Bradley Manning formally charged with 'aiding the enemy' by giving files to WikiLeaks

reply to post by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi

Is it just me, or did the US government just formally acknowledge that the public is their enemy? That we, the citizens of the world, are the enemy of the USA state? I thought America was at war with terrorists and drug dealers, hense the "War on Terror" and "War on Drugs". But apparently, they just confirmed that they are at war against humanity.

In the case of Manning, it doesn't really matter who or what the enemy is. He was in uniform, under orders when he gave away what the army considered sensitive material. This is a cardinal sin in the military. You just don't do it without expecting the weight of every possible offense being dropped on your head.

I personally like the concept that Wikileaks forwards to the public; that there is a route to expose corruption to the people. But there is a time and place for everything and doing something like this while serving in the armed forces and during armed conflict, is just asking for landing in a world of hurt.

Basically, he had to have known the risks and he took them. I feel bad for him in one sense but in another, he had to have known better so... he made his own bed.

reply to post by IceHappy

I won't comment about the rest of your post, but I will say that I've seen in many different places the tendency in the voting system to veer away from negative voting and only allow positive voting. I don't know the reason for it, specifically. Perhaps people are more likely to exploit negative voting as opposed to positive voting. Ex: if you don't like someone, are you more likely to cheat and over-vote negatively than if you like someone and cheat by over-voting postively? So maybe by disallowing negative votes they decrease the amount of cheating? Or maybe negative voting was judged to be unneeded. I am not sure why I've seen this pattern in a couple places.

reply to post by redoubt

But I'd like to ask where is all of the good stuff in the material he released? I've seen the heli video and wasn't impressed. To me, it looked like the gunner made a mistake that most anyone could make - assuming that those were innocents. If this is the worst that Manning exposed about our government then it must be disappointing for those who're trying to overthrow the current holders of power.

The major thing with Manning is he didn't just release things that might make the military look like it's covering up war crimes, but he instead released thousands of thousands of pages of material that do not incriminate our military. So he took a shotgun to the matter and blew the lid off without much consideration for the consequences. I think it shows his state of mind at the time. If you learn about his past you see that he was very troubled. Naturally, the military has to make sure that the law is respected, so they'll try to use Manning as an example to others who might be thinking about doing the same thing.

I think that his troubled life was feeding into his job and clouding his mind. No matter how I look at it, I feel sorry for him. He did not have a clear head. But as I stated already, the military has to uphold the law to maintain order in the ranks. This means Manning is going to get pounded, as if he hasn't already been. People who work in security just had their stress meter go up. Just think how hard it's for people doing Manning's job now that the people in charge are aware what they can do if given the opportunity. Background checks will be stiffer and they'll be watched more. The sad thing is that when a real war crime happens then it may never get reported as a result of all this. I won't say never, but it'll be harder!

reply to post by spocksleftear


You really need to read posts and comprehend them before accusing. I would suggest you read up and understand the law but that would be lost advice so I wont.

I have stated multiple times that had Manning stayed with the Helicopter incident, I would support that decision, since it would be a valid Whistle blower incident.

I followed up by stating that since he released hundreds of thousands of classified documents on top of the helicopter incident, he was not acting as a whistle blower. He was acting like a spoiled child who did not get his way and decided to retaliate against the Army by accessing and distributing classified documents.

Manning's job, again, was not to sift through classified documents to look for criminal wrong doing. His job was to be an intelligence analyst in a war zone to support the troops in the field.

Not a difficult concept to understand.

reply to post by Xcathdra


You have some balls to post that when you finished your last post by accusing me of support of despicable crimes carried out by other nations because i have not complained about them in front of you.

reply to post by jonnywhite

But I'd like to ask where is all of the good stuff in the material he released? I've seen the heli video and wasn't impressed. To me, it looked like the gunner made a mistake that most anyone could make - assuming that those were innocents. If this is the worst that Manning exposed about our government then it must be disappointing for those who're trying to overthrow the current holders of power.

Again, I don't think the details of the 'what' matters as much as the act itself to those who are prosecuting him.

There's a lot of history of soldiers who, in a time of war, really did no more than just wander off into an area that didn't belong and ended up spending a long, long time in prison... or worse. When you're in the service, especially during a time of any kind of conflict, there's no latitude for this kind of thing.

Now... it may be that this case will linger long enough for the media to forget about it and the army will quietly hand down a lesser sentence. But as long as the world is looking on... they will hammer him as hard as they can.

Originally posted by spocksleftear
reply to post by Xcathdra

 

You have some balls to post that when you finished your last post by accusing me of support of despicable crimes carried out by other nations because i have not complained about them in front of you.

You opened the door with your argument..

