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

reply to post by petrus4


At a "rewards gala" for neo-conservative leaders of the USA, February 10, 2004:

"Exceptional (and with apologies to fairy-tale aficionados), there is a fourth bowl of porridge in this imaginary house, and not until he reaches the last does the speaker [Charles Krauthammer] discover the quality that is "just right." This he calls "democratic globalism," more popularily known as neo-conservatism, or neo-liberalism in its latest guise, the world-view that marries the American values of freedom and democracy to the hard fist of military persuasion. Democratic globalism incarnates a cloudless vision of America's exceptional place in the world. It is a pledge, a "sacred honour" that was entrusted to the nation at its origin and continues to live in the hearts of all American patriots; it is the "will to freedom," the struggle between "freedom and unfreedom and yes, good and evil." It is the imperative to spread such ideals around the globe, by force if necessary, in order to make the world safer for America and its interests."

-- Erna Paris, The Sun Climbs Slow - The International Criminal Court and The Struggle For Justice, page 44.

Reflecting on an interview with John Bolton, the guy who pulled the US away from ratifying the ICC.

"John Bolton's description of the ICC as "illegitimate" because it does not conform to the US Constitution was beginning to look like a red herring, but another of his claims- that the ICC would violate the usual protections of due process- was baffling. The presumption of innocence, the right to legal counsel, the right to present evidence and to confront prosecution witnesses, the right to be present at one's own trial and so on- these are the rights of an accused person in any of the world's working democracies. The Rome Statute is transparent, as even its enemies acknowledge. The full text is in the public domain; and it includes many cautionary references to the norms of due process. American negotiators helped to establish clear definitions of these rights during the decades of preparatory planning."
-- page 77

reply to post by signal2noise

Now, now ... innocent until proven guilty. Let the court martial happen first, then apply the e-tool. I do not think the military will pay for your travel, but I'm sure some private donors would be happy to step up. Maybe MICA would fund your adventure, as a way of expiating the sin that has tarnished the MI corps.

Originally posted by FurvusRexCaeli
reply to post by signal2noise

 

Now, now ... innocent until proven guilty. Let the court martial happen first, then apply the e-tool. I do not think the military will pay for your travel, but I'm sure some private donors would be happy to step up. Maybe MICA would fund your adventure, as a way of expiating the sin that has tarnished the MI corps.

You're right. I'm sorry, it was a knee-jerk reaction. I'll wait for the trial.

Maybe I can talk my CO into some permissive TDY time.....

reply to post by signal2noise

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.

Wrong learn the difference. Mannings is a political prisoner of conscience..

Manning is a hero, exposing War crimes, but the people making war crimes are still free, while he is tortured in jail. This is so wrong

reply to post by pascalt


Exactly what war crimes did he exposed?

He is a soldier that had a high level security clearance and gave classified information away. As what has been posted before, he is lucky they are not seeking the death penalty.

Originally posted by pascalt
Manning is a hero, exposing War crimes, but the people making war crimes are still free, while he is tortured in jail. This is so wrong

War crimes? Tortured in prison?

Really? Do tell......

reply to post by signal2noise


The United Nations Convention Against Torture, of which the united states is a signatory states, and i quote

'Article 4

Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law. The same shall apply to an attempt to commit torture and to an act by any person which constitutes complicity or participation in torture.
Each State Party shall make these offences punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account their grave nature.'

Emphasis mine.

The war logs revealed an institutional level breach of of article 4 of the UN convention against torture where by US forces knowingly handed over people for torture at the hands of the Iraqi security forces, and had a direct policy of ignoring iraqi on iraqi torture.

www.iraqwarlogs.com...

The US signed a treaty which subjected their forces to obligations not to be complicit in torture. They not only broke that obligation by not punishing the soldiers who handed people over for torture (which the treaty made a crime) they made it an obligation to ignore torture.


As for whether manning is being tortured. Right now the answer is no. Solitary confinement is not legally prohibited or defined as torture. However there is an exceptionally strong case to have it classified as torture which is being pursued by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture.

www.unmultimedia.org...

