Bradley Manning verdict

Yeah - pretty much.

Here's the thing, there has to be a balance between open goverment and keeping some things - particularly military or security related things - secret.

The argument is over the balance and I completely agree that the balance is tipped way, way too far to the side of secrecy. I also agree that some of the things leaked - like the footage of the killing of journalists - should never have been classified and belonged in the public domain. If Pvt Manning had been leaked that sort of thing alone, it would be an entirely different story. The problem is that Pvt Manning made no attempt to review what he leaked and some of it could have been things that ought to have remained classified.

Of course the situation is complicated by the fact that Pvt Manning was fighting on the wrong side of an illegal war: that should definitely be a primary consideration in sentencing, but I can't fault the fact he was prosecuted and convicted.

In fact, there should be many more prosecutions and convictions, not of the service people who prosecuted the war but of the politicians who sent them in: in my opinion - and far more importantly, the opinion of people like the head of the UN at the time - the war was illegal and therefore Bush, Blair and their entire cabinets ought to be prosecuted for war crimes.

Think what a fantastic message that would send to the rest of the world - and particularly, of course the Muslim world.

.. it's not too late, either - there's no Statute of Limitations on war crimes

Yeah I agree with Tuna, things like blatant attacks on civilians and stuff should have been in the public domain, and should have resulted in heavy punishments - for the parties who carried out such killings. However Manning carelessly released information, disregarding that a lot of information should have been kept out of the public arena.

perhaps we should prosecute 90% or better of the entire free world......... at the time everyone thought it was a wonderful idea..... only a handful of the extreme pacifists were against it

I really don't think that Manning is the one to blame for all this.

First of all being a soldier is the same kind of job as any out there, by job I mean there are mistakes that every employee do everyday. Same thing with the war, there are mistakes, there are casualties, there is nothing extremely extraordinary about that. Does it lower US reputation? Yes. Does it make whole US army a Schutzstaffel (Germany SS), No.

As far as we know Manning had an easy access to all the files and all the videos, it's knows that most videos could have been transferred between soldiers without any barriers. He also had an access to secret data, that was not that secret, if Private could access it. My guess is that US could not have guessed that someone is going to upload hundreds of gigabytes of war files and start decoding them, but again, that was not Manning's fault, he gave away the Plutonium but he did not drop the Atomic bomb that was made out of it.

So who to blame? Government that invested billions of dollars into the war and could not came up with a firewall for their secrets, or 20 year old kid who has some disturbing mental issues?

Manning should have learned to cover his tracks better. He should have realized that this wouldn't be tolerated and they would find him.

I've seen and done things in the military that would be embarrassing but they're a faceless organization and I'm one guy. They would mop the floor with my credibility.

Interesting thing about secrets.

Consider the plan drafted by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to kill innocent U.S. citizens in the streets of Florida and other places as well as committ acts of terrosim to foster hate for Cuba and provide a reason to attack Cuba.

This was a secret plan that is unthinklable and few Americans know its history.

ABC News has an interesting bit about Operation Northwood.

U.S. Military Wanted to Provoke War With Cuba - ABC News

A whistle blower uses the chain of command, he doesn't just dump a bunch of documents. It's way beyond these snot nose brats' pay grade to decide what they think should be classified or not. I think they are both traitors and have no sympathy for either one of them. He'll probably get out in ten years so I think he got off easy. I hope they take Snowden out with a drone strike.

Have to say, the US military did an excellent job with the propoganda on sentencing here: after all the horror stories of sentences of over 100 years, I was actually quite relieved when it turned out to be 35 years with possible parole after 10 years.

Then you think about it ..

Assuming he gets credit for time served (rash assumption?), the absolute best case is that he ends up inside for 10 years. That's actually around 40% longer than the average served by murderers here in the UK. And murder in the UK has a mandatory 'life' sentence.

SiempreTuna said:

Have to say, the US military did an excellent job with the propoganda on sentencing here: after all the horror stories of sentences of over 100 years, I was actually quite relieved when it turned out to be 35 years with possible parole after 10 years.

Then you think about it ..

Assuming he gets credit for time served (rash assumption?), the absolute best case is that he ends up inside for 10 years. That's actually around 40% longer than the average served by murderers here in the UK. And murder in the UK has a mandatory 'life' sentence.

Click to expand...

To us 35 years sounds horrible, by US standards it's not too bad. That said, there are those who murdered civilian foreigners serving less time, which is sad, as far as I know.