WikiLeaks about to hit the fan

@spendius,

It's positively disgusting.

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@wandeljw,

Quote:

including aiding the enemy

You stupid fucks. There was no enemy. Y'all created another boogeyman, [unbelievably gullible dimwits is what you are] invaded two sovereign nations, committed innumerable war crimes, a level of terrorism that couldn't ever be matched by a thousand Al Qaedas.

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@JTT,

I wondered about that aiding the enemy bit.

When did Australia become an enemy of the U.S.?

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@wandeljw,

Quote:

He faces 22 counts, including aiding the enemy, for allegedly giving more than 700,000 secret U.S. documents to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

I'm also not exactly clear about the definition of "the enemy" here.
The way I see things, Bradley Manning supplied information to Wikileaks that we had every right to know about. (similar to the Watergate disclosures, if you like.)
I have learned quite a lot that I would otherwise not have known about what my own government has been up to (say nothing of other governments) & should have informed us about .... & for that I've been grateful.
I guess, as the recipients of that information, which we were not supposed to have access to, that makes us "enemies", or perhaps collaborators, too?
Say nothing of the likes of the NYT, the Guardian, Der Spiegel, etc, etc, which published that information.
Were they "enemies", too?

Quote:

Prosecutors say WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange collaborated with Manning.

Really?
Almost exclusively the basis of Adrian Lamo's say so?
Incredible, absolutely incredible!
But, as many have already speculated, I believe that it's Julian Assange that the US is actually after.
And that the Manning "trial" will be used for that very purpose.
Poor vulnerable young man, to be in this hideous position, I fear for him.

-

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@msolga,

It in the end it does not matter as the man broke his oath and the law and will be spending most of the rest of his life at hard labor.

Oh and rightly so.....................

I do not think that Julian Assange sadly who played Manning as a fool and a tool will get charge by the Us government however.

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@BillRM,

Quote:

as the man broke his oath

There's no oath that requires anyone to cover for war criminals/terrorists/criminals and that's exactly what US governments, the US military, US media are.

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@BillRM,

Agreed.

I think he did something very stupid and damaging, but even if his motives were pure, he still violated his oath and broke the law.

His court martial is not intended to put the laws he broke on trial (although I suspect it will be some aspect of the defense strategy to do so), but to determine whether or not he broke them.

Clearly he did.

I would have far more respect for him if he stood up in court and admitted his crimes, and declared that while he's not sorry for them and would commit them again, if given the chance, he doesn't deny them and is prepared to pay the price of breaking his oath and the law.

That would be heroic. It would also be misguided, but it would be heroic.

Instead we can expect him to allow his defense team to try every trick in the book to get him off. I'd like to be proven wrong, but I doubt I will be.

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@BillRM,

My understanding is that Bradley Manning offered the information he had access to, to Wikileaks.

But anyway ....

I wonder if the sheer negligent sloppiness of security of these "top secret" US files will be the subject of some sort of enquiry or "trial" ..... which the public will have access to?
There's quite a bit to answer for there.
If the state department was so concerned about confidential information getting into the "wrong hands" & possibly jeopardizing the safety of informants, then surely that could have been avoided?
The information was way to easy to access , obviously.

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@JTT,

Wow, now the US media are war criminals!

The wound festered further while you were in seclusion I see.

I suppose you are ready willing and able to assert that every bit of classified information leaked by Pvt Manning had something to do with war crimes (even if we accept your expansive definition of same).

Of course you can't, but even if we allow that 90% of the material was hidding American war crimes, that would still leave 10% that couldn't be so classified and which the brave private, nevertheless, illegally leaked.

But I guess you're OK with someone who fires into a crowd containing suspected war criminals and kills innocent people, as long as most of the dead were the evil war criminals.

Never mind the innocent dead, the guy who did the shooting was a hero!

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@msolga,

Since when is a criminal trial the vehicle for an investigation of the adequacy of safeguards?

I agree that Pvt Manning should never have been able to easily leak classified information, but what relevance does that have in his trial? If an investigation is too be conducted it should be totally separate from Manning's trial.

Do you imagine his defense will assert that he's not to blame because the government made it too easy for him to commit the crime?

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

But I guess you're OK with someone who fires into a crowd containing suspected war criminals and kills innocent people, as long as most of the dead were the evil war criminals.

Never mind the innocent dead, the guy who did the shooting was a hero!

When you finally engage, Finn, why do you advance a ludicrous argument.

So, no to the above, but we must note and you've made it painfully obvious, Finn, many times, that you are perfectly content with the millions that have been slaughtered by US terrorism/US war crimes.

I guess you are okay with that.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

Since when is a criminal trial the vehicle for an investigation of the adequacy of safeguards?

It's called accountability, Finn.
I said I was wondering whether the incredibly sloppy security of the US embassy files would be subject to an enquiry (or a "trial"... tongue in cheek).
I think the public has every right to know why security was so amateurish & who was responsible.
Fair enough?
I recall Australia's previous prime minister (Rudd) expressing his anger publicly at the the sloppiness of US security measures, which made access to what he believed was confidential information, so readily accessible.
I doubt Bradley Manning was the only person who accessed these embassy files. Possibly the "enemies" of the US did, too, for all we know?

