35 years for Bradley Manning.

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Cormac
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Re: 35 years for Bradley Manning.

Post by Cormac » Fri Aug 23, 2013 3:20 pm

Ian wrote: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.

I'm fairly sure he won't be pardoned.

The thing is though, individual emails are easily explained away using the old "it has been taken out of context" malarkey. However, we in Ireland saw clearly how our own politicians were lying directly to us about our collusion in the kidnapping flights that passed through Shannon airport.

I personally witnessed multiple breaches of our laws by US soldiers passing through Shannon (not that I'd blame them personally!). But I saw soldiers in the airport lounge with gun sleeves hung over their shoulders. I presume these were snipers. Those were definitely rifles. The law that provides for transition of foreign military through our airports stipulates that these soldiers may not be armed.

Also, I saw US soldiers outside the airport in uniform. This is also in breach of the law that provides for transition, afaik.

We know that kidnapped persons transitioned through Shannon Airport. The government and police here said that they could not search the aircraft without a formal complaint and without good reason to suspect that there was a kidnapping victim on board. This was complete bullshit, and for many years this went on.

During that period, GW Bush visited the Shannon region, as part of the usual US presidential electoral shennanigans to get the Irish-American vote. Bush was in Ireland for a few hours. Our military blockaded the airport, and ALL approach roads, and created a militarised corridor from Shannon to Dromoland Castle (20-30 miles away) inside which no Irish person that was not resident was allowed, and definitely no protesters were allowed.

This was an unprecedented suppression of Irish civil rights and a direct support for a foreign power's war efforts by our state in breach of our neutrality. It was outrageous and it remains outrageous.

Some of the wikileaks revealed clearly the fact that Irish politicians were conspiring against our people and our constitution and our laws with a foreign power.

So, all in all, I'm not too upset with Manning.

And, by the way, I am very fond of the USA, and I'm even more fond of American people. I'm deeply suspicious of governments, military, and security agencies in general. The more secret they are, the more suspicious the average citizen should be, as far as I am concerned.

And the more the nonsensical sugar-coated fairy tales that are used for propaganda are washed away and replaced with cold hard facts, the closer we'll get to grown up and adult conversations about policies and their implementation.
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Re: 35 years for Bradley Manning.

Post by Robert_S » Fri Aug 23, 2013 3:21 pm

Cormac wrote:
Ian wrote:
Cormac wrote:
Warren Dew wrote:
Blind groper wrote: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.
But he must have been able to understand that he couldn't understand, much the same way that I understand that I can't decipher a word of Mandarin Chinese.

Nah, If you're going to break the law in a good cause, then you need to hold yourself to a standard of accountability and morality that is an order of magnitude higher than the law.

Information is potentially a weapon. You have to be careful who you're passing out weapons to.
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Re: 35 years for Bradley Manning.

Post by Tyrannical » Fri Aug 23, 2013 3:46 pm

Mysturji wrote:
Cormac wrote:
Warren Dew wrote:
Blind groper wrote: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.
:this:
The fact that he also embarrassed a load of politicians is a bonus.
I know, liberals were quick to jump on that until the facts came out. They usually don't mention the story anymore because the facts left them looking like such idiots. Oh hey, I'm a journalist. Nice RPG you have there :hehe:
A rational skeptic should be able to discuss and debate anything, no matter how much they may personally disagree with that point of view. Discussing a subject is not agreeing with it, but understanding it.

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Re: 35 years for Bradley Manning.

Post by Warren Dew » Sat Aug 24, 2013 3:07 am

Cormac wrote:
Warren Dew wrote:
Blind groper wrote: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 killing - not murder - of the journalists was made public on a military web site within days of the occurrence, long before Manning released the video. The only thing the video added was information about the performance of our gunships, which could be used against our military forces.

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Re: 35 years for Bradley Manning.

Post by Blind groper » Sun Aug 25, 2013 10:36 pm

Manning embarassed a lot of corrupt politicians. That fact alone makes him a hero.

I do not believe in secrecy. The increase in transparency can only improve the health of our democracies and fight against inground corruption. When the citizenry know what politicians, diplomats, and the armed forces are up to, there is a major disincentive for them to behave in unethical ways.

The only military secrets that must remain secret are those that are temporary. Plans to defend an establishment against enemy attack tend to become obsolete quickly. Long term secrets tend to be secret because they are protecting some corrupt person. The more light on them, the better.

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Re: 35 years for Bradley Manning.

Post by Ian » Sun Aug 25, 2013 11:38 pm

I get so sick of people projecting their own beliefs onto what he did. That's all this is. I keep hearing "...that alone makes him a hero". Which is just a way of saying "I don't want to consider everything about the case, just what parts I think I like."

He's not even close to a hero. To be honest, I'm personally upset that he could be free seven or eight years from now. What he did was utterly despicable, a betrayal of thousands of people who work to keep international diplomacy from falling to pieces. "I do not believe in secrecy" is a shortcut to saying you really don't understand the way diplomacy works or why.

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Re: 35 years for Bradley Manning.

