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Bradley Manning Pleads Guilty To 10 Charges
Entropy98 sends this quote from the LA Times:
"Army Pfc. Bradley Edward Manning pleaded guilty Thursday to 10 charges that he illegally acquired and transferred highly classified U.S. government secrets, agreeing to serve [up to] 20 years in prison for causing a worldwide uproar when WikiLeaks published documents describing the inner workings of U.S. military and diplomatic efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the globe. The 25-year-old soldier, however, pleaded not guilty to 12 more serious charges, including espionage for aiding the enemy, meaning that his criminal case will go forward at a general court-martial in June. If convicted at trial, he risks a sentence of life in prison at Ft. Leavenworth, Kan."
Only took them ~3 years to get around to scheduling the trial? Seems pretty lethargic even by military-bureaucracy standards.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The big revelation is that he also gave the documents over to US agencies first. Aiding the enemy my ass, he went to Wikileaks after the New York Times (which Daniel Ellsberg used for the Pentagon leak) and other news agencies that didn't follow through.
"agreeing to serve [up to] 20 years in prison for causing a worldwide uproar"
If anything, he agreed to serve that time for leaking information, certainly not for causing an uproar. The responsibility for that lies entirely elsewhere.
http://www.salon.com/2011/07/07/bradley_manning_american_hero/
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
We should have offered him immunity in exchange for testifying against Wikileaks.
Uh, what? What would he have 'testified' about?
"Wikileaks is a website"
But even if you did it, why would you plead guilty to 10 charges when they are still going to prosecute for the other 12? Wouldn't you negotiate a bargain where they'd drop 12 to get a guilty plea on 10? Otherwise, you have nothing to fear from a trial on the 10 you plead guilty to. The worst case is that they'd find you guilty of what you would plead guilty to in the first place.
Learn to love Alaska
Great occasion to highlight rule no. 1 of Opsec: keep your fucking mouth shut. More on this topic, of interest for political hackers and freedom fighters:
https://www.anti-forensics.com/video-opsec-for-hackers-because-jail-is-for-wu-ftpd/
(yeah, I know Manning is not a hacker, just a disturbed kid)
Sucks to be him. I am, however, mad a Lamo. He only did this trying to get brownie points from uncle sam. He isn't a hacker in the first place. No one has yet to say how Lamo got in touch with Manning... and that is one reason why Mrs. Lamo divorced him...
The nature of the charges against him, alongside the way he has been treated while in custody, shame the US system of justice. He surely committed a crime in doing what he did, but the punishment needs to fit the crime. Does it?
See? Torture does get results! So many people here keep saying torture never produces anything, this clearly proves you wrong! Torture does work to generate confessions!
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
The way I see it, they told him it would take several more years of holding him in extreme conditions, before they would even start the trial, so they held that and other stuff over his head as a way to coerce him into pleading guilty.
Probably because the only way to fight the espionage charges would be to claim that you disobeyed standing orders for the greater good of the country, and things like the Geneva Convention for treatment of prisoners. If he wants to claim the high moral ground, he has to plead guilty to what he actually is guilty of.
Twenty years is fair. The treatment up until now is what's so messed up. As a citizen, I don't expect soldiers who leak classified treatment to get a pat on the back. However, I don't expect them to get tortured in the military prison either.
PFC at 25?
He may have had other problems with the Army. At 25, he should at least be some kind of sergeant.
Official Pi Ambassador -- inquire for details!
A thousand days of justice denied.
Even though the oath when joining the US military is to Protect and Defend the Consititution of the United States.
Someone open a window; the stink of hipocracy is overwhelming.
Actually he is being treated pretty lightly compared to what would have happened in the past. He is guilty as hell and has already admitted it. Most governments would have either shot him in the head or hanged him by now. He is military, not a civilian, and should be treated differently.
" The imposition on servicemen of a stricter criminal law, with less due process than enjoyed by civilian defendants, is not the result of mere caprice or of any innate harshness on the part of senior military commanders. Rigid standards for the military, strictly enforced, are vital to the safety, even the continued existence, of a civil society. Soldiers undeterred by the realization that desertion and battlefield derelictions will bring prompt and drastic punishment may not provide effective defense against foreign enemies. Civil governments, whether democratic or not, are on unstable ground as long as cliques of military officers feel safe in plotting coups. Finally, few worse fates can befall a society than to be at the mercy of either hostile or "friendly" troops who are not deterred from violence by the expectation of swift trial and prompt punishment."
http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2769&context=wmlr
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
Which is bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, and bullshit. Respectively. No top secret documents were leaked, nor names of spies.