Simply put, long term solitary destroys the psyche. This has a profound implication when you consider the US will be looking for manning to implicate assange in an active role in the leaking of the documents.

reply to post by spocksleftear


Read the Head money case to resolve how treaties and constitutional conflicts are resolved. Once done read the Military Commission Act of 2006, 2008 and 2009. Review the Supreme Court rulings on Hamden V. Rumsfeld and Hamdi V. Rumsfeld.

All of the above, the US Supreme Court as well as UN guidelines you would see the CAT was not violated.

reply to post by Xcathdra


What's that? You mean you are ready to admit your suggestion that i had a double standard was completely wrong and completely opposite of what i actually said in my posts, as i pointed out? That you literally had no idea what the term double standard means or that you clearly did know but tried to tar me with that anyway? Hope you are willing to cough up the apology.



As for your to read list. Here is an idea, if you have a position, type it up. I am genuinely interested in how the US would be able to slide out of its treaty obligations, however i am not going to make your argument for you if you are too lazy to post it.

What i will say is the un rapporteur on torture and the UN high commissioner for human rights seemed to think it is a serious matter.


wikileaks-press.org...

In reaction to the Iraq War Logs release, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture Manfred Nowak spoke out on The United States’ obligations under Article 3 of the U.N. Convention against Torture :

[There] is never any right to subject a prisoner to torture, it’s absolutely prohibited and constitutes a war crime under the statutes of the International Criminal Court. However, [neither the U.S. nor Iraq] has yet ratified this statute, so no U.S. soldier or citizen can be brought to the ICC. (…) [However,] if it is established that an individual is responsible for torture, directly or by complicity, then this person should be brought to justice under the domestic courts. (…) I would have expected [Obama to order an inquiry] much earlier. (…) Obama has an obligation to deal with past cases, there is an obligation to investigate whenever there are credible allegations of torture, and then it is up to the courts, but first there must be an independent and objective investigation.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay also issued a statement calling on US and Iraqi authorities to investigate “serious breaches of international human rights law” :

The US and Iraqi authorities should take necessary measures to investigate all allegations made in these reports and to bring to justice those responsible for unlawful killings, summary executions, torture and other serious human rights abuses, in line with obligations under international human rights law, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which both the US and Iraq are parties.

The High Commissioner calls upon Iraq to ratify the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and its Optional Protocol, which gives the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment the right to visit all places of detention and examine the treatment of persons detained.

reply to post by spocksleftear


I've established my position.. If you actually read the posts instead of glossing over them you would know this.

The list is for you, not me. You are the one making claims hat are not supported by law not me. But by all means if you are that clueless on the topic feel free to continue to deflect while calling me lazy. It won't change the fact that you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

Also - take the time to learn what sovereignty is. Once you figure that out feel free to read the Constitution (as its very obvious you are not familiar with it at all), and then compare what you have learned to what the UN is stating.

Absent that I can't help you move beyond your lack of knowledge, or laziness for that matter.

Manning is going to be found guilty since he admitted to the crime, which seems to be lost on people who still revere him as a hero.

He broke the law... plain and simple.
His actions were intended to harm, not expose.

reply to post by Xcathdra


See. This is the difference between you and me. I am intellectually honest.

When someone like me sees someone say manning is not being tortured, i look it up. I see that solitary has not been classed as torture yet, so i concede the point and say in writing i concede it as i did above. Similarly i repeatedly acknowledged that manning had committed a crime under US law and as such is subject to punishment under it. That is intellectual honesty.

What i wont do is things like deciding his motivations to be petty, even though his motivations are stated clearly in the private conversations used to convict him and are anything but petty. That is your department. Just as you decided my motivations as being anti american because it was the conclusion that best suited you, even though i demonstrated by my posts i was not, the demonstration of which you had NO comeback to. Just as you decided i felt manning should not be punished, which i said the opposite of, and when i pointed this out you had NO comeback to. Just as each of your assertions about my positions were proven to be false and which you had NO comeback to. And when i raised the point again in my last post you totally ignored it. Why?

