Reasons why Bradley Manning's alleged Crimes are Serious and deserve Harsh Punishment

[Robb]

via http://www.opednews.com/articles/Reasons-why-Bradley-Mannin-by-Steven-Leser-101231-517.html">OpEdNews:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Reasons-why-Bradley-Mannin-by-Steven-Leser-101231-517.html">Reasons why Bradley Manning's alleged Crimes are Serious and deserve Harsh Punishment

By Steven Leser

First, a disclaimer, Private First Class Bradley Manning is presumed innocent until proven guilty. This article discusses alleged actions and crimes only and will explore what should happen to him if he is found guilty of the offenses of which he is accused and how background colors the opinions of people commenting him.

I've been reading articles and comments from many of my progressive friends about how great they think Wikileaks is and how they think Manning and Assange are heroes. I have to admit that after the first item of interest leaked by Wikileaks, the video of what seems to be a US helicopter firing on unarmed civilians in Iraq, I thought to myself, this organization Wikileaks has done something important here. What happened in that video needs to be investigated. It might turn out to be totally innocent, but it looks bad and needs investigation.

I thought that was the point of Wikileaks, to highlight issues that need investigation. I was therefore extremely disappointed when I heard that the next thing being released was over 250,000 miscellaneous materials that are mostly diplomatic cables that suggest no wrongdoing that needs to be investigated. That was the beginning of my disillusionment with Wikileaks and as more information came out about the materials, their source, and the institution targeted, that disillusionment only grew....

(snip)

...I posted two separate polls on Democratic Underground one for current and former military and one for those who had never been in the military and in both polls I asked what should be done to Manning as a result of his actions. The difference was as I expected....

Read more: http://www.opednews.com/articles/Reasons-why-Bradley-Mannin-by-Steven-Leser-101231-517.html

[Jim__]

1. The crimes currently being committed against Bradley Manning are far more ...

... serious than anything he is alleged to have done.

[baldguy]

4. As are the crimes he helped expose.

[enough]

2. Thank you for using the word "alleged," which rarely turns up in discussions of Manning. (nt)

[lamp_shade]

3. K&R

[GeorgeGist]

5. Shooting the messenger ...

won't change the message.

[pnwmom]

25. If he's the guilty party, he's not the messenger.

He's the traitor.

He might have been a hero, if he had only leaked the helicopter incident or other documents showing wrong-doing. But he crossed a moral line when he chose to leak 250,000 cables simply because he could, without regard to the consequences.

[treestar]

54. What about the IG process he could have used?

RAther than recklessly leaking things?

[bemildred]

6. "The ideology of Democratic Underground's membership is pretty homogenous."

:rofl:

Seriously, what your polls show is the effectiveness of military indoctrination.

Your argument is full of circular reasoning and premises that lead to your desired conclusion. Those of us that disagree with you proceed from different premises, and thus arrive at different conclusions.

Personally, I think the government should give Manning a medal for exposing the fatuous, incompetent nature of the national security apparatus and it's doings.

[Robb]

7. You read it so carefully, of course...

...except you missed the bit about me not being the author. :D

On your last sentence, though, you've got a good point. I don't know about a medal for Manning, but I'd support a lot of people getting in trouble for lax security.

[bemildred]

8. I was addressing Mr Leser.

It is true that your misunderstanding is understandable, however Mr Leser is seen around here at times, and I would expect him to read the reaction to his piece.

I don't think Mr Manning is that important. I assume the government is very busy right now trying to implement changes to prevent this sort of thing from happening again. However, since the problems are structural, and I doubt that the necessary structural reforms will be considered, I expect that this sort of leakage will continue and get worse.

I do think that is a far more interesting and useful subject than Mr Manning and his faults and virtues.

[stevenleser]

33. Just saw this here so here I am...

The idea of SIPRNet aggregating all of this information and having all of these people with access to it, of course, comes from 9/11 and the excuse that the reason the Bush administration didn't put two and two together about the impending attack was because all the various folks only had access to a piece of the puzzle. If we only had a group of people who could have seen all of the items pointing to an impending attack...