Repeating Big Lies doesn't make them true. It just makes you a bigger liar.
I was hoping the 10 charges were in binary. :(
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
and read that again.
It says:
" immediate steps shall be taken to inform him of the specific wrong of which he is accused and to try him or to dismiss the charges and release him.""
Immediate notification of charges, or dismiss the charges. it say NOTHING about the speed the person charged is brought to trial.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This reminds me of another military secrets trial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEabC9WzHck
Now, I won't defend the Army's treatment of Manning after his arrest. But he shouldn't have been surprised he was charged with the crimes he is accused of.
This is different from the Ellsburg case, in that Ellsberg did not have an active clearance at the time he acquired and distributed the Pentagon Papers. Bradley Manning was an active-duty serviceman, and as such was subject to the restrictions imposed on him by his security clearance. Every person with security clearance is required to sign a document stating that if you ever disclose classified material acquired in the course of your duties to anyone not entitled to have it, the government will prosecute you to the hilt. It's not an ambiguous or hard-to-understand document.
If he had selectively disclosed evidence of malfeasance, that would be one thing, and it would make him a whistle-blower. But he did a complete data dump of diplomatic cables, much of which was sensibly-classified material, the disclosure of which was indeed harmful to national interests, both to security and otherwise.
If you keep reading UCMJ 104:
Any person who--
(1) aids, or attempts to aid, the enemy with arms, ammunition, supplies, money, or other things; or
(2) without proper authority, knowingly harbors or protects or gives intelligence to or communicates or corresponds with or holds any intercourse with the enemy, either directly or indirectly;
shall suffer death or such other punishment as a court-martial or military commission may direct.
While I believe he has a strong argument that his actions were not an attempt to aid the enemy, and a pretty good argument that his actions did not significantly aid the enemy in fact, he is going to have a hard time arguing against section 2. He did knowingly and without authorization give intelligence indirectly to the enemy.
TL;DR: I don't think he actually aided the enemy, but I do think he is in violation of the letter of the law concerning aiding the enemy.
This government is no different from any other government past and present including those labeled communist, they are all run by the rich, the oligarchy or what we call the capitalist. The hypocrisy "All man are created equal" and yet our government oppressed and mistreated pretty much everybody in the u.s and overseas. Has anybody in our government ever been held responsible for the atrocities they have caused overseas for the past 60 years? NO!. What about the bullshit Iraq invasion which lead to hundreds of thousands dead, in poverty, sold into sex trade, etc... We were the aggressors, we had no right to invade. Do you really think u.s did it to liberate the people from saddam especially when this country did not give a shit about the 1990's iraq sanctions which left nearly 1 million Iraqi people dead mostly children. What happens if the whole world sanctioned us, no more imports? u.s threatens everybody with nukes? probably.
Look at the way the u.s treats it's citizens here, why was it so shocking to hear how the cia tortured the prisoners? cops can beat the crap out of you, shoot you if you run away even if you are not armed, prison is completely hell and it does not rehabilitate anyone, overzealous prosecutors. U.S is a failed ideology.
... plus c'est la meme chose.
...
Wasn't there a case something like this one back in the 19th century? Spurious accusations, suppression of evidence, unjust convictions. Some guy named Dreyfus, I think
I wonder if our collective social conscience is as responsive as it was back then, so long ago.
licet differant, aequabitur
I'm surprised there isn't a petition to pardon Manning, and open an investigation into the alleged war crimes he attempted to uncover.
The guy is apparently rather unstable, but he made better use of his deployment in Iraq than any of the other soldiers who brutalized random people and often came back homeless, crippled, or dead for following the rules.
Threw my ass in prison.
What were you doing in Germany, huh?
Excuse me, says I, but it was comrade Stalin who sent me there.
Don't bring our glorious leader into your treachery.
Confess, spy bastard!