It becomes double hilarious when you consider that you began your last post by declaring that you had established your positions, and if i had not been glossing over your posts i would know them. This from the guy who had to silently eat crow when all his accusations of double standards were crushed. Gee, i guess if you had not been glossing over my posts you would have know what my positions were instead of making them up.

But to be serious for a moment, you state that you have established your positions. I brought up CAT in the context of US troops handing people over to be tortured. That is the first time in this topic that the handing over of persons to be tortured being a violation of CAT has been mentioned. Therefore, the only post in which you can have established your position on it is the one in which you listed what i would guesstimate to be 600 - 800 pages of documentation which i am instructed to read, at the end of which i will 'SEE' that CAT was not violated.
With this you have stated a position, that you believe that CAT was not violated. But you have established ZIP because you do not cite or state aspects of those massive documents which create the argument that CAT was not violated. And yet by establishing that you are familiar with them you show you have the capacity to do just that, except you didn't. And that is lazy. On a lot of levels. First it means you do not have to construct or state a justification for your position. Secondly you don't have to cite sources even though you have repeatedly demanded others do so in the topic. Thirdly by relying on me to read 6-8 hundred pages of documents to divine your position, you can simply deny any part of what i come to suspect your position to be and tell me i have put words in your mouth/misrepresented your position. Also, were i willing to do this i would be doing the exact same thing which you are guilty of, which is telling other people what their main positions on the facts of this situation are. No thanks.

So, please, establish with citation your position on why the US has not broken CAT in the case of the handing over of persons to iraqi security with the knowledge that they would be tortured, because if you cannot do that then there is no difference between you and someone who could parrot off your reading list without having read any of it themselves. I established my position on why it broke it with citation of the relevant text in the relevant documents. If you do not want to establish a proper position (which with your apparent knowledge of the documents in question should be easy) that is fine by me, but again I will not be doing it for you, and i will not acknowledge your position as valid until you do so. And again, if you can make that compelling counterargument, and I don't have a way of challenging it i will concede the point, and change my view.

Originally posted by signal2noise

Originally posted by pascalt
Manning is a hero, exposing War crimes, but the people making war crimes are still free, while he is tortured in jail. This is so wrong

War crimes? Tortured in prison?

Really? Do tell......

Well, do Read, do Research, do your home work?

In April, 295 scholars signed a letter published in the New York Review of Books objecting to the conditions of Manning's detention. Signatories included Yochai Benkler and Laurence Tribe of Harvard Law School and Bruce Ackerman of Yale Law School. The letter said the conditions of the detention were a violation of the U.S. Constitution, specifically the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, and the Fifth Amendment's guarantee against punishment without trial, and that if the conditions continued they might amount to a violation of the criminal statute against torture: "procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality."[47]

en.wikipedia.org...

Do not tell me this is not torture. You guys maybe live in the USA and think torture is only the old style WW2 torture, but you need to wake up if that's the case, and stop watching your horrible movies.

As to revealing war crimes.... Have you seen the number 1 famous video revealed by Wikileaks?

I have seen US soliders laughing and enjoying killing innocent citizens and journalists from an helicopther/drone.

There are so many more in the leaks, but I am not going to educate you guys today, because I dislike educating people who do not care about human rights. ENJOY!

When someone like me sees someone say manning is not being tortured, i look it up. I see that solitary has not been classed as torture yet, so i concede the point and say in writing i concede it as i did above. Similarly i repeatedly acknowledged that manning had committed a crime under US law and as such is subject to punishment under it. That is intellectual honesty.

You right too much to say toot little. US law is horribly broken, he has committed a crime that was a crime he had to commit to fight against such broken system, a system that killed more HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of civilians. You probably live in your comfy house in the US. You do not know what it would like to be bombed by another nation and lose many of your family members to a crime you did not commit.

Oh, sorry I forgot you guys indeed got bombed on 9/11 ? One more lie I guess. Too many lies. Not enough love. STOP THE WAR! STOP THE CRIMES!

