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Cut>While he was on leave from Iraq and staying in the Washington area in January 2010 he contacted the Washington Post and asked would it be interested in receiving information that he said would be "enormously important to the American people". He spoke to a woman who said she was a reporter but "she didn't seem to take me seriously".
The woman said, according to Manning's account, that the paper would only be interested subject to vetting by senior editors.
Despairing of that route, Manning turned to the New York Times. He called the public editor of the paper but only got voicemail.
He then tried other numbers on the paper but also got put through to voicemail, and though he left a message with his Skype contact details, nobody called him back. Manning added he had also contemplated going to the website Politico, but harsh weather prevented him.>Cut
FT. MEADE, Md. – Army Pfc. Bradley Edward Manning pleaded guilty Thursday to 10 charges that he illegally acquired and transferred U.S. government secrets, agreeing to serve 20 years in prison for leaking classified material to WikiLeaks that described U.S. military and diplomatic efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the globe.
The 25-year-old soldier, however, pleaded not guilty to 12 more serious charges, including espionage for aiding the enemy, meaning that his criminal case will go forward at a general court-martial in June. If convicted at trial, he risks a sentence of life in prison at Ft. Leavenworth, Kan.
Manning spoke for over an hour as he read from a 35-page document detailing and explaining his actions that drove him to disclose what he said he “believed, and still believe… are some of the most significant documents of our time.” He rarely grew emotional, with the exception of describing his alienation from his fellow soldiers in Iraq and his relationship with Julian Assange.
Manning described accessing, investigating and ultimately spiriting away and leaking military and diplomatic documents as consistent with his training as an intelligence analyst, attempting to put together a factual picture of complex events. He came to view much of what the Army told him — and the public — to be false, such as the suggestion the military had destroyed a graphic video of an aerial assault in Iraq that killed civilians, or that WikiLeaks was a nefarious entity.
The leaking came gradually, Manning explained — providing a window into the military’s poor data hygiene. While serving at Forward Operating Base Hammer in Iraq in 2009, Manning accessed, compressed and copied databases containing voluminous accounts of military activities in Iraq and Afghanistan, known as CIDNE-I and CIDNE-A.
“I never hid the fact that I downloaded copies of CIDNE-I and CIDNE-A” and burned them onto CDs, Manning said, even labeling and storing them “in the open” in his unit’s tactical operations center. Nor did he hide that he also downloaded compression software to facilitate the transfer, Manning said.
Originally posted by Xcathdra
Good info...
This has been up for a while now and no one from the Manning camp has chimed in... Is it because he is admitting to committing the crimes people said he did not commit?
If he is pleading guilty to the bulk of the charges then logic dictates he knows his actions were wrong. He knows his releasing of classified information was wrong and served no other purpose than to jeopradize operations. His goal, like wikileaks, is not to throw sunshine on the dark, but to use it to their own personal advantage.
This is supported by Assange and his actions... Asking for cash with the promise of releasing more info that never surfaces... Using the money from wikileaks to cover his own personal issues instead of furthering their "goal".
Manning... Assange.... 2 people who used the information for no legitimate reason other than revenge. Ironic really... since they chose the exact course of action they condem the US for.
Originally posted by GreenGlassDoor
Look, Manning screwed himself. He signed the papers for a security clearance and a non-disclosure agreement and you're only as good as your word.
If you think the US is engaged in evil (it wouldn't be the first time, especially if you look at the totality of American history) -don't work for them in any capacity.
I wouldn’t mind going to prison for the rest of my life, or being executed so much, if it wasn’t for the possibility of having pictures of me… plastered all over the world press… as boy…
Originally posted by Xcathdra
Good info...
This has been up for a while now and no one from the Manning camp has chimed in... Is it because he is admitting to committing the crimes people said he did not commit?
If he is pleading guilty to the bulk of the charges then logic dictates he knows his actions were wrong. He knows his releasing of classified information was wrong and served no other purpose than to jeopradize operations. His goal, like wikileaks, is not to throw sunshine on the dark, but to use it to their own personal advantage.
This is supported by Assange and his actions... Asking for cash with the promise of releasing more info that never surfaces... Using the money from wikileaks to cover his own personal issues instead of furthering their "goal".
Manning... Assange.... 2 people who used the information for no legitimate reason other than revenge. Ironic really... since they chose the exact course of action they condem the US for.
He knows his releasing of classified information was wrong and served no other purpose than to jeopradize operations. His goal, like wikileaks, is not to throw sunshine on the dark, but to use it to their own personal advantage.
He also pleaded not guilty to 12 of the 22 counts, including the most serious - the capital offense of "aiding and abetting the enemy", which could send him to prison for life - on the ground that nothing he did was intended to nor did it result in harm to US national security.
"Manning said he often found himself frustrated by attempts to get his chain of command to investigate apparent abuses detailed in the documents Manning accessed. . . ."
And he extensively narrated how he had learned of serious abuse and illegality while serving in the war - including detaining Iraqi citizens guilty of nothing other than criticizing the Malaki government - but was ignored when he brought those abuses to his superiors.
a then-22-year-old Army Private knowingly risked his liberty in order to inform the world about what he learned. He endured treatment which the top UN torture investigator deemed "cruel and inhuman", and he now faces decades in prison if not life.
Originally posted by bigdohbeatdown
How is it self serving? Sure he breach confidentiality / non-disclosure agreement, but he thought that the public interest in knowing what was happening in Iraq outweighed the bad..
Originally posted by bigdohbeatdown
He denies the espionage and aiding the enemy charges and quite rightly so. He's no worse than the people who leaked info on the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. The American people are being lied to and manning saw his duty to correct that lie. Manning is a patriot in the true sense of the word.