Of course, as we see here, when you give too many people access to classified data, it increases the chance of a leak. So I am sure we will tighten the screws on access until another incident happens and we will open it up again. We'll have this never-ending pendulum of increased/reduced amount of people with access.

Regarding the "effectiveness of the military with regard to indoctrination" is that really what you came up with regarding the difference in the polls? Some folks, like me, have been out of the military over 20 years. I only did one hitch. We're all dismissed so easily, huh?

[bemildred]

34. Thanks for the response.

I do enjoy your writing.
:-)

[jmowreader]

36. We already did have that group of people

It's called the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence.

Here's the biggest problem with the Bush theory that getting rid of compartmented information would prevent another 9/11: on August 6, 2001, Bush was told in no uncertain terms that al Qaeda was going to pull an attack, and how they were probably going to do it. Those warnings were ignored, with results we're all too painfully aware of. No amount of increased access will change the fact that Bush didn't give a fuck about terrorism until terrorism happened to him.

[stevenleser]

38. Of course. We agree 100%, it was just an excuse

Bush and his team did not need any more evidence that 9/11 was about to happen. The Clinton team warned about Al-Qaeda during the transition, there were intercepts and reports about "Al Qaeda determined to strike in the US" and there were reports of Al Qaeda using airplanes as weapons.

Part of this is Condoleezza Rice's fault and thus Bush's fault for his choice of her as National Security Advisor. Choosing someone whose expertise is narrowly focused on Russia as NSA in the year 2001 is pretty stupid. Russia is not interested in being our enemy and hasnt been for some time.

No doubt, Rice concentrated on Russia from the moment she got on the job and ignored reports on terrorism and the like. That is what I would expect from someone with her background.

[stray cat]

9. Should wilikleaks post the names and addresses of all Americans on terrorist watch lists?

Don't we have a right to know?

[grahamhgreen]

14. Yes. We do. After all it was we the people who stopped any of the attacks on 9-11, not anyone

in any of the government agencies.

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Warren Stupidity]

11. Yeah we should have hung Daniel Ellsberg.

Oh wait, he is a goddamn hero, and so is Manning.

[Robb]

12. Ellsberg agrees he broke the law, and was prepared to pay the consequences

...when he turned himself in. Had the FBI not broken laws left and right in building their case against him, he'd still be in prison.

It may not be right, but there it is.

[Warren Stupidity]

15. So you think Ellsberg deserved harsh punishment?

Seriously?

[Robb]

16. Nice try, but read my post again.

Remember, Ellsberg tried several avenues to get what he found out in the public sphere before going to the NYT. And in fact they published against his wishes at the time -- he was still working other angles to get daylight for the information he'd photocopied.

But he knew he'd broken the law, and was ready to go to prison for it. He turned himself in.

[Warren Stupidity]

18. So again, if the FBI hadn't violated Ellsberg's rights

then according to you the proper thing to have done was to have thrown the book at him.

[Robb]

19. They did throw the book at him.

[pnwmom]

21. Daniel Ellsberg had a chance to leak several volumes of diplomatic

documents along with the Pentagon papers, but chose not to because he didn't want to interfere with diplomacy. Even though he wasn't a member of the military who was sworn to protect the documents, as Manning was.

[Warren Stupidity]

22. There really are not a lot of legal differences.

You can attempt to make some, by asserting as you have that somehow 'interfering with diplomacy' is some sort of new level of leak, or that Manning's military status makes a major difference, but these are simply distinctions that do not really alter the rather obvious equivalency of these two incidents.

If anything, the Ellsberg case was more serious as the pentagon documents were top secret status.

The comparison makes you and the others here supporting the rather brutal treatment of Manning uncomfortable, for good reasons. You probably consider what Ellsberg did a good thing, as it was, and having decided that you need, for whatever reason, to oppose wikileaks and Manning, that leaves you with a bit of a dilemma. Robb upthread tries to get out of it by repeating that well after all the case against Ellsberg fell apart because of government malfeasance, malfeasance that right now is SOP for our government and no longer results in the courts tossing cases.