I walked through it and showed you the double standard you were ignoring.

reply to post by Xcathdra


By all means, clarify for me what this double standard is.

reply to post by spocksleftear

I love the points you make, not becuase I agree, but because they highlight important things.

If you don't know whether top secret information is incriminating or not, you do NOT break your oath and give it to the public. If there's no way to know whether it's criminal or not, you leave it alone.

If you do know that it's incriminating then it's your duty as a citizen of this country, not as a military man, to expose the truth and uphold the constitution. If your own military is the enemy then you must report it.

You made a great point about how people respond differently to different information when you reference how a poster responded to the heli video with regret and "war is hell" and then you compared this to the same poster panicking when some non-criminal information might have been given to the public, and you said that it showed irony. The heli video may or may not be a war crime, depending on whether the military spends enough time determining the nature of its target (unintended war crime) and whether or not the gunner (or somebody else) was conspiring to kill innocent people. And, of course, releasing information to the public in a shotgun approach may or may not expose information that aides the enemy. Both cases can lead to different conclusions, based on the perspective of the observer.

In effect, the observer who sees the heli video as just another day in a long and sour war is in denial about it and through inaction is allowing a war crime to occur. Similarly, the the observer who releases thousands of documents without reading them and without discrimination is viewing it as their duty as a world citizen to forge a path to a free exchange of information but is in denial about some of that information aiding the enemy and resulting in further violence. On the opposite side, the observer views the heli video as a war crime and is blind to the realities of war wherein the fog of war muddles men's minds and can lead them to do untoward things, and as a result, slows the efforts of the military to do its job. Similarly, the patriot fervently releases some information that he claims shows a war crime but is in actuality nothing of the sort and may in fact backfire and give information to the enemy that was not foreseen.

When we judge the rightness of something, as an observer, it's easy to be wrong. It's possible that no information released by Manning has harmed anybody. It's also possible that it has. It's possible that the heli video depicts a war crime as it happened. It's also possible that it was a accident (fog of war blinds soldiers and can cause friendly fire) or that the "reporters" and "family" were actually terrorists or working with them (it's possible). But in all this, we have to remember WHY the military has rules and secrets. That Manning may not have meant to harm anyone or that his information may or may not have hurt someone is irrelevant. I think i'd have to research National Security to be able to comment on this more authoritatively. But my guess is that we have these rules that protect information for a -good- reason. No matter how unfortunate all of this is or how much I feel sorry for Manning, we can't let these side issues sidetrack us in our mission to grasp the significance of all this. This is national security, not a game.

You don't release information in a shotgun approach. Simple as that. If you can't read it, don't release it. If it's not criminal, don't release it. Making an argument that all information should be public disregards national security. What's national security for if all information is public? Why do you think there're secrets? Don't speak too soon. Being wrong has a high cost. Make sure you're right.

Remember that if you're going to argue for all information to be public then you should also argue that all private assets and physical belongings should also be public. Because information in our world has increasing valuee with time and is every bit as important as the physical assets we have piled up in warehouses and storage areas. For example, an atomic bomb should be guarded in a well-kept and secure facility, right? Would you agree? Would you also agree that information can be as dangerous as an atomic bomb and so should also be similarly well-kept in a secure place to protect others safety?

Information and physical things are really not much different. Especially in our world.

Originally posted by spocksleftear
reply to post by Xcathdra

 

By all means, clarify for me what this double standard is.

That the laws should only apply to those people / government you dont like or who dont share your viewpoint. You take exception to the laws when you dont agree with them while at the same time demanding those laws be used to hold the people / government who dont agree with you accountable.

To demand people / government be held accountable for their actions, unless its a person you support and who you agree with.

To demand the Federal government / people uphold their oath while excusing manning for abandoning his.

To argue the Federal government / people have not upheld their oath to the constitution while at the same time you abandoned / ignore Due process and innocent until proven guilty for those groups.

To argue Manning had a right to release those documents by arguing he was exposing criminal wrong doing while at the same time arguing manning could not have possibly gone through the files because of how many there are.

I can keep going if you wish..

Originally posted by Xcathdra

Originally posted by spocksleftear
reply to post by Xcathdra

 

By all means, clarify for me what this double standard is.

That the laws should only apply to those people / government you dont like or who dont share your viewpoint. You take exception to the laws when you dont agree with them while at the same time demanding those laws be used to hold the people / government who dont agree with you accountable.

To demand people / government be held accountable for their actions, unless its a person you support and who you agree with.

To demand the Federal government / people uphold their oath while excusing manning for abandoning his.

To argue Manning had a right to release those documents by arguing he was exposing criminal wrong doing while at the same time arguing manning could not have possibly gone through the files because of how many there are.