On US warcrimes:

"The best-known free-fire zone has been Fallujah. In April 2004, four Blackwater Security Consulting mercenaries were killed in Fallujah, and their bodies were mutilated. In retaliation, US forces attacked the village and killed 736 people. At least 60% of them were women and children, according to independent journalist Dahr Jamail..."
pg 51-52

"Collective punishment against an occupied population constitutes a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Yet according to the Study Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, the US attack on Fallujah in November 2004 killed between 4000 and 6000 civilians. During the assault, Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein saw American soldiers "open fire on the houses" and US helicopters fire on and kill people, including a family of five, who tried to cross the river. "A large number of people including children were killed by American snipers," and civilians who remained in Fallujah "appeared to have been seen as complicit in the insurgency," the Independent (UK) reported."
pg 52

"Army Captain Paul Fowler of the 1st Infantry Division said, "I really hate that it had to be destroyed. But that was the only way to root these guys out.... The only way to root them out is to destroy everything in your path.""
pg 52

"Like other grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, these acts are punishable under the US War Crimes Act."
pg 52

"On November 19, 2005, one year after they fought in Fallujah, Marines from Kilo Company killed 24 unarmed civilians in Haditha, Iraq, "execution-style," in a three- to five-hour rampage."
pg 54

"The Marine Corps paid $38,000 in compensation to relatives of the victims according to a report in the Denver Post. These types of payments are made only to compensate for accidental deaths inflicted by US troops. This was a relatively large amount, indicating that Marines knew something was not right during that operation, according to Mike Coffman, the Colorado state treasurer who served in Iraq recently as a Marine reservist. In effect, the compensation was hush money."
pg 55

"Allegations that US troops have engaged in summary executions and willful killing in Iraq have also emerged from other Iraqi cities, including Qaim, Abu Ghraib, Taal Al Jal, Mukaradeeb, Mahmudiya, Hamdaniyah, Samarra, Salahuddin, and Ishaqi. There are similar accusations stemming from incidents in Afghanistan as well."
pg 58

-- Marjorie Cohn, Cowboy Republic - Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law, PoliPointPress: California, USA. 2007.

Americans are still allowed freedom to read books, right? I suggest that they should get on that before reading a critical book is punishable by re-education time.

Originally posted by pascalt
Do not tell me this is not torture. You guys maybe live in the USA and think torture is only the old style WW2 torture, but you need to wake up if that's the case, and stop watching your horrible movies.

Solitary confinement in prison. Wow, that's tough.

Originally posted by pascalt
As to revealing war crimes.... Have you seen the number 1 famous video revealed by Wikileaks?

You mean the video where the gunships waste a bunch of guys with AKs and RPGs and the dumbass journalists were caught in the crossfire. There's a saying for that: Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. And they won the big one.

Don't even want to get into the guy that decided it was, "Take your kids to war day". I do feel sorry for the kids, since they were innocents caught in the beaten zone.

Originally posted by signal2noise

Originally posted by pascalt
Do not tell me this is not torture. You guys maybe live in the USA and think torture is only the old style WW2 torture, but you need to wake up if that's the case, and stop watching your horrible movies.

Solitary confinement in prison. Wow, that's tough.

Originally posted by pascalt
As to revealing war crimes.... Have you seen the number 1 famous video revealed by Wikileaks?

You mean the video where the gunships waste a bunch of guys with AKs and RPGs and the dumbass journalists were caught in the crossfire. There's a saying for that: Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. And they won the big one.

Don't even want to get into the guy that decided it was, "Take your kids to war day". I do feel sorry for the kids, since they were innocents caught in the beaten zone.

What a load of BS.

Did you even watch the video? The Apache shot up the ambulance that was picking up the injured journalist. This is a war crime.

"Take your kids to war day". Hilarious. Tell that to the Iraqis in their home country that you invaded. What were they supposed to do, send their families to some other country during the fighting? Not as if there wasn't already six million Iraqi refugees that dispersed from Iraq due to the war. And most of these people joined the anti-American movement as a result of losing family to Americans.

reply to post by spocksleftear


Yeah.. you didn't bother reading my post nor the links provided. You told me to summarize it for you as you were to lazy to research it on your own, even after providing you the specific info to look at.

