. And, not to nitpick, but the military classifies the lunch menus in forward operating bases as "secret".



No, I'm relying on the government's own admissions that they don't know of any incident where anything leaked compromised any ongoing mission, soldier, or asset.

Funny you should mention that... Ever heard about this?:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162- ... rder-post/
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/27/world ... ?hpt=hp_t1

On the second link it appears mid-page...

This only illustrates my point... People should stop presuming that they are experts on what is sensitive information and what is not...

Oh, and:



If the information is classified, then why the bloody hell would they publicly *talk* about it?

Truth is treason in the empire of lies.

I do not care whether or not PFC Manning is on the spectrum, what he did was commendable and his sacrifice will not be forgotten.

I think it is impossible for any outside observer to make a reasonable assessment in these circumstances.

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that he knowingly and wilfully released all the documents that he is accused of leaking. On the face of it, that alone is sufficient to convict him. He held a security clearance, he knew, or ought properly to have known the rules surrounding the handling of classified material, and he knowlingly and wilfully violated those rules. In this sense, he is no different than S/Lt. Jeffrey Delisle.

But where Delisle acted from motivations of personal enrichment, we are given to believe that Manning acted from some other motivation.

Now, do we have evidence that his intent was to be a whistleblower? I'm not at all sure that this has been demonstrated. We know that he leaked classified material, and we know to whom he leaked it. But we do not yet know why he leaked it.

Perhaps he was a whistleblower. But if that was his motivation, was it necessary to leak all of the documents? Are there documents that he leaked that had nothing to do with revealing wrongdoing on the part of his superiors? Does the US diplomatic traffic from the Embassy in Ottawa assessing the leaders of Canada's political parties have anything to do with whistleblowing?

On the other hand, perhaps he was a disaffected, young, gay soldier trapped in a job for which he was ill-prepared and ill-supported. Does this excuse or justify his conduct? If his intention was mischievous, I think not.

We may be glad that he did what he did. We may be glad that we know things that we didn't know before. But that does not provide an excuse or justification for violating the rules that he knew governed his actions, unless he can demonstrate and clear link between all of the material that he release, and a whistleblowing intent.

I see this as whistle blowing, where as cable gate was not whistle blowing.

That with why I don't rate Assange. True whistle blowing you never take credit, you do it trough decentralized means. Assange wants to be the poster boy for leaks, yet in practice, it is stupid to leak to them, it will not ensure your safety. He is smart enough to realize a federalized or peer based system would be better, but he wouldn't be the the poster boy.

The rat fink who turned Manning in is supposedly with Asperger...

Manning is great.

Wikileaks wasn't supposed to be anything centralized - and it isn't. Assange didn't push himself into the limelight - he was drawn out because the media wanted some face to put up on their TV screens. And now he's stuck in a tiny room in the Ecuadorian embassy in London because of it. Somehow, I think if he could take it all back and go back to being anonymous - he would.

Wow...
Leave it to the courts to find out what is left, right and wrong? Seriously!? If it was that easy, there would never be an innocent person sent to jail. The fact is that war crimes were commited and all Bradley did was show the world the TRUTH, which is something the Government or Military would NEVER have done. Stop defending the criminals! If I saw someone kill another person and told the cops, I wouldn't get in trouble. But because it's the US military doing an extremely wrong thing, the innocent person is the victim. There is no excuse for what those people did and no excuse for anyone, including yourself, defending scum like that.
It's attitude like yours that helps people get away with murder and so much more...

[sarcasm]Indeed, how callous of me to insist that the question of guilt should be decided in a court of law. Imagine what kind of society we would end up with if such sentiments were to take hold in the general populace...[/sarcasm]

No one can be that irony-impaired.

I don't think Manning has done anything wrong. If the Army does not want people to know about the crimes it commits, it should stop committing crimes.

But what about the tens of thousands of documents that he released that had nothing to do with that?

You're focussed on the one percent of his actions that might be justified on the basis of whisteblowing, and using those to excuse the other 99% of his conduct. That's sloppy legal thinking.