I am off the grid today, but I wanted to give you a thread to discuss the Bradley Manning verdict.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Not sympathetic to Manning, except for the abuse he suffered.
But that’s a bullshit sentence.
Too long, by about a decade and a half.
This is our America. No one powerful is ever held accountable for anything, anyone without power is subject to arbitrary and/or extreme punishment. Our elites continue to fail.
I am sympathetic to Bradley Manning. I’m not sure there is anymore to be said, but in my opinion he has served enough time already.
He was a soldier and broke the law. A really important law. And military justice isn’t terribly forgiving. But 15 years would have been plenty.
Except for rapists. And killers like Lt. Calley.
Basically, me too. Although from what I’m reading he will serve no more than 10 total, including what he has already served.
He is a soldier, not a civilian, and gave up certain rights when he entered the military. He agreed to abide by their rules. He himself has said he expected to suffer consequences for violating the law. For those of you who consider him courageous, that’s the courageous part.
In the end, I don’t see how any reasonable person can expect that the government would just let him walk away. Yes, there are many other more powerful people that have gotten away with murder. That doesn’t mean this particular guy who spilled a boatload of classified info – however justified – will automatically get a free pass. The judge seems to have done their best here to reduce the consequences.
I’m hopeful he’ll get out even sooner, as his treatment has been horrific. But he will not spend “35 years” in prison (the most common headline today) by any means. He’ll have a long life outside and will hopefully be somebody who keeps the conversation about these subjects going.
To say that he will serve no more than 10 years is a stretch, as his sentence is 35 with no guarantee that he will be released then, even for “good behavior”. Does a civilian, even when he enlists, give up all his rights and responsibilities as a human being? Does it mean that all atrocities of war are allowable because it is war? Take Mai Lei for instance or the helicopter assassination of unarmed men and reporters that was released by Manning. Is it OK for you that atrocities are done for your protection? Was it not what they said at Nuremberg that the defense of I only followed orders was no real defense at all? It could be argued that he went too far. However, I think it is reasonable and admirable that a young man with no discernible reason for personal enrichment other than the good of society take upon such a risk. In my book he has already paid a tremendous price for a heroic act. I am glad he had a conscience and I admire him for it.
Strolling down memory lane
Oh, and what’s this?
Yep, the guy that did the right thing was the only one who went to jail. For all of the good things Obama’s actions and in-actions on civil liberties and the torture regime will also be part of his legacy.
True only for some values of ‘right’….
I keep telling you that he’s the black Bush.
And that’s why I keep paying no attention to what you say!
When I look back at the Bush years, the thing that really sticks out at me is the untoward leniency.
Yes, not a legacy to be proud of – at least in my opinion.
Obama DOJ Asks Court to Grant Immunity to George W. Bush For Iraq War | War Is A Crime .org
Nobel Peace Prize laureate just protecting some of his own while he pursues the nemesis of the secrets of “the club.” How many so far have been silenced, locked up, in hiding, and/or died?
Hey, that’s right!
Barack Obama’s nuclear weapons talks with the Russians really were the greatest advancement for peace and disarmament that any person accomplished in 2009.
Thanks for keeping this in front of people. Nuclear weapons reduction is a very important issue that is all too often overlooked.
You know Joe, you have some very smart comments. But your slavish devotion to Obama (like your slavish devotion to Tim Tebow on LGM) really blinds you.
I’m going to post the link to the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Announcement and paste the text below. This isn’t the first time you’ve pretended that the peace prize was all about nuclear weapons. Yes, the committee did “attach special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons”, but that was NOT what the prize was about. Read it all. (No, not you, Joe. You’re too blind to see. I mean the others.) And view it in light of what has transpired since the prize was awarded.
Is there anyone here besides Joe who thinks the Nobel Prize committee would do this award again knowing what they know now?
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2009/press.html
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.
Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.
Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.
For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world’s leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama’s appeal that “Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges.”
Yawn.
How about my slavish devotion to nuclear arms reduction?
I remember in the good old days when that was something that mattered to True Progressives Who Are So Much More Principled Than Me, And Don’t Just Say Things Because Of An Opinion About Obama.
And by “the good old days,” I mean “right up until the day the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded.”
But you’re the one who puts principle above personality; we can tell by how many times you talk about me.