As for the rest I didn't eat crow and I didn't contradict anything I previously stated. If you do more research you will find material that delves into Manning's issues with the military in addition to mannings own words on the topic.

As I said, when you get around to researching and learning, feel free to jump back into this conversation.

Originally posted by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi
What a load of BS.

I completely agree with your statement when applied to your post here.

Originally posted by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi
Did you even watch the video? The Apache shot up the ambulance that was picking up the injured journalist. This is a war crime.

Apparently you didn't bother to watch the video either then. Secondly learn what a war crime is before throwing the word around.

Originally posted by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi
"Take your kids to war day". Hilarious.

Why is that funny? All we need to do is look at the situation in many Mideastern countries and we will find the use of children in combat roles / used as homicide bombers etc, looonnngg before the US was in the region. I find it amusing how you and the others are so ignorant to the facts when it comes to civilian deaths. To me it just reinforces my view that you guys dont care about the truth.. If you did you would be going after the governments in the Middle East as well, and since your not, your argument is clear.

Originally posted by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi
Tell that to the Iraqis in their home country that you invaded. What were they supposed to do, send their families to some other country during the fighting?

If that had been an option im sure they would have. But since Saddam was gung ho on killing his own people, they could not leave the country prior to US military action. Again though bravo on ignoring history while trying to blame everything on the US. Apparently you are ok with insurgents intentionally targeting civilians to run up the body count in order to blame the US. Actually you completely ignored that part, instead opting to lay all of the deaths on the US door step.

Going back to the old distorting / ignoring facts that dont support your argument.

Originally posted by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi
Not as if there wasn't already six million Iraqi refugees that dispersed from Iraq due to the war. And most of these people joined the anti-American movement as a result of losing family to Americans.

Speaking of BS....

Are you at any point going to research all of the records that were seized when Baghdad fell that documented the war crimes of Saddam Hussein? Or do you ignore those because it would not allow you to blame the US for everything?

Originally posted by Xcathdra
reply to post by spocksleftear

 

Yeah.. you didn't bother reading my post nor the links provided. You told me to summarize it for you as you were to lazy to research it on your own, even after providing you the specific info to look at.

As for the rest I didn't eat crow and I didn't contradict anything I previously stated. If you do more research you will find material that delves into Manning's issues with the military in addition to mannings own words on the topic.

As I said, when you get around to researching and learning, feel free to jump back into this conversation.

Providing the specific info to look at? You pointed me to 6-800 pages of material and said 'when you read this you will see i am right'. Sorry, but that is not establishing a position.

If you were a bible thumper in a religious debate and stated, yeah well read the bible cover to cover, then the koran cover to cover and when you do you will see i am right i would reject it just as quickly for the exact same reason. You are stating positions but providing no specific proof of their validity. You say you did not eat crow yet you made repeated claims about my position which were proven to be false, but you never address that these were proven to be false. And you have dodged that every time it has been brought up. Then, once again you jump again to saying if i read what you have read i will have your opinion. So again, you don't make an argument you just state a bias and refused to drop the facts to back it up.

You can post in this topic as much as you like, telling people to cite their sources all the while telling people to read thousands of pages of material to reach your apparent higher mental state and comprehend your great wisdom. But until you back up your positions with citation, everything that you type is worthless and your opinions are worthless. This 700 pages of text says I am right is not going to cut it as a bar of proof for your argument. You are under the same obligations as others here, who like Dimitri Dzengalshlevi and myself drop citations, otherwise you are setting a double standard (sore point for you i know) of proof.

So again.

You state that the US did not break their obligations under CAT.

Please state with citation your argument as to why this is so. I have stated with citation why i think they have, unless you can counter argue with citation, your rejection of my position is invalid. I should note that i am beginning to wonder if your argument that they have not broken CAT holds any merit at all due to your repeated avoidance on providing citation on this issue. And don't hesitate to cite your proof for your painting of mannings position while you are at it. And of course, lets not forget your obligation of cited proof that i believe bradley manning should not be punished, that the law should only apply to countries i like etc.

I'm waiting.