Manning stole hundreds of thousands of secrets and exposed them to the very same Wikileaks that "Trump is a traitor!" people point to as a known front for Russian intelligence. Manning did it knowing that it would expose our secrets to clear and present enemies -- jihadists who were killing our soldiers and Marines every day. He did this while wearing the uniform, under oath, a soldier deployed at war who was intentionally betraying his brothers in arms.
He should have been shot. He was already treated mercifully by the system by avoiding being tried as the traitor he is.
I will take no talk of "treason" seriously from anyone who celebrates this commutation. They don't understand the concept well enough to discuss it.
The "standard line" is that "none of what Manning released really hurt national security that badly, because it was only Secret". Which manages to both display a complete ignorance of what "Secret" means in context of national security (i.e. Secret is data which, if divulged, can cause grave harm to national security... by its very definition) as well as a very flippant disregard for the people where were KILLED due to the release of the information that Manning arranged. I speak of the Afghani villagers who had worked with and/or provided intel to US forces in Afghanistan whose identities were divulged in the info dump that Manning orchestrated. Afghanis who were rewarded for their efforts with Taliban bullets in their skulls after their "collaboration" was revealed on Wikileaks.
ReplyDeleteAnd let's all be honest here, does anyone honestly believe for a moment that Obama would have commuted this sentence (especially in context of the recent "Wikileaks is a Russian op" nonsense) if Manning were not transgender? Honestly?
It's just a setup for pardoning Snowden.
ReplyDeleteEric Hines
Snowden has better cause to ask.
ReplyDelete"Manning strikes me as someone who should have been shot by firing squad, while Snowden is not for me in the same category. The first is that Manning broke faith with other soldiers, so that there were not two but three duties involved: his duty to keep his oath, his duty to keep faith with other soldiers under fire, and (he apparently believed) his duty to his fellow citizens.
"The other thing that strikes me as an important difference between the Snowden case and the Manning case is the question of knowledge. One of the things that makes me believe that Manning is objectively worse is that he didn't even take the trouble to be sure just what he was releasing."
" Afghanis who were rewarded for their efforts with Taliban bullets in their skulls after their "collaboration" was revealed on Wikileaks."
ReplyDeleteYou forgot to add, "if they were lucky".
I suggest we bring back the Ye Old English penalty for treason.
Snowden has better cause to ask.
ReplyDeleteNo, he doesn't. He broke the same three faiths, if some more indirectly from in part his more indirect relationship with those he served and served with in their overseas posts.
Further, his "duty to his fellow citizens" has always been, in his mind, a sham. I'm not mindreading here; I'm watching his running away to two of our enemies and then taking up residence with one of them instead of staying home, or returning home from the first of his destinations, to make his case before "his fellow citizens" and before a jury of his peers.
One thing that makes Snowden worse is that Manning was arrested while on duty. Snowden is a fugitive actively avoiding arrest.
One of the things that makes me believe that Manning is objectively worse is that he didn't even take the trouble to be sure just what he was releasing.
This is the second thing that makes Snowden objectively worse. He did take the trouble to be sure just what he was releasing. And then he released it. Along with who knows what more now that he's resident in Russia.
Beyond any of that, a case could be made, however tenuously, that Manning with his gender identity problem didn't have his mind right at the time of his traitorous behavior. Snowden is completely sane and knows exactly what he did and what he's doing now. There is no "however tenuous" case regarding his mental soundness.
Eric Hines
Clearly, Mr. Hines, we disagree sharply on which of these men deserves to be shot more. I propose Kant's compromise on the subject of executions: shoot them both.
ReplyDeleteWE don't need to stop there. Aldrich Ames could form the third leg of the deterrence triad.
ReplyDeleteWell, Grim, given the finality of death and the bare possibility of infirm, I could live (now could have lived) with a sentence of life without parole for Manning. Leavenworth, as I recall, has facilities for each of the two nominal genders. I don't dispute the appropriateness of execution, however.
ReplyDeleteFor Snowden, only death would be suitable, perhaps under the circumstance via a sniper's bullet.
Eric Hines
Guilty as both are, and I'm all in favor of having Manning shot, along with most of his chain of command that allowed the guy to get so out of hand, but I'm more interested in working Snowden to find out who he did it for, and also how he did it so easily.
ReplyDeleteDo you remember the brouhaha over the "outing" of Valerie Plame?
ReplyDeleteWhat a sham.
This is when we need the services of the mob. The old school CIA that had the stones to do the deed. A man, tried and found guilty of national security offenses like this, should not be allowed to walk free on the whim of an outgoing president. He should be killed.
ReplyDelete- Krag
But I'm still supposed to hyperventilate over Putin hacking the DNC. Got it.
ReplyDeletePriorities, Tex. Priorities :p
ReplyDeleteWhat is national security compared to embarrassing the The People's Party?
Bwa ha ha ha!!! Some genius has finally figured out that Manning will lose his/her military medical benefits.
ReplyDeleteI was waiting for that one - nothing gets by these folks.
As every cloud does have a silver lining, consider that Manning has a dishonorable discahrge and will be out from under the care or supervision of the Military or corrections.
ReplyDeleteAs such, further hormone treatments or that surgery the shrinks already denied will have to be done with non-taxpayer funding. He'll have fun getting that.
Thanks for that, a little bit of a silver lining anyway.
ReplyDelete