The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations.
Another big thing is the lack of compassion shown by not using presidential pardons/commutation.
There are too many people rotting away for no good reason. Far too many with felony convictions that were plea bargained for that should be allowed to find decent employment, vote, etc. again.
BO has done less with those powers than any previous president! Now that he is reelected what is the possible reason not too?
I’m waiting to see what happens during his last two years (and last two weeks).
Probably he will use his powers to pardon relatives of big campaign donors like Bill Clinton. Or maybe he will treat those donors like voters, i.e. take their money and then ignore them.
Adrian Lamo is ecstatic.
35 years seems harsh. He’s eligible for parole in 8 years, when he reaches age 33. That sounds about right. Hope, when the time comes, he gets parole.
There has to be significant deterrence against leaking classified documents. I know many object to the unfairness of Manning getting time when Cheney and others who have committed war crimes never get prosecuted. I agree that that sucks. But it doesn’t mean one who releases classified information shouldn’t be prosecuted either.
Do you have a good source on the parole?
Col. Morris Davis(who used to be chief prosecutor at Gitmo) via the Twitter machine
You can get an argument on that…
Not one that everyone will buy, but you can get an argument….
Eligible for parole in 12-15. That would be more appropriate..
I wasn’t in the room during the secret testimony about the consequences of the leaks, but 35 years seems seriously disproportionate for the gullible, starry-eyed 19-year-old kid.
Like the Rosenbergs getting death instead of Greenglass.
Public testimony seemed like a joke. Far as I could understand I. Lewis Libby did far more harm to national security for his 30 months commuted to zero.
The Libby commutation was a travesty.
I don’t know what was said in the closed testimony. The judge does. Absent clear and convincing evidence that the judicial process failed, I feel like we have to give it the benefit of the doubt.
Not so much a travesty as Mafia justice. Libby took a fall for King Richard the Bruce.
I tend to assume reflexively that if it’s a secret it’s because it’s embarrassing to somebody powerful. I know that’s simplistic but I don’t see much counterevidence. In my view PBO uses diplomatic secrecy very effectively (including with the House of Representatives, but it’s not working as well as 3-4 years ago), like the recent case of punishing the Egyptian generals. But most military secrecy seems idiotic. Or criminal, as we find out about it decades later. I’ll most likely be dead when the Manning case is unveiled so I’m venting.
Well, the gub’mint’s story was that Private Manning had catastrophically damaged our national security. If the the judge bought the story then this is the sort of onerous sentence one would expect. The stories must cohere. And of course the goal of deterrence is primary here and the military judge knows his “mission”. The sentence was basically the only unknown of the case.
So letting the cat out of the bag is being very, very brutally dealt with—by an admin our Right sees as the most lib’rul since La Grand Failure Carter. One can see the needs and priorities of our security state very clearly. I don’t think we’ll be hearing too much we aren’t supposed to hear in the years ahead….and I think it’s safe to say Mr Snowden ain’t ever gonna be comin’ back to these shores, haha.
Tells the world exactly what the US government considers acceptable and unacceptable. Lie, cheat, and trick us into war and torture, get a medal and/or a nice government retirement pension. Expose the truth, get tortured and thirty-five years.
Enablers of torture walk, people who lied us into war walk, bankers walk, CEO’s of Wall Street firms walk…………And Manning sits in prison for decades.
He might well deserve this sentence. But the inequality of punishments for equally illegal, egregious and damaging behaviors makes you wonder if there is any purpose in trying work within such a corrupt system. The system is owned; lock, stock and barrel, by the American oligarchy.
precisely—and I’ll wager you aren’t going to find too many military lawyers or crim law profs who think Manning “deserves this sentence”…but we’ll see.
This would be a good opportunity for Obama to be a mensch and pardon Manning, or at least commute the sentence.
I call irony.
Nope. I’m not saying I expect a pardon, but it would be the right thing to do.
Or actually, I think a commutation of the sentence would be appropriate, seeing as Manning did commit actual crimes. But he was clearly in over his head, and it’s hard to see how he could threaten national security now, whatever harm he may have done.
And it isn’t just the right thing, either, because I think going easy on Manning would be a politically smart move. If I was Obama I would be strongly motivated to convince people that I wasn’t going to send the Thought Police after them.
