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Bradley Manning (WikiLeaks Source) Given Hearing After 2 Years In Jail
TrueSatan writes "Finally, Bradley Manning's military court case starts. He's only had to wait 2 years to be heard. Manning claims that while remanded in custody in Iraq he 'passed out due to the heat' and 'contemplated suicide.' The United Nations special rapporteur on torture found Manning's detention was 'cruel and inhuman.' Manning wants the case against him to be dismissed because his pre-trial punishment was so severe. Manning's attorney, David Coombs, earlier released an 11-page letter detailing the conditions of Manning's confinement. Manning offered guilty pleas to minor charges, but not to spying, aiding American enemies or treason, and those pleas have been accepted by the judge."
One one had so much transparency has come from this but on the other so many terrible things COULD have happened. What needs to happen from this is a NON-military group be created to act as a place where individuals within the military can report situations without the public seeing everything. That group would then be charged to release appropriate information and act on those responsible for illegal acts.
The military is supposed to have these mechanisms internally but it doesn't work at this level.
He's lucky he is getting a case at all. Traitors should be subject to summary execution during wartime.
"Congress shall have power to ... declare War"
- http://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_A1Sec8.html
I don't recall seeing any Congressional declaration of war.
One thing to note on a courtmartial is acceptance of a plea on some charges does not mean you can't be tried on the others. His pretri detention was done in accordance with military law which differs from civilian in a number of ways, so even though his trial was not started as quickly as normal or that things were rough in Iraq may well have no impact on the outcome. What is key is Manning new the rules he agreeded to, was convinced to break them and now is on the hook for his actions.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Punishment. In civilized places we don't punish people. We attempt to rehabilitate them, and to prevent them from continuing to commit acts against others. But we don't punish them. The fact that the conditions that Manning has been held in equate to punishment, when he hasn't even had a trial and been convicted, is a disgrace. There should be outrage from the international community (at least those places that claim the labels "liberal" and "democratic").
Personally I'm not even convinced he leaked all that stuff. What did he get out of it? But props to whomever did leak those cables. It was a great service to the world. Highlighting hypocrisy by the US government, and also some of the nastiness done by other nations with the tacit support, and knowledge, of the US government.
Also, the pleas have not "been accepted by the judge" according to the BBC.
Why would he offer to plead guilty if he, as I suggest, didn't even do the crime? Because the conditions are so awful. It's long been the case that innocents have been tortured and then confessed. (I've been reading the Arabian Nights, and someone confessed to thieving because they were being beaten so much, and then they had their hand cut off. But they didn't actually do the crime.) Manning is being tortured.
Even just preventing him from seeing properly (taking his glasses away) is mistreatment.
HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
USA! USA! USA! USA! /trolling
Otherwise you are not in wartime, therefore the claim of the arsehole OP "Traitors should be subject to summary execution during wartime." doesn't apply.
Might as well have said "People called Bradley should be shot if we are invaded by aliens who hate that name".
And so begins the Great War of Semantics (undeclared)!
*gets popcorn*
That is about the most uneducated, ignorant and apathetic comment I've read ina while. He was in the military, and there are strict guidlines governing classified documents. This includes punishments for breaking the rules. The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) are rules above and beyond what the civilian population has to deal with. An individual is made aware of the rules and the consequences at the beginning. He knew what he was doing, and the consequences. He is lucky that all the prosecution is going for is a life sentence. In time of war, and with charges of treason, he could be put in front of a firing squad.
Wartime requires a declaration of war. The past decade has been a long string of (bumbling and incompetent) military actions. You know, because Congress authorized military actions, not war. Do words mean something else on your planet?
Military action under the War Powers Resolution (1973) that was authorized by Congress to extend beyond the 60 day max. It's one of their favorite loopholes.
His pretri detention was done in accordance with military law which differs from civilian in a number of ways, so even though his trial was not started as quickly as normal or that things were rough in Iraq may well have no impact on the outcome.
The UCMJ is very clear: military personnel do not relinquish their constitutional rights. Yes, military law is different, but they're still required to have a speedy and public trial, and are still prohibited from engaging in cruel and unusual punishment. Manning has a strong argument that both of those were violated.
I am officially gone from
I think this is more about setting an example to discourage anyone else from airing the US Government's dirty laundry. No way to tell just how much evil being done behind the scenes might get out if another Bradley Manning steps up to the plate. As such, I expect he will get life without parole.
I also expect it will come out in years to come that this verdict was determined before the trial began.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Did he know he would be held for two years without trial? Nearly one whole year in solitary? Is this really how you think we should be treating people who are innocent until proven guilty? Or do you want to dispense with that entirely?