Quote:

Do you imagine his defense will assert that he's not to blame because the government made it too easy for him to commit the crime?

I imagine that his defence will argue (amongst other things, of course) that a clearly disturbed young man (who should have received appropriate treatment, not left at his post) was able to access this information very easily.

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@msolga,

Quote:

I wonder if the sheer negligent sloppiness of security of these "top secret" US files will be the subject of some sort of enquiry or "trial" ..... which the public will have access to?

According to Fox or CBS "News", I get mixed up because they are both daft, 15 people have been "disciplined". One has actually been reduced a rank.

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@spendius,

Quote:

I agree that Pvt Manning should never have been able to easily leak classified information, but what relevance does that have in his trial?

It has a relevance if his superiors thought he was a "mess of a child" which is what he looks like when being escorted to the mat in the headmaster's office, where no actual contact with the enemy is allowed.

An enemy on its own land which our top intelligence chief informed the the various parties was noted for skinning alive captured Russian soldiers. He didn't say what they did with them after they were skinned.

A "mess of a child" in that sort of night muck sweat. Night after night thousands of miles from his hometown and his loved ones. The investigation and prosecuting officers can afford to be sane and dutiful. They go home every night to have their underpants washed and creased according to accepted dress codes. And their twenty tons of medals polished.

I can't see a Special Forces officer being a party to that sort of ****. Or Yossarian or Orr.

Bradley is a ******* bone with fragments of meat still clinging to it.

1 Reply

@spendius,

And if Brad hadn't read what Mr Scarlett said about Taliban one of the Afghan skivvies will have given him the drift.

People who do that should be pissed on imo.

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@BillRM,

Quote:

the rest of his life at hard labor.

That's just a phrase to you Bill. As such it might easily serve as due retribution for Brad going nuts. But do you really think that the actuality of a life at hard labour, starting at his age, is due retribution?

No Christian would think it so.

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@spendius,

I wonder how many "real" christians were involved in the slave trade? Mr. Green

Quote:

The Atlantic slave trade

The Bible and slavery

Like most holy books, the Bible can be used to support particular viewpoints, and slavery is no exception. There are numerous references to slavery in the Bible which can be interpreted to condemn or condone this practice, and even those verses which appear unambiguous, are far from clear when scrutinised.

For instance, scriptural passages from the Old Testament books of Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy which appear to denounce slavery actually condemn enslavement in certain circumstances rather than slavery in general. On the other hand, although St Paul's New Testament epistles fail to condemn slavery, they argue that slaves must be treated fairly as 'brethren'.

spendi, Do you remember how I mentioned "contradictions" in the bible? This is but another example.

You're never confused?

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@spendius,

Yes as he did harm to the US ability to had frank conversations with both friends and even enemies that will last far far into the future.

Hard labor seems about right as he was surely brief concerning his responsibilities in handling classified materials and the punishment for breaking those rules and laws.

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@msolga,

msolga wrote:

The way I see things, Bradley Manning supplied information to Wikileaks that we had every right to know about. (similar to the Watergate disclosures, if you like.)

I'm not sure of the exact information that was in the 700,000 documents, but depending, I'm also not sure that we (the general public) have a 'right' to know about it.

If a soldier in Australia conspired to make public a list of ASIS operatives (their names and whereabouts worldwide), or the chemical and manufacturing details of the Australian military's stealth technology, or the ASIS' current briefings concerning al-Qaeda or Australian Hezbollah cells, it's entirely possible that information could put lives at risk and seriously compromise the mechanisms put in place for Australia's defense.

If any of that type of information was included, it wouldn't matter that Pvt. Manning didn't give it directly to someone like Zawahiri or Mullah Omar. He knew of Wikileaks plans to publicize it, or at least provide it to principal newspapers around the world.

He might deny that part, though (that he knew what Assange was going to do with it).

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@Irishk,

Quote:

If a soldier in Australia conspired to make public a list of ASIS operatives (their names and whereabouts worldwide), or the chemical and manufacturing details of the Australian military's stealth technology, or the ASIS' current briefings concerning al-Qaeda or Australian Hezbollah cells, it's entirely possible that information could put lives at risk and seriously compromise the mechanisms put in place for Australia's defense.

You have to consider the morality surrounding the plans of these covert operatives. I'm not sure that Australia is the best example though, considering their "attachment" to the US; they too may well have some that are as dirty/immoral as the US's own CIA.

Quote:

In a recent story in the San Francisco Examiner, researcher Kathy Kadane quotes CIA and State department officials who admit compiling lists of names of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI), making those lists available to the Indonesian military, and checking names off as people were "eliminated.'' The killings were part of a massive bloodletting after an abortive coup attempt taking, according to various estimates, between 250,000 and 1,000,000 lives and ultimately led to the overthrow of President Sukarno's government.

This is just one example of hundreds that require that there be oversight of government policies/clandestine activities.

As a moral person, you really have to question how anyone can support these types of illegal and highly immoral covert actions. The free hand given to the US government by its citizenry has resulted in the deaths of millions of innocents worldwide.

Covert actions, that are in reality, nothing more than terrorist actions do not deserve any kind of protection.

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WikiLeaks about to hit the fan

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