Well, it’s about as likely that Obama will pardon/commute as George W. Bush will go to Iraq to apologize for the war.
But, Obama pardoning George W Bush – if ever there was a serious threat of Bush actually being charged for his crimes – is the sort of act that would be very consistent with all he’s done to date.
Slimy Obama.
Why exactly would going easy on Manning be politically smart? I don’t see that there’s more than a very minor group of people who think Manning deserves leniency. I’m not sure that being in over his head or unlikely to threaten national security in the future entitles him to leniency.
Snowden, in comparison, is seen much more favorably by civil libertarians across party lines. Perhaps it’s because Manning wore the uniform and swore an oath. Maybe the identity issues make him appear unstable as opposed to committed to whistle-blowing. I’m not sure.
I would be more satisfied if all of his commanding non coms and/or officers were brought before the same court and court martialed for dereliction of duty. How does a private not face any discrepancy from his higher ups….Manning was a patsy and this kind of action erodes my thoughts even further into an abyss of mistrust of anything Pentagon.
From Charles P. Pierce:
He was treated that way deliberately by this government. He was treated that way because that is how this administration wanted him treated.
Ah. That must be why the commanding officer of the brig was removed and punished.
Because the orders came right from the White House, man.
Punished? You lie again. The truth
And exactly who was the CIC when this all transpired?
No way. Obama is the MOST PROGRESSIVE PRESIDENT EVAH!!!!
Why just look at his incredible commitment to fighting climate change:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/08/21/2499291/obama-major-coal-sales/
Well, we seem to have reached the Random Bad Shit About Obama stage of the argument early.
Typically, this means that the original anti-Obama assertion is being abandoned faster than a burning fuel barge.
I guess we’re done with the nonsense Mr. Pierce asserted.
Since we all knew you were going to show up and defend whatever actions Obama took I just through that out to bait you.
Don´t fret. I´m not following the discussion (if there really is one) but I know that Joe is always right, no matter what, even that I´m an antisemite, so so much the better for him, because, you know, he really does (n´t) come from Lowell. Fancy that.
I have no idea what any of that is supposed to mean.
Please don’t interpret this as a request that you explain.
…and after the “random bad shit ’bout Obama” phase, we move right into the “anyone who complains is an Obot” stage.
RIP defending Charles Pierce’s point.
You know, I really did put in the climate change link just for you, Joe. You are so predictable.
That makes you a troll – and really does drive home what politics is for you.
The issue of climate change is something that matters as something you can use to bother somebody on the internet.
Congratulations. You’re so awesome.
Oh, and Marie2 thinks that this: You know, I really did put in the climate change link just for you, Joe. You are so predictable.
Is an excellent comment.
This is what GreenCaboose wants this blog to be. This is what Marie2 wants this blog to be. They believe that the above comment is an excellent example of the discussion they want to see in the comment threads.
BooMan, is this what you want your blog to be?
Wow, you really don’t know dick about the military.
Do you know what being removed from a command for performance does to someone’s career?
And that’s before we even get to the hilarity of you accusing me of lying, after asserting without any evidence whatsoever that the administration ordered Manning to be mistreated.
You just aren’t good at getting things right, are you? It’s like you have a chip in your head that requires you to screw up any argument you make, and it really makes you angry.
I would have preferred his hanging from a tree.
Since that wasn’t in the cards, serving his full sentence would be fine by me.
Please clarify for the sake of the uninformed.
Theft and release of classified information. Indiscriminate release of service members’ information.
State Dept cables meant for private eyes busted for all the world to see.
Hang him up and be done with him.
bmaz, emptywheel: Bradley Manning’s Sentence, Parole and Appeal Implications
An analysis of the next legal steps and events.
he’ll be out in 10.
he should consider himself lucky
http://www.bradleymanning.org/learn-more/collateral-murder-video
Quinn Norton, Medium: Bradley Manning and the Two Americas
One in uniform, and one not, I’m guessing….
Click through and read it. Well done writing that exposes some issues that really have nothing to do with partisan politics at all.
So, to summarize, I guess it’s fair to say that the answer to the question “Can there be any world in which Manning is guilty as charged under the UMCJ and his sentence is egregiously overdone, especially considering the conditions he was held in pre-trial?” would be `No’…