People like you are far more dangerous than Manning.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Helping. we are Helping the middle east.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
He is not a civilian. He is a sworn member of the military. Civilian laws only apply under very limited situations. He violated his oath. He committed espionage while on active duty. And while I agree that there has been a slow, dangerous process of reducing our civil liberties, this has nothing to do with the Manning case. It is a red herring that ignores the fact that Manning is a traitor who performed his crimes while a sworn, active member of the military. He is lucky that the military no longer pushes for capital punishment for these cases.
You know, there's a difference between being ordered to shoot some civilians in Vietnam, and deciding that you are going to break published classification rules that everyone is aware of, when no one's life is immediately at stake. And, more to the point, grabbing everything you can on the classified network, so you can release it en masse to a third party that isn't even run by people from your own country.
I'm sorry, but that's not heroism or "not following an illegal order", it's crass irresponsibility.
I do not know why the parent was modded to -1; I was in the military for 12 years and also happen to highly value privacy of personal information and freedoms, and freedom of speech. But there is a necessity of trust in the military that is essential to the mission, and he knowingly broke that trust.
no comment
What if the mission is wrong?
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
..who has done more to change the face of the world, for the better, with one selfless action than decades of military action and varying degrees of sanctions,
Good.... and you know what there is also a necessity for trust in the military and it's actions. When the military commits crimes and they cover them over in the name of national security then there is no trust. After all that if you still trust and believe, then you are a fool.
I'm sorry I don't believe in national security at all costs, because it's usually just bullshit that those at the top invent to cover over their own crimes and inadequacies.
Wiki leaks uncovered some things that we had every right to know. I mean after all it was all being done in our name right?
The one thing that's been amusing about the whole Manning case is how consistent his Defender’s argument has been. From the very beginning, the idea that "Manning is Not Guilty" has accepted as axiomatic, regardless of whatever evidence was provided and all arguments had to end with that conclusion.
At first, “Everyone” knew that Manning was just a scapegoat for Wikileaks and anyone who claimed otherwise was obviously A Fascist Thug.
Then as evidence came out show he had released documents, well of course he was just a whistleblower and anyone who claimed otherwise was obviously working for the Man.
When it turns out he released tens of thousands of documents he hadn’t even read and thus can’t be whistleblowing, then The Defenders invent bizarre new legal doctrines about how since the documents went to WikiLeaks not a foreign government, it’s not illegal. Or Manning is a Journalist! And so no laws apply to him, after all the legal expert Assange said so. And anyone who claimed otherwise was obviously A Fascist Thug.
Now that Manning’s own lawyers are giving up on that argument, let’s go to claims of mistreatment to get him off.
When that fails I’m sure some of the older claims of insanity will come back. Or we’ll go to the claim that HE created the Arab Spring, not the millions of oppressed Arabs who’ve suffered for decades. Nah, they’re just a sideshow to Manning. Or another favorite, Governments shouldn’t be able to have anything secret at all. That’s why the Defenders all worked so hard to defend Scooter Libby. Free Scooter Libby! they cried. And of course there is the strange issue ofis this all proof that Obama is actually A Fascist Thug?
How many military personnel do you know that didn't get the benefits they were promised?
How many had the hard reality of being pawns for psychopathic authoritarians?
How many swore to defend the USA from enemies foreign and domestic?
Why have more taken their own lives, suicide, than has been killed in Iraq?
Military code? what is that in comparison to the above?
Really not much on the scale of honesty.
You're conflating two different issues. One is whether the conditions of his confinement were acceptable or appropriate, the other is whether he did something sufficiently inappropriate as to be considered treason.
Does a long confinement that might be considered torture change the events that led to the confinement? No. It may well be the thing that keeps Manning from facing a life sentence, since it helps place public favor more on his side.
As was mentioned before, there are channels by which unlawful acts can be reported without concern for retribution. It's not a perfect system, but it does work. Manning could have contacted the Adjutant General and made sure that both operational security and the law of war and human rights were respected, but he chose not to.
That was his decision, and none of us can say whether it was the most correct thing to do, morally, but we can definitely say that it was unlawful, according to the rules that Manning agreed to follow when enlisting in the US military.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
Yes. No one is likely to try Manning for treason. They will likely try him under the Espionage Act and give him jail time. At most ten years, I'd say. It's probably a little harsh, but we can't have PFCs deciding that they are going to start spewing classified materials scattershot on a whim. The military is making an example out of him, and frankly, I'm not sure I blame them. It's a very serious issue if you can't trust your own people.
As for it being "torture", well until someone tells me that they are sleep depriving and water boarding him, I'd say that's hyperbole. I understand that solitary is not fun in the slightest, but there are good reasons to put someone who is being tried because they can't keep their proverbial trap shut in solitary.