Confess.
And bang! Bang, bang, bang!
Well, there wasn't a sickle, but there was a hammer.
And bang.
Knocked out all my teeth.
That's right, boy.
Have no illusions.
That's the land of socialism and universal bliss for you.
It really makes no sense to me why he's being threatened with a life sentence. He pleaded guilty, he's going to serve probably 10 years, maybe a bit more. The life sentence is ridiculous. Espionage is ridiculous. Many cases far worse deserved a life sentence, such as Robert Hansen of the FBI but Bradley Manning was relatively low level and young.
It seems people are confusing civilian laws with military rules. He is under military oath to protect confidential materials. He knowingly broke that oath and under military law is being prosecuted accordingly.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
Now, I won't defend the Army's treatment of Manning after his arrest. But he shouldn't have been surprised he was charged with the crimes he is accused of.
This is different from the Ellsburg case, in that Ellsberg did not have an active clearance at the time he acquired and distributed the Pentagon Papers. Bradley Manning was an active-duty serviceman, and as such was subject to the restrictions imposed on him by his security clearance. Every person with security clearance is required to sign a document stating that if you ever disclose classified material acquired in the course of your duties to anyone not entitled to have it, the government will prosecute you to the hilt. It's not an ambiguous or hard-to-understand document.
If he had selectively disclosed evidence of malfeasance, that would be one thing, and it would make him a whistle-blower. But he did a complete data dump of diplomatic cables, much of which was sensibly-classified material, the disclosure of which was indeed harmful to national interests, both to security and otherwise.
I don't think even the government believes its a case of espionage. They just want to charge him with that to see if they can convict someone of that.
You're right Manning should be punished and the fact that he pleaded guilty means he recognizes that he should be punished. That being said while I agree he has to be punished, I don't agree that he should serve more than 10 years or be charged with espionage UNLESS sources were exposed and people actually died. Robert Hanssen in my opinion was treasonous. His activity resulted in sources getting killed. Ames was even worse. That should be a hard limit.
Did Bradley Manning get any sources killed? Were names leaked? How much damage did his leak cause beyond embarrassment? His charges should be based on that damage. So far we haven't heard of anyone getting killed. It's not like the Plame case.
He deliberately aided and abetted an enemy.
His trial and execution should have been a done deal 2.5 years ago.
What enemy? Execution? Manning didn't take the names of sources to Iran and even then it probably wouldn't have got him executed when Robert Hanssen did something similar to that and he's not getting executed and Aldrich Ames did something exactly like that and he isn't being executed. Those guys were high level while Manning was a low level officer if that. He doesn't have the same level of responsibility and a lot of this is the result of giving him more classified access than he reasonably needed to have for his service. I can't figure out why he had access to so much.
Most seem to consider him a hero but the guy had to know he would likely face life in prison and for what? What injustice did he undo? He embarrassed some powerful people and got his name in the paper. We aren't exactly talking about outing the military over a massacre. He passed on a bunch of files to Wikileaks without knowing the content so he had no idea what damage it would cause so it was irresponsible at best. I think government secrecy is obscene since most of the secrets are already known to foreign powers it's mostly about keeping the information from the American people. I think stealing secrets without a clear purpose is a stupid thing to do. If he was trying to correct a wrong I might agree with his supporters. I think it was more about ego than doing good. He just threw away his best years over this which was a foolish thing to do.
I actually agree with you, but does he really deserve life in prison for embarrassing powerful people? His sentence is extraordinarily harsh. His treatment is extraordinarily harsh. He's being threatened with espionage which is completely inaccurate unless he leaked a list of source identities and they all got killed.
People fight all the time with the "I didn't do it, but eve if I did do what you acuse me of for charges 1-10, that would exonerate me from charges 11-22." There is no "high moral ground" in a court martial.
Learn to love Alaska
The big revelation is that he also gave the documents over to US agencies first. Aiding the enemy my ass, he went to Wikileaks after the New York Times (which Daniel Ellsberg used for the Pentagon leak) and other news agencies that didn't follow through.
If he indeed did give the information to US agencies first then that is conclusive evidence that he was not committing espionage. That doesn't mean he should have leaked, it just means something went wrong somewhere.