I can keep going if you wish..

Wow. Glad i asked for clarification. Again, your own advice of reading posts seems appropriate.

I have repeatedly stated that manning broke the law. I have not once called for him to be excused from the punishment for breaking those laws. Surely then it cannot be said that i do not agree with the law applying to him. What i can say is that if i was in the same position as manning i would break the same laws he did and happily accept the punishment for breaking those laws when it would expose institutionalised war crimes. Since i agree with manning being prosecuted for breaking those laws and i agree with prosecuting us troops and the command structure of the US for perpetrating the crimes outlined where is the double standard. I also stated after your random accusation that i support crimes committed by other countries simply because they have not been raised in this topic that i condemn those actions irrespective of what country commits them. So how can you even begin to say i feel these laws should only be applied to countries i don't like when i have not spoken a single word about any other country. You seem to have a running theme of deciding what other people believe and why without, and in some cases like manning contrary to evidence. Why do you do this? And if i am happy for manning to be prosecuted how do any of your points expose a double standard?

You on the other hand excuse a massacre of civilians with one hand while damning a cable leak because it may place someone in danger. Is that not a double standard?

To argue Manning had a right to release those documents by arguing he was exposing criminal wrong doing while at the same time arguing manning could not have possibly gone through the files because of how many there are.

Again, how this illustrates a double standard is beyond me. Manning got access to the files. He went through a number of them. To suit you, we shall say he went through one of your mythical bails of hay. In this random bail he found say 3 needles. Because manning had hundreds of thousands of bails of hay, he knew he could not reasonably find all the needles on his own. Using the sample he had gone through, mannings expectation was that the rest of the cables would contain more wrong doing, however it would be impossible for him to search himself in his lifetime hence he passed it to wikileaks. How is that difficult to understand and how does it create a double standard?

reply to post by spocksleftear


You are as lost as a Bedouin in a sand storm.

Your argument has in fact been what I posted. Your argument has in fact been a double standard.

reply to post by Xcathdra


Honestly at this point i am pretty sure you do not know what a double standard is.

Originally posted by spocksleftear
reply to post by Xcathdra

 

Honestly at this point i am pretty sure you do not know what a double standard is.

Quite the contrary actually.. One more time - This is a double standard -

Double Standard

When you are done reading that, check the other posts by the same person while following along in the conversation. You will see the double standard.

reply to post by Xcathdra


My god. You literally don't know what a double standard is. Here you go. This may be hard for you to wrap your head around since you are unfamiliar with it, but i will go slow, and use my own posts to illustrate.

en.wikipedia.org...

'A double standard is the application of different sets of principles for similar situations, or to different people in the same situation.'

Now, from my very first post read this.


Clearly Manning is a human rights hero for revealing this.

I say this because the things these cables revealed to the world would be western headline news every day for a decade had manning been a private in the Chinese or russian army. If he had been private Zhou, and the cables and warlogs had been about china then America would have declared him a hero for revealing the truth.

This illustrates that from the word go, i made it clear that my reaction to these events would be the same if it had happened in china or russia. Therefore, your assertion that i have a double standard in applying the law only to countries i do not like is false. It would have been a double standard if i had said something like, well you expect this kind of thing from country x and y, but america should be held to a higher standard!


Now again, from my first post
In releasing the cables did he break the laws under which he was bound. Yes he did or at least the prosecution certainly have a pretty tight case for it.

And from a further post.
And don't forget. I said Manning DID break the law. He committed a crime to report thousands of crimes.


At no point do i suggest that manning did not break the law. At no point do i say he should not be punished. Therefore your asserting that i have a double standard because i think people i like should not be held accountable is false, because i said the exact opposite of that. It would be a double standard if i said manning should face no punishment and is guilty of no crime.

At no point have i demanded others uphold their oaths while it is ok for manning to discard his. Quite the opposite.

He broke an oath? Congrats, so does the guy who squeals on the mafia. US soldiers handed people into be tortured and not one of them, not one of them disobeyed their orders even though they were in direct violation of international laws. All for their precious oath. Screw their oath if it means they have to be monsters to keep it, and screw them if they are willing to become monsters to keep it.

I liberally encourage the violation of any oath where not violating it constitutes being complicit in criminal wrongdoing. I don't care if it is manning or the head of the dod, if they do it to reveal criminal wrongdoing it gets the thumbs up from me so long as they are willing to face the legal music as manning has bravely done. So once again. No double standard as you have asserted.

What did you think double standard means?

Over 25 media organizations working in silence for months ahead of tomorrow. How´s that for self discipline? Good work everyone.