I can accept the idea that Manning's actions were crass, irresponsible, stupid, and cowardly. Instead of seeing some injustice and leaking information of that injustice to the outside world, he chose to just grab everything he could and dump it. In retrospect, the information that he leaked was probably not dangerous to anyone, and it did, indeed, expose deep tentacles of corruption in the US government. However, there is no way that he read everything that he leaked, and he did, as you say, just send massive amounts of classified information -- most of which he had no idea of the content (because there was too much to read) -- to a foreign third party with a sometimes unclear agenda.
HOWEVER, none of this warrants torture, and as an American I hope that Manning's lawyers win their trial. It is an unprecedented chilling effect and incomprehensibly unjust that, in the United States of America, a foolish whistleblower would be tortured to set an example for future whistleblowers. Torture of any kind, mental or physical, is clearly unconstitutional and is unquestionably both anti-American (as in, it betrays the values that we base our country's existence on) and evil.
Yes! He clearly was on a noble quest to shed light on specific people and practices that were unjust or corrupt! Yay!
That explains why he was doling out things like the identities of people supporting the freedom movement in Iran, so that their families can be hounded by the regime there. That explains why he went out of his way to expose carefully created covert operations aimed at defaning groups like Al Queda as they and their buddies try to Taliban-ize exciting new destinations in Africa. We sure don't want to have fragile local governments there having any quiet support while they deal with groups that like to shoot school teachers in the head for teaching girls to read! Manning has bravely helped to make sure that support given to local governments in places like that is done in a way that will allow jihaddist nut jobs to better hunt down and kill those who would organize against them in such places. What a hero! What a freedom loving individual! Yay for him!
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Where are the military tribunals for those who committed torture under the Bush Regime.
Where are the military tribunals of evangelical officers and generals for proselytizing to the troops.
Where are the Espionage Act prosecutions of Libby, Rove, Armitage et all over revealing Valerie Plame's status as an undercover CIA officer. Who worked on non-proliferation, something a weee bit more important than than cables where the "worst" result was embarrassment to the U.S.
Where are the criminal prosecutions for mass warrantless wiretapping.
Where are the criminal prosecutions for murder-by-drone.
Where are the criminal prosecutions for the bankers that looted the economy.
And finally, where are the Concerns for military procedure when it comes to Obama's unlawful command influence?
Using the civilian or military justice system to shield your friends and yourself while threatening your political enemies with life in prison or even death is simply disgusting, as are those who excuse it.
The point is a declaration of war and a state of war IS an anachronism to the point that summary execution during wartime isn't done because there is no war time anymore, there are extended military actions under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, usually, but not always, accompanied by a UN Security Council Resolution. So just like declaration of war is an anachronism, so is summary execution during wartime is an anachronism.
Trying to use a semantics argument against a legal framework argument by saying that semantics don't matter, except in the case where the semantics say you get to feel justified by ending another human beings life (a fellow American citizen, no less) is also completely irrational and held only by clueless, non-worldly people who can't muster the energy and attention span to actually understand consequences.
A libertarian shat on my carpet once. Claimed the free market would sort it out. -Ford Prefect(8777)
Yes, some level of trust is necessary. But are you suggesting that this trust would go so far as to include hushing up about innocent and indiscriminate civilian deaths, torture and inhumane treatment, and all of the other information that has been revealed by Manning and Wikileaks as a whole? And do you mean to suggest that there should be zero accountability or oversight or public awareness of all these horrible atrocities? It's this reason why I can't stand it when Americans constantly shout about supporting the troops. What kind of country is supposed to support this? And even worse, with no oversight or accountability! Instead, the military holds accountable those who reveal them, thereby implicitly condoning these actions.
It makes me sad.
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
When you are in the military, you agree to follow the chain of command. If you don't like it, don't work for the military and then start complaining about the rules. You can sit outside and complain about the rules all you want and in fact many people do. Military doesn't have much problem with people sitting on the sideline complaining what the military does - it simply doesn't matter - their chain of command starts with the commander-in-chief, and they are given orders which go down the line, and resources to fulfill them. That's how the system works.
Also, military does have mechanisms to address problems that arise in the military. But deliberately breaking all rules, and giving confidential information to foreign nations, no matter whether you agree with it or not, is straight up the definition of treason. If you don't agree with what your country does and do such things, you are committing treason - the intent might be as noble as you want, and the beneficiary nations may like what you're doing, but from the point of view of your country it is treason, and if you get caught, you will be prosecuted for treason. Bradley Manning, if he indeed did what he is accused of, will be considered a traitor. It's up to the court to determine whether this is the case, and all the whining about it is not going to change that.
Those people are big boys, they should understand basic definitions of their actions. Somehow in this age, because of how relatively peaceful last 60 years have been, a lot of people have lost (or never acquired) some basic concepts.
You are both correct and incorrect. Service members do relinquish SOME constitutional rights. Most notably the right to free speech. In some circumstances the right against double jeopardy does not apply either (you can be tried in a civilian court (or foreign court), and then be tried under the UCMJ for the same offense if the military chain of command feels it is warranted). Granted, USUALLY the chain of command will not press charges against a service member if that service member is already charged with the crime in another jurisdiction.
In this case though, you are correct. PFC Manning has a right under Article 10 to "... inform him of the specific wrong of which he is accused and to try him or to dismiss the charges and release him.", along with an Article 13 right against "... be[ing] subjected to punishment or penalty other than arrest or confinement upon the charges pending against him, nor shall the arrest or confinement imposed upon him be any more rigorous than the circumstances required to insure his presence, but he may be subjected to minor punishment during that period for infractions of discipline."
I do not know PFC Manning, and am unfamiliar with his case other than what I've read and seen in the news. I do not know if the Army is guilty of the allegations PFC Manning has brought or not (unfortunately, a good chunk of the media is demonstrably anti-Military in that they love soldiers, but hate the institution), so expecting evenhanded coverage here is, in my opinion, expecting too much. I hope that the Army is not guilty, as I'd like every 'i' to be dotted and 't' to be crossed when they lock him up for the rest of his life for what he's done.
Karma: Chameleon - mostly influenced by bad '80s New Wave music
Under the Military Code of Justice you are NOT innocent until proven guilty.
UCMJ Article 51(c) reads in part:
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
You are absolutely right, the UCMJ has rules above and beyond what a civilian population has to deal with.
One of those is Article 10. http://www.armfor.uscourts.gov/newcaaf/digest/VB3.htm
Article 10 creates a more exacting, more rigorous requirement for a speedy trial than the 6th Amendment alone. United States v. Thompson, 68 M.J. 308
Mr. Manning has spent nearly 1000 days in pretrial confinement. The UN special rapporteur on torture has also found his treatment to be cruel and inhumane.
The government has broken many rules in their treatment of Mr. Manning (using a dentist as a psychiatrist? LOL!) It would be fair punishment for the government if the charges Mr. Manning has not yet pleaded guilty to are dismissed. Perhaps then the government would remember that it, too, has rules that it must abide by.
:(){
A veteran here too.
I hold that the mission is currently wrong. It was wrong when I was in... I just didn't know it at the time. The fact is, we aren't fighting for our freedom. We're fighting for someone's continued profit and domination and to ensure that the US remains the dominant power and by extension, the people who use the US's power to their will. I think everyone, regardless of the side of the issue they may have, agrees that the US and the US military have exceeded its purpose under the constitution. "Private interests" are now the current mission of the US military and the US government.
So yes. The mission is wrong.
Concluding that the suicide-watch procedures are unquestionably intentional torture for the purpose of future deterrence is jumping to conclusions. A military man being made to strip to his underwear at bedtime is not the same thing as thumbscrews and the bastinado. Believe what you like, but I am certain that Manning's military jailors do not want, under any circumstances, to be blamed for allowing him to commit suicide.
It also forbids unlawful command influence:
So everyone parroting "UCMJ! UCMJ!", I have a simple question for you. Do you want Bradley Manning immediately released, given the Commander-in-Chief's textbook case of unlawful command influence, or are you a hack engaging in situational ethics?
> When you are in the military, you agree to follow the chain of command. If you don't like it, don't
> work for the military and then start complaining about the rules.
However you also trust that that chain of command is working in the best interests of the people. When it becomes obvious that they are not, like when they are not actively prosecuting incidents like we saw in collateral murder, then I would say they broke the trust first.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
When you're in the military you follow the chain of command and trust that your superiors are working in the best interests of your country.
If you find evidence your superiors are not, then you have the choice to exercise the soldier's prerogative: Shoot your commanders in the back, and face the consequences. You will give up your own freedom, but you will remove a commander who was harming your country.
Manning effectively shot his superiors in the back. Now he has consequences to face. A good soldier would stand up, say 'Yes, I did this and here are my reasons', then go to jail and hope that history vindicates him.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
"Just following orders" is no defence, morally or legally
Some of the things brought to light by the release are not just "morally wrong" in one 22-year-old's opinion, they're clearly unlawful. The UCMJ is pretty specific that not only do you have no requirement to go along with criminal orders, you have a responsibility to see the crime addressed.
When you are talking about crimes of the most pervasive sort, where support for committing them runs through the whole organization, "addressed" is clearly not going to happen with a report to the Lt 2nd Class you probably report to.
Face it: we'd never have heard of these crimes without Manning's actions. That we have heard of these crimes is a social good. There's just no getting around that.
If the results show that the harm done TO THE PUBLIC (not to some military or civilian employees who have been embarrassed) is small - and the Pentagon is clear in saying nobody was killed or injured from the released, the diplomatic fallout has been very minor - and the good done for the public is large, then any law that penalizes this action heavily is clearly not in the best interests of the public.