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Bradley Manning Says He's Sorry
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "The Washington Post reports that Pfc. Bradley Manning told a military judge during his sentencing hearing that he is sorry he hurt the United States by leaking hundreds of thousands of sensitive military and diplomatic documents to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks and he asked for leniency as he spoke for less than five minutes, often in a quavering voice "I'm sorry I hurt people. I'm sorry that I hurt the United States," said Manning, who was convicted last month of multiple crimes, including violations of the Espionage Act, for turning over the classified material. "I'm apologizing for the unintended consequences of my actions. I believed I was going to help people, not hurt people." Speaking publicly for only the third time since he was arrested in Iraq in June 2010, Manning said he had been naive. "I look back at my decisions and wonder, 'How on earth could I, a junior analyst, possibly believe I could change the world for the better over the decisions of those with the proper authority?'""
He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.
I'm not a detractor and I think hes been broken. Ceding to the 'chain of command' to disavow bad action by the organization is one of the ways fascism grows unchecked.
Have you ever heard of the crime "structuring"? If you haven't let me give you a little summary.
See, a long time ago, for a variety of reasons, some probably legitimate, many probably not, the government made the sale and possession of drugs illegal (including alcohol, at first). In order to maintain illegal businesses, a number of various types of organized crime arose. In response to this, the IRS was given sweeping powers to strike at individuals regarding their assets and income. A set of laws was put in place to give them this power and now, lying to the government about the source and value of your personal income was illegal.
As a result, organized crime businesses needed to find means of distributing cash without records, hence "money laundering". Often using a business, such as a laundromat to direct money elsewhere, criminals could distribute their cash. As a result, a series of new laws were created to prevent the distribution of cash to businesses, including sweeping NEW laws enabling the government to snoop in private company's records.
Moving on, the crime bosses began to launder money internationally. This usually involved briefcases full of cash. As a result, some western countries enacted regulations on the amount of cash one could carry over the border. Today, anything over $10,000 in cash must be declared and will usually be subject to investigation as to the source.
But deciding this wasn't sufficient, in the 1980s, a new law was created, called "structuring". This law essentially prevents you from carrying the sum of $10,000 over the border over the course of multiple trips. This law simply states that you may not circumvent arbitrary controls, such as currency limits, by conducting your activities in such a way as to avoid them.
As the result of a law to prohibit the structuring of activities to avoid the law to prevent the carrying of cash, which itself is to avoid the law of domestic money laundering, which itself is to avoid the law of revenue auditability, which itself is set up to prevent those who started a business based on that which is of questionable ethics (selling prohibited substances).
Illegal does not always equal wrong.
It was built by people who would have lost their shirts if the British stayed in control and turned over the vast majority of the central US to the french, as was their plan.
They then used fear of Catholics, who where growing in Canada, and lied about taxes by making a big show even tough Taxed tea was cheaper and higher quality then black market tea.
And it was liberty and equality for educate white men.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
That's a matter of personal opinion.
No, it's not.
I think Martin Luther King, Jr. said it best:
"Always remember - everything Hitler did in Germany was legal."
No, that's not a Godwin, because I'm not calling you a Nazi.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
In any measurable way his actions have made the world a better place, no not resulted in any demonstrable harm (except what the US deserves for its actions).
How well did WikiLeaks try to protect the innocent people caught up in all of this mess? They didn't seem to concerned when Assange said regarding confidential informants, "Well, they're informants, so if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They deserve it." With statements like that can you be sure the later part of your statement is actually true? We can see the nominal defense help they gave PFC Manning. What about the troops that had additional harm placed upon them because of this? We know that Osama Bin Ladin had copies of these leaks on computers found at his compound. Please think before opening your mouth. You don't know what harm was caused by this.
Yes, a lot of good came from PFC Manning's leaks, but so did a lot of harm. And not all of it was just to the US's public image. Whistle blower channels exist for more than just keeping secrets secret. Part of it is so that innocents aren't harmed in the process of disclosure. Had Manning actually tried to use them, he might have found that out. But since he didn't we will never know. All we know is he decided that he knew more about what was good than everybody else around him, and that undo harm was caused.
"I'm sorry I hurt people. I'm sorry that I hurt the United States," said Manning
Is this sonofabitch calling the Pentagon a liar? How dare he! The Pentagon investigated and clearly reported that the Wikileaks leak did not pose a threat.
DoD Says Wikileaks Not a Threat
The Pentagon is telling NBCâ(TM)s Michael Isikoff that a special assessment team looking over the WikiLeaks Afghanistan war logs has found nothing that could damage national security.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
I'm sure I can find more, but just off the top of my head with no research, the US did apologize to the Japanese Americans who they put into camps during World War 2. So yes, the US has apologized (although I am not sure if they admitted that they made a mistake.)
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
“Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”
There doesn't need to be torture, but there WAS torture.
Manning was subjected to treatment that is internationally defined as torture. The US newspeak said it was for his own protection.
Fuck you can't make this shit up.
I hope Manning hasn't suffered so much abuse that he actually believes he was wrong and that the "proper authority" is unquestionably correct.
He said this during his sentencing hearing, where "shows remorse" is one of the tick boxes on the form. The statement was written by his attorney, and then memorized and recited by Manning. There is no reason to believe it reflects his true beliefs.
...that sounds suspiciously like the self-accusations during the Moscow Trials.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It is not surprising that courts want people to say certain things, to re-establish their sense of moral correctness and order, or that they get the people in front of them to say these things. It is (always) surprising that anyone not on the bench gives these words any weight at all. Coerced testimony is, after all, no true testimony at all.
As for Manning, I think that Geek Empire nails it
the United States is a pretend democracy. Only certain opions are allowed to be heard, only certain people are allowed to protest.
Only certain parties are really allowed to run.
Everything else is attacked by the state aparatus, or affiliated corporations, to include the media, who have all the best politicians, and run the campaigns for all politicians.
Chris Dodd, Lamar Smith, Al Franken, Chuck Hagel, Harry Ried, John McCain, are all paid media representatives.
In turn this doesn't get reported, because, who's going to report it?
Of course, there are things that don't apply too. ... Big Brother ... had perfect propaganda in place. I am very skeptical such a thing does or could exist today.
Maybe you are not a US citizen. If so, have you ever heard of Fox News? and how their messages are aligned with their print and radio distribution channels?
... nor can they rewrite history.
Maybe you are not paying attention http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/may/16/texas-schools-rewrites-us-history
If you're honestly looking for a propaganda outlet to use as an example, you should probably be focusing on msnbc rather than fox.
On the other hand, if you're just being a dishonest partisan hack, carry on.
Bradley Manning didn't dump everything. His most famous leak, the 250,000 diplomatic cables, were not simply released. According to Wikipedia, at first Wikileaks itself released just a couple of cables. Next, it partnered with some news outlets to select specific cables to leak (with redactions to prevent harm to individuals). They released 220 cables at first, and a few thousand more later. Granted, the whole set of 250,000 were fully accessible to specific journalists, but it's not at all the same as a "data dump".
Some months later, a boneheaded journalist published the actual password for decrypting the original cables; later, a backup of the encrypted cables somehow became available as a torrent, so the full set of cables could be decrypted. But this was unintentional and of course, neither of these mistakes was made by Manning himself.
I myself question the wisdom of Manning's release of these cables (I respect him mainly for leaking the Collateral Murder video) but the idea that he "dumped everything" is plainly false.