So sorry, it was all secret. Maybe you think it shouldn't be, but it is. It is all classified by default since the government understand that the diplomats must be able to talk freely among themselves to effectively do their job.
Bradley Manning is the victim of scapegoating and political posturing. I should think that one of the highest forms of patriotism and love for one's own country is to blow the whistle when bad things are happening. Manning cared so much for his country and was obviously so troubled by what it was doing that he felt the need to speak out. Manning is one brave soldier because he fought the enemy within.
You are correct. I knew Ellsberg worked on the Pentagon Papers, but I thought that he obtained a copy through other sources after he left RAND.
However, in any case, the Pentagon Papers were not a "data dump" of a gigantic pile of government secrets. This makes for a rather more sympathetic case for Ellsberg.
In addition, if not for the blatant misconduct of the US Government, it is highly probable Ellsberg would have been found guilty.
I'm a Technical Sergeant(E-6) in the USAF. I'm a 'non-commissioned officer', or NCO. I did not accept a commission, I enlisted. At a very vague level, commissioned officers are all approved/commissioned by congress(it's a massive list buried somewhere). My rank is not dependent upon that.
Article 133 is completely irrelevant to me. My boss, a 1st Lt. (O-2), can be court-martialed under that clause, I cannot be. Articles 92&134 are generally the catchall of choice for enlisted personnel.
I don't read AC A human right
The Constitution may not be perfect, but it's better than what we have now.
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
And by the way, if you obey an unlawful order, you're held every bit as responsible as if you acted alone, but so is the officer who gave you that order.
It gets even worse for the officers - not only can they be held liable for any unlawful orders they give, they can also be held liable for the actions of the soldiers under them, even if they have no knowledge of the actions of said soldiers.
I don't read AC A human right
I think most of the people here understand the protection of classified information. The concern is that too much of the government and military's operation is now classified. As a result, citizens have a difficult time becoming informed. The benign nature of most of documents released by Manning gives credence to that concern.
Many believe that uninformed citizens, marching lock-step with their leaders, is not a good foundation for a democracy. With the rise of secret courts and selective justice, targeting for assasination of citizens on the word of the Executive alone, and domestic spying on an unprecendented scale, some citizens are concerned. In that context, the wrongs of PFC Manning are weighed against the wrongs of the government. Some have decided that Manning's actions are the lesser evil.
Uh, what? What would he have 'testified' about?
"Wikileaks is a website"
The whole point of keeping him in double-secret naked isolation was to persuade Manning to confess or testify that he and Assange colluded in advance to retrieve and transfer Classified information. That's what they really want from him, and they still don't have it.
This confession is what they need in order to pin charges on Assange.
Problem is, Manning went to Assange only after mainstream press showed no interest in the stuff he took from SIPRNET, etc.
I can see the fnords!
Another fighter for civil rights was lauded today by the President. Decades ago Rosa Parks defended civil rights by breaking the law and now a statue is unveiled on Capitol Hill.
We should pay tribute to persons defending the civil right of the People to control the government.
It's difficult not to be ambivalent about some figures when it won't likely be possible to know all the facts for some time (if ever). In the Wikileaks realm , you might ask: What were Manning's motives? Does that matter? Has Manning caused harm? Has anyone demonstrated that? And Julian Assange. Nice guy or egotistical jerk? Does that matter? Is he a rapist or has he been set up? That matters, and I'd put the odds at 60-to-40 on the latter (an orchestrated extradition), but it is hard to hero worship when the odds are so poorly grounded in current-day fact.
That being said I want to thank Bradley Manning and Julian Assange.
I think my country (the USA) has been, for quite some time, suffering from what I would call "Band-of-Brothers Syndrome" or maybe "Private Ryan Disorder" where many folks have become content with the notion of American exceptionalism and the belief that our motives are pure. A few rough spots aside, we are the Spielbergian Good Guys.
To me, one antidote to "BBS" or "PRD" would be to have a required reading and viewing list for those so afflicted. It would certainly include Bilton and Sim's Four Hours in My Lai (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Hours_in_My_Lai) and now the very recent Kill Anything That Moves (http://killanythingthatmoves.tumblr.com/). But to be up to date it would most certainly need to include Wikileaks' Collateral Murder as required viewing. Based on my informal polling, an astonishing number of Americans, many of them suffering from BBS, have not seen this crucially important film. And they'd never have a chance of viewing this corrective if not for Bradley Manning.
