Originally posted by projectvxn
reply to post by The0nlytruth
He took an oath PROMISED to obey the UCMJ and the NDA he signed. Then he knowingly and willfully violated it
Or is a man's word not worth anything? Why sign up for the US Army if you don't like the US? Unless of course, he always had the motives.
Oaths are important, there is no doubt. But doing what is right trumps an oath. It is a common film plot vehicle: The hero gets into some sort of
organization with the intention to do good but then finds out that he is doing more harm to the public by being a part of that organization so he
turns on them.
When Nazis defected to the US, did we chastise them for breaking their oath to Hitler?
Originally posted by projectvxn
You want to talk about the importance of human lives. What about all the efforts and operations he released info on that put real people in danger? Or
do those people not matter in your eyes?edit on 30-11-2012 by projectvxn because: (no reason given)
Killing civilians "put real people in danger". Not only to the people we are shooting at but also to our relations. The more civilians we kill,
the more hostile the general populace is thus the more danger our troops are in. Not holding the bad apples accountable is tantamount to supporting
and encouraging those soldiers and their actions which, ultimately, cause casualties among fellow soldiers.
Manning did not give the information to the public, he gave it to Wikileaks. Then Wikileaks even redacted over 15,000 items in the name of national
security. This is
after the US government turned down their offer to work with them on deciding what not to share with the media. Then they
still didn't release it to the public but to carefully selected media outlets. Those outlets decided upon even
more redactions.
Selling stingers to the enemy who are now killing our soldiers with them? Dangerous to our troops and national security. Paying the Taliban
protection money in order to allow safe passage? Dangerous to our troops and national security. Those are only two of many national security issues
that had to be placed under scrutiny because of the release of information. Because of that, steps and measures were placed to improve operations.
This is ultimately
saving lives.
The only group the documents potentially endangered were Afghans who were named. Compare this to the thousands of Afghan civilians who die every year
(almost 25% of those are killed by pro-coalition forces) due to the war and it becomes a bit silly to bring up.
The point is that we can all agree that Manning's imprisonment is lawful but we should not gloss over the fact that it is not just. I think that the
negative light his actions placed on our invasion efforts slowed our colonization and prevented many more useless deaths.
I think in hindsight, Manning will be a human rights folk hero in our grandchildrens' school text books.