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?'""

Comments

Re:I'd be sorry

[no-body]

[Spoiler alert] Last page of 1984.

That ?

You believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right. ... Do you remember, [O'Brien] went on, writing in your diary, 'Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four'?
Yes, said Winston.
O'Brien held up his left hand, its back toward Winston, with the thumb hidden and the four fingers extended. How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?
Four.
And if the Party says that it is not four but five--then how many?
Four.
....
Five

Re:Not Quite

[gl4ss]

it sounds more like "I was naive to think that doing the right thing would change anything for the better".

like, that it was naive to think that anyone would flinch and any war criminals would get what's coming to them... naive to think that exposing any crimes would put a stop to them, naive that those in authority would do jack shit about them.

even then, it's unlikely that he got to say whatever he wanted anyways.

Re:I'd be sorry

[TheCarp]

That wasn't the last page. I know that wasn't the last page because the last pages of that book haunted me for weeks after I read them. Its probably one of the most emotionally disturbing bits of fiction that I have ever read. Just thinking of the last few words of that book sends shudders down my spine now.

This particular scene however, I have trouble not replacing Winston and O'Brien with the TNG version of this exact scene. "There are FOUR lights!"

Re: You did change the world for the better!

[ceoyoyo]

Sounds like outright sarcasm to me. Last refuge of the tortured.

Re:You did change the world for the better!

[ShanghaiBill]

How well did WikiLeaks try to protect the innocent people caught up in all of this mess?

Pretty well. They offered to work with the US Government, and let the US review any material prior to release, to ensure no lives were endangered. The US refused the offer.

How well did the American Government try to protect the innocent people caught up in all of this mess? Not at all.

Re:I'd be sorry

[TheNarrator]

Actually, it's more like Nikolai Bukharin's hysterical personal letter to Stalin on the eve of his execution:

For example:

...
5) My heart boils over when I think that you might believe that I am guilty of these crimes and that in your heart of hearts you think that I am really guilty of all of these horrors. My head is giddy with confusion, and I feel like yelling at the top of my voice. I feel like pounding my head against the wall. What am I to do? What am I to do? ...

Re:I'd be sorry

[IamTheRealMike]

Has anyone NOT read 1984 by now? I'm pretty sure it was required reading at high school in the UK for a while.

If anyone hasn't read it, they should do so. Right now. It is the book most relevant to the times in which we live. Spoilers follow. The parallels are just terrifying:

• We have total surveillance of all people. Heck, think about laptops and smart TVs. Are you sure the NSA can't turn on their webcams and microphones remotely, a la telescreens?
• We have a Winston equivalent breaking down and saying how much he loves the government and how amazed he is that he could have ever doubted their greatness.
• We have the government torturing or executing anyone who disagrees with them.
• We are in a state of perpetual war against regions of the world that somehow suddenly shift yet somehow stay the same (one day Afghanistan, the next day Iraq, then Iran, etc).
• Until recently bin Laden was the target of the "5 minutes hate". Though I guess these days there's no equivalent. The analogy is a little rough because in the book Emmanuel Goldstein (?) was a terrorist figure entirely manufactured by Big Brother to attract and flush out rebels. In reality no such person existed. bin Laden surely existed, although he did once work for the CIA itself until the US no longer needed him. So in a rough sense he was "made" by US policies.

Of course, there are things that don't apply too. In 1984 the government exercised absolute control over information, as the Soviet Union did (which is what inspired the book). Goldstein could be manufactured out of nothing because Big Brother controlled all access to information and had perfect propaganda in place. I am very skeptical such a thing does or could exist today. Our Big Brother equivalents hide information obsessively but they know they can't actually control it once out, nor can they rewrite history. If the internet had not happened or had evolved in a different way (like in China) then this part might also have come true, but so far in the west I believe we have a pretty good idea of what's truth vs fiction - we might be missing information but we are not widely believing propaganda. Well, except for idiots who have an instinctive need to "belong to a team" in which case they choose to believe propaganda even though disproving it is trivial. But that's a different problem than the people in 1984 had.