So I want to thank Private Manning. Leavenworth is not a fun place and I suspect that you will be made to pay a very high price, regardless of your motives. I don't know that I admire you. But you have made a key contribution to an improved understanding of what our country can often be about. Thanks for that.
It's rather easy to blame the US when the US created the power vacuum which let the violence happen in the first place, using lies to justify its actions. Your comparison with the holocaust and Nazi Germany is pathetic.
Fact of the matter is, he did something illegal. It's irrelevant whether we agree with him, are on his side, or not, he should expect some punishment for his actions. Although I am somewhat glad the blew the top off of this one because it is at least a start to holding the government accountable for some of their actions. However, I think the espionage and aiding the enemy charges are complete bull shit. It is blatantly clear that was not the intent. That is just some embarrassed politician taking out some deep seeded need for revenge on him to set some kind of example. I'm not trying to defend the guy, but come on, don't let them start making shit up to make it look worse than it was.
This is how powerful the US's propaganda machine is. It's "acceptable" as "justice"(i assume that means you guys think it's "JUST") because he's part of ANOTHER SYSTEM(military). That's also why we should not worry about their use of force and justifications for assassinations and torture.. even though we pay for it all..
"He joined up voluntarily" you say.. and "he should have known the rules and what would have happened for doing what he did".. and perhaps that's true(but if it is true, then i just can't help but respect him MORE, i guess i have lots of idiot blood running in me, although it's different to the G.W.Bush type of blood). Don't even worry about how many join just for the money, for something 'fun' to do compared to a normal boring 9-5 job(and that's IF they can even get that.. probably not a job they enjoy and without any benefits whatsoever let alone ones that come with you having worked/killed to protect "The man" and the current system of exploitation in which "The Man" does most of the exploitation so obviously "The Man" wants to keep things the way they are.. obviously non team players like Manning should be kicked out and punished with life in jail, torture, public humiliation and character assassination(since they cannot do the other without risking making an actual martyr out of him(right now he's looking set to go down in history as a scumbag traitor if he's even to be remembered/mentioned, since he's not even in the public consciousness anymore..), and because they are thinking that it's the only way out of poverty for them, and recruiters are signing up basically kids just fresh out of high school..
Don't even talk about the whole situation is fair or not(the recruiting process), and just where most or a lot of of the recruits come from and what demographic they 'target'.. because we know only the brightest and best are going there, and they are all doing it because of ideology.. and for the glory and honor... of being able to pilot drones and double tap kids finding their parents to not be moving and bleeding out everywhere.. or the other way around like in the video Manning shared with us, which is where i first saw the 'double tap strike' in all it's initial glory), because he voluntarily signed away any and all human rights he might of had when he accepted the 'job'.
It's his own fault for having a conscience and trying to do anything.. he really should have known better, so he doesn't even deserve any sympathy whatsoever for trying to help us because he's just an 'idiot' who went about it the wrong way. He made a wrong decision in life by deciding to fight for what he believes in was right. Had he been smart like us, he would have calculated the odds of 'winning', realized it was impossible without dying or being fucked up, and then go back to watching pr0n and tossing off instead and continue to work for the system you don't believe in and to keep perpetuating these things and to overlook current offenses. That's the smart thing to do. That's the only way you'll get sympathy from the rest of us who learned how to play this game(and be successful, unlike that loser Manning who already lost).
Not one 'significant' demographic would rep Manning right now in the US. The propaganda machine is too great. They would also be signing their death sentences, and they should all know better and if they did anything, they also had it coming, am i right or am i right? This has been re-inforced since 2001, and backed up with force regularly and with more frequency since the 'OWS movement'..
I mean, it's like i feel that if something similar happened in China(Chinese people AND the Gov) would back him up if he exposed(key word, EXPOSED, since they would probably try to limit exposure too initially) all this incompetence, corruption and cover ups..
I mean, if the cats already out of the proverbial bag already(which i assume it is), usually something will be done and heads will roll if something like this is exposed(even if Mannings were also to r
All these moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain..