35 years for Bradley Manning.

[Audley Strange]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23784288

Well, he'll (she'll?!) not do that again in a hurry.

[laklak]

With credit for time served (3 years) he is eligible for parole in about 11 years.

[Blind groper]

We should be rewarding, not punishing, whistle blowers. The fact that he embarrassed a lot of political deadheads should be celebrated.

[Warren Dew]

We should be rewarding, not punishing, whistle blowers.

True, but it has nothing to do with the Manning case.

[Cormac]

We should be rewarding, not punishing, whistle blowers.

True, but it has nothing to do with the Manning case.

Yes it does.

For example, the video footage of the helicopter crew murdering those journalists.

[pErvinalia]

I don't know where I sit with the Bradley Manning issue. If it was just that helicopter footage, then I'd back him as a whistle blower perhaps. But he copied and dumped heaps of files that he had no idea of whether there were illegal activities shown in them.

[Tyrannical]

We should be rewarding, not punishing, whistle blowers.

True, but it has nothing to do with the Manning case.

Yes it does.

For example, the video footage of the helicopter crew murdering those journalists.

It was one journalist, and he seemed to be a little to cozy with the rebels armed with an RPG and machine gun. I suspect the "journalist" was working with the rebels and was a legitimate target and not just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

[pErvinalia]

The real problem was firing on the first responders (including children). Technically not allowed to do that.

[redunderthebed]

"The decisions that I made in 2010 were made out of a concern for my country and the world that we live in. Since the tragic events of 9/11, our country has been at war. We’ve been at war with an enemy that chooses not to meet us on any traditional battlefield, and due to this fact we’ve had to alter our methods of combating the risks posed to us and our way of life.
I initially agreed with these methods and chose to volunteer to help defend my country. It was not until I was in Iraq and reading secret military reports on a daily basis that I started to question the morality of what we were doing. It was at this time I realized in our efforts to meet this risk posed to us by the enemy, we have forgotten our humanity. We consciously elected to devalue human life both in Iraq and Afghanistan. When we engaged those that we perceived were the enemy, we sometimes killed innocent civilians. Whenever we killed innocent civilians, instead of accepting responsibility for our conduct, we elected to hide behind the veil of national security and classified information in order to avoid any public accountability.
In our zeal to kill the enemy, we internally debated the definition of torture. We held individuals at Guantanamo for years without due process. We inexplicably turned a blind eye to torture and executions by the Iraqi government. And we stomached countless other acts in the name of our war on terror.
Patriotism is often the cry extolled when morally questionable acts are advocated by those in power. When these cries of patriotism drown our any logically based intentions [unclear], it is usually an American soldier that is ordered to carry out some ill-conceived mission.
Our nation has had similar dark moments for the virtues of democracy—the Trail of Tears, the Dred Scott decision, McCarthyism, the Japanese-American internment camps—to name a few. I am confident that many of our actions since 9/11 will one day be viewed in a similar light.
As the late Howard Zinn once said, "There is not a flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people."
I understand that my actions violated the law, and I regret if my actions hurt anyone or harmed the United States. It was never my intention to hurt anyone. I only wanted to help people. When I chose to disclose classified information, I did so out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to others.
If you deny my request for a pardon, I will serve my time knowing that sometimes you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society. I will gladly pay that price if it means we could have country that is truly conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all women and men are created equal


Sadly those high ideals have being subverted by those who just want power and money.

[Ian]

We should be rewarding, not punishing, whistle blowers.

True, but it has nothing to do with the Manning case.

Yes it does.

For example, the video footage of the helicopter crew murdering those journalists.

Is that what it showed? I disagree.

But if ALL he did was release that video, I might be a little sympathetic. But he went and released three quarters of a million documents he had no right to release, more than he ever could have sifted through or, given his young rank, even fully understood. That's not "whistleblowing". That's a helluva serious crime; if someone can't understand why, they're just not trying. A hefty prison sentence is what he deserves.

[Audley Strange]

His/Her lack of caution and wit was indeed criminal, whether we agree or not with the actions. I don't. Much of Diplomacy involves diplomacy, this means not expressing opinions you might hold in order to get something done. Diplomacy is what we do in order that we don't end up with more footage of helicopters shooting people. To expose so many e-mails could have been to destablise diplomatic relationships between the Western powers and the Middle East. They could have exposed Authorities in Middle Eastern countries to be in cahoots with the West which might have caused Islamist groups to radicalise in more than one country pulling the region into a array of civil wars.

Oh wait...

[Mysturji]

We should be rewarding, not punishing, whistle blowers.

True, but it has nothing to do with the Manning case.

Yes it does.

For example, the video footage of the helicopter crew murdering those journalists.

The fact that he also embarrassed a load of politicians is a bonus.

[Ian]

Manning is a hero only if you don't believe ambassadors and secretaries of state have any right to speak to each other or to their home governments in confidence. Otherwise, you're just holding him up as some idealized character rather than looking at what he did. A couple whistles might've been blown in the process of what he did, but his actions go way, way beyond mere whistleblowing. His actions were criminal.

I hear he's going to ask President Obama for a pardon. This is something Presidents usually do on their last day or week in office. Anyone want to bet on whether or not Manning gets one? I'd be happy to bet on No Way.

[mistermack]

Manning is a hero. This stuff about government privacy is bollocks, because of the crimes that have been committed, and covered up.
The US doesn't deserve privacy, when it's soldiers can murder with impunity. Privacy is a privilege, it's not deserved by murderers or people who cover up murder.
If Manning had been a German soldier, spilling the beans on Hitler, he wouldn't be treated as a criminal, or traitor.

The crimes of the US military completely justify his actions. How many more got covered up? We only know of a few, because the idiots filmed it.

By the way, it's official now. She's Chelsea.

Chelsea E. Manning[3][4] (born Bradley Edward Manning, December 17, 1987) is a United States Army soldier who was convicted in July 2013 of several violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses, after releasing the largest set of restricted documents ever leaked to the public. She was sentenced to 35 years in prison and dishonorably discharged.[1] She will be eligible for parole after serving one third of her sentence, and together with credits for time served and good behavior could be released eight years after sentencing.[5]

[Cormac]

We should be rewarding, not punishing, whistle blowers.

True, but it has nothing to do with the Manning case.

Yes it does.

For example, the video footage of the helicopter crew murdering those journalists.

Is that what it showed? I disagree.

But if ALL he did was release that video, I might be a little sympathetic. But he went and released three quarters of a million documents he had no right to release, more than he ever could have sifted through or, given his young rank, even fully understood. That's not "whistleblowing". That's a helluva serious crime; if someone can't understand why, they're just not trying. A hefty prison sentence is what he deserves.

If this is the case, then surely there is also an argument for clemency. 35 years seems an extraordinarily long time.