WikiLeaks mystery press conference Monday 12 noon, Frontline Club, Paddington, London, 13 Norfolk place W2 1QJ.

wikileaks tweets.

reply to post by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi


I understand, you obviously don't. You are looking to far into it and missing the main point.

If I was to release that stealth coating process to wikileaks which releases files to the world, how is that not aiding the enemy? How is releasing classified information not aiding the enemy?

Since you brought up the drug wars, I give a kilo of coc aine to a buddy who then transfers is to a buyer, who gets charged? Both.

Let me add, Mr. Manning wanted the classified files released to the public. Lets say for pretend that he didn't even want them released, he transferred classified files to a person/agency without a security clearance is that breaking the law?

Originally posted by Laxpla
reply to post by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi

 

I understand, you obviously don't. You are looking to far into it and missing the main point.

Not at all. In fact, I am deliberately not looking deep into this because I do not care about the internal facts of Manning or his trial. I care about who this official "enemy" is of the US, because the US certainly doesn't seem to have a coherent enemy. Just terrorists. Terrorists could be anyone who does not agree with US policy.

If I was to release that stealth coating process to wikileaks which releases files to the world, how is that not aiding the enemy? How is releasing classified information not aiding the enemy?

Is wikileaks the enemy?

There is this thing called "the rule of law". What that means is that law is supposed to clearly define what the law is so that justice can be appropriate and fair. You cannot charge someone with "aiding the enemy" unless there is a clear definition on who the enemy is, and there needs to be decisive evidences that the enemy was aided. Otherwise, this is nothing but obvious abuse of the law to silence dissentors.

So again, without a clear definition of who the "enemy" is, this charge was unjust. He was charged with many other crimes, relevant charges, but "aiding the enemy" is not one of them. This very charge renders his whole trial suspicious and exemplifies exactly what the American imperial interests are- secrecy of its actual objectives and veiling of any "threats" (ie, possibility of war crimes exposure).

And the overlying reality here is that the US Empire has backtracked big time on what humanity has developed in terms of "the rule of law"; hundreds of years of progress with things like habeus corpus and the magna carta completely subverted for "national security". And then the US government, and Americans alike, dare to claim legal system injustice in other countries like Iran.

Originally posted by Xcathdra
As I stated, had Manning stuck to exposing criminal actions, I would be supporting him. I believe its every citizens job to question as well as hold our government / elected officials accountable at all levels in government. The problem I have was all of the other information that went along with it. To me, his actions were selfish at that point, appearing to only care about who he could screw over because he was not happy in the Army.

I can respect this.

As far as the view on our Administration and the Constitution I have a question. What particular incident / action do you see that violated the Constitution. I'm not trying to be a smart ass or anything, I am just curious.

I am uncertain how the NDAA cannot be considered an outright violation of the Sixth Amendment, in particular. It seeks to dispense with due process entirely. You might say that Obama's ability to black bag people under it is only conditional and provisional, but that is in no way the point. I am certain that the ability to indefinitely detain people, by executive fiat, is something that the Constitution's authors very much wanted to avoid; at least according to my own perception of them.

The police have also gone right to the edge of violating Posse Comitatus with their response to Occupy, as well. Police issued pepper spray has been described as being much more powerful than civilian grade, as well.

The issue isn't so much that they are actually breaking the law, at least in most of the cases of which I am aware. The issue is, at least in my perception, that they are actively attempting to go as close as they can to violating the law, without actually crossing the line, at least as far as raw semantics are concerned. Obama has made comments that "…our Founders designed a system that makes it more difficult to bring about change than I would like sometimes."

You've gone from a population with interest in maintaining its' freedom, to a country essentially run by a cabal of geriatric fascists, exemplified by people like Joseph Leiberman, who called for the assassination of Julian Assange. The intent is complete control, purely for its' own sake. I remember seeing a video not long ago with Rudolph Giuliani and Ben Bernanke talking about the need to control the Internet, and they were practically drooling with the thought of gaining more authority over something. They are complete megalomaniacs.

The culture needs to change. It is the value system that created the Constitution that has gone. Nobody within government is really interested in upholding it; instead, they become creative, seeking ways to go as close as they can to violating it, without actually engaging in an incontrovertible, semantic violation. Alberto Gonsalez' attitude towards the Geneva Conventions is another case in point.

Originally posted by purplemer
No the information Bradley Manning released was for the good of the US and the world. It shows the US compicit in war crimes and Mannings had an international duty to report that. He tried to release the information using the correct channels and was stopped. So he leaked it..

The man is a true American hero. Those responsible for illegal war and mass murder should be locked up. The world is messed up.

Sorry, Manning is a POS and if the military would pay for my TDY, I'd fly to where they are holding him and bash his brains out with an E-tool.