Post by Blind groper » Mon Aug 26, 2013 1:22 am

Ian

The fault was not Mannings for revealing that American diplomats despised Sarkozy (and others). The fault was with those diplomats who were so incompetent they could not hide the fact that they despised him.

Incompetent diplomats need to have their failings revealed so that those above them can deliver the Order of the Boot. Secrecy is rarely good.

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Re: 35 years for Bradley Manning.

Post by Ian » Mon Aug 26, 2013 3:31 am

How lame is that?! BG, if your employee secretly photocopies your company's private files, files he had access to and signed an oath to keep confidential, and hands them to someone else, are you going to blame yourself for your incompetence? Maybe a bit (which will only mean your company is going to institute tighter security, but that's just one of the many fallout factors), but you're going to blame the employee. He did what he did. He went through federal background checks, had months of training before even coming to work for you, literally raised his hand and swore to act honorably, and then it's your fault he did what he did?

I think people are so eager to jump at the chance at blaming "incompetent politicians" that they whitewash what the disaffected young jerk really did. I suppose it doesn't matter to you that he apologized and talked about how much he learned since his arrest? Nah, it feels better to root for the troubled kid who slapped the big bad US.

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Re: 35 years for Bradley Manning.

Post by pErvinalia » Mon Aug 26, 2013 5:04 am

Ian wrote:I get so sick of people projecting their own beliefs onto what he did. That's all this is. I keep hearing "...that alone makes him a hero". Which is just a way of saying "I don't want to consider everything about the case, just what parts I think I like."

He's not even close to a hero. To be honest, I'm personally upset that he could be free seven or eight years from now. What he did was utterly despicable, a betrayal of thousands of people who work to keep international diplomacy from falling to pieces. "I do not believe in secrecy" is a shortcut to saying you really don't understand the way diplomacy works or why.
It's interesting to consider, though, what would actually happen if every nation was full of leakers and whistleblowers. That is, no nation had any secrets. How bad would it actually be? I haven't thought widely enough about it, so I couldn't really begin to list the "cons". But it strikes me that you and others who get frothy at the "no secrets" ethos, seem to only consider it from one isolated nation's side. That is, if say the US had to have no secrets, but everyone else did, then you would be right, it would be ridiculous. But consider if no nation had any secrets. What would happen then?
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Re: 35 years for Bradley Manning.

Post by Blind groper » Mon Aug 26, 2013 5:57 am

If no nation had any secrets, imagine the level of honesty.

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Re: 35 years for Bradley Manning.

Post by pErvinalia » Mon Aug 26, 2013 6:04 am

Yeah, that's definitely one of the "pros". My only fear is that weaker nations might get taken advantage of more if they couldn't make it seem like they were acting from a greater position of strength.
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Re: 35 years for Bradley Manning.

Post by Sean Hayden » Mon Aug 26, 2013 6:33 am

Audley Strange wrote: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...
Yes, I often wonder why more discussion about the jobs of individuals involved in these crimes is not given in the reports about what they've done? That is to say that their unique circumstances -if they are all that unique really- don't seem to be part of the popular discussion at all.

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Re: 35 years for Bradley Manning.

Post by JimC » Sun Oct 20, 2013 10:00 am

rEvolutionist wrote:
Ian wrote:I get so sick of people projecting their own beliefs onto what he did. That's all this is. I keep hearing "...that alone makes him a hero". Which is just a way of saying "I don't want to consider everything about the case, just what parts I think I like."

He's not even close to a hero. To be honest, I'm personally upset that he could be free seven or eight years from now. What he did was utterly despicable, a betrayal of thousands of people who work to keep international diplomacy from falling to pieces. "I do not believe in secrecy" is a shortcut to saying you really don't understand the way diplomacy works or why.
It's interesting to consider, though, what would actually happen if every nation was full of leakers and whistleblowers. That is, no nation had any secrets. How bad would it actually be? I haven't thought widely enough about it, so I couldn't really begin to list the "cons". But it strikes me that you and others who get frothy at the "no secrets" ethos, seem to only consider it from one isolated nation's side. That is, if say the US had to have no secrets, but everyone else did, then you would be right, it would be ridiculous. But consider if no nation had any secrets. What would happen then?
However, given a fairly standard, cynical view of human nature, such a situation is very unlikely.

Given the existence of competing tribes/institutions/nations, they will always vie for the advantage that accrues from being secret within, but knowing as many of the secrets of the other tribe as possible. To think otherwise is to have a delusional view of hominid nature...

It is quite understandable that Ian and others would get emotional about "betrayal". It is also a valid perspective that knowing the machinations of a dominant power is of great value to the rest of us...

Transactional ethics applies in such situations...
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Re: 35 years for Bradley Manning.

Post by Warren Dew » Sun Oct 20, 2013 10:02 pm

Reduced to digging in the graveyard to find things to comment on?

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Re: 35 years for Bradley Manning.

Post by JimC » Sun Oct 20, 2013 11:17 pm

Warren Dew wrote:Reduced to digging in the graveyard to find things to comment on?
:zombie:

It's funny, when I looked back over a few pages of my unread posts, I found a whole lot of OP's that I would have been interested in posting about; they must of been during my "downtime", and sunk out of view before my next session...
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