[pnwmom]

23. It is true that all of the leaks were illegal, by both Ellsberg and Manning,

if Manning was the leaker.

The question is whether they are morally justified or not. I think Ellsberg's leaks were morally justified, as well as Manning's leak of the helicopter incident -- if he was the leaker. But there is no strong moral justification for the leak of the vast majority of diplomatic cables -- quite the opposite, since these leaks can damage sensitive negotiations and put allies at risk while achieving no important good at all.

[grahamhgreen]

13. The leaks are evidence of a pattern and practice criminal behavior. You are defending the criminals

instead of the witnesses.

You're on the wrong side of right.

[pnwmom]

20. The overwhelming majority of leaks don't uncover criminal behavior.

They are routine, but sensitive and secret, diplomatic matters. Like discussions with China about North Korea, or with other countries about Iran.

If Manning had limited his releases to the few documents concerning the helicopter matter and similar events, he would be a whistleblower. But now, if he's guilty, he's just a traitor.

[xocet]

41. 1997 / 251,287 have been released so far.

Do you have special access to the leaked cables? Even if you were to have that, your claim that the "overwhelming majority of leaks don't uncover criminal behavior" is as impressive as it is unsupportable. November 28, 2010 to January 2, 2011 is only 35 days. That is about 7,200 cables per day that you have apparently read and comprehended. Only a very simple person would claim that a 0.79% sample constitutes an "overwhelming majority." Is that really the best intellectual analysis that you can muster? It is a weak and shoddy analysis that you present.

[pnwmom]

24. The leaks are evidence of the leaker's criminal behavior.

But the vast majority of documents leaked are not evidence of anyone else's criminal behaviors. It isn't criminal for our diplomats to conduct secret negotiations with other countries; it's their job.

If the leaker had only leaked documents related to actual misconduct, such as the helicopter incident, his behavior would be morally defensible. But he chose to leak 250,000 unrelated documents indiscriminately (including documents related to delicate diplomatic negotiations), without regard to the consequences. And, if Manning is the leaker, he will have to suffer the consequences.

[grahamhgreen]

27. I understand what your saying, but I think you need to see the bigger picture to understand the

grand scheme of criminal behavior that much of our government is currently involved in.

None of this hurts our country as a whole, it is information that helps us make informed decisions, IMHO.

[pnwmom]

28. Doesn't needlessly undermining our talks with China

concerning North Korea hurt our country's interests? To take just one example?

Of the thousands of documents that have been released, only a miniscule fraction show any potential "criminal behavior" on the part of our government. The rest are routine -- but highly sensitive -- diplomatic cables. Doesn't our country, as a whole, have an interest in promoting the use of diplomacy rather than war to settle differences? Wikileaks is interfering with diplomacy, which is meant to solve disputes without war -- that's the bigger picture.

[grahamhgreen]

29. Is there a particular cable you are talking about? I haven't seen anything detrimental.

[pnwmom]

31. There are differences between the Communist party (which is

tied to the party in North Korea) and the Foreign Office in China. It won't help us, when we are talking with the Foreign Office, to expose all our negotiations to the world (including North Korea). The Foreign Office should have been able to talk to us in confidence.

Here is a sampling of the kind of damage the Wikileaks have done to diplomatic efforts around the world.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/10/wikileaks-reaction-world-reaction

[grahamhgreen]

35. I don't see anything there that is concerning, more like shining a light into the dark cesspool

of deceit that is destroying American prosperity and prestige.

I tend to agree with these world leaders:

Argentina

In Argentina the Wikileaks revelations have focused on apparent US concern about a new invasion of the Falklands islands and over president Cristina Kirchner mental health. In one cable Hillary Clintonmused over whether the current occupant of the Casa Rosada was "taking any medications."

"How do Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner's emotions affect her decision-making and how does she calm down when distressed?" one cable asked diplomats in the Argentine capital.


Ecuador and Bolivia

The Ecuadorian government has been Wikileaks' most vocal supporter in the region, offering the under-fire Julian Assange residency "without any conditions". Bolivia has also expressed its irritation at its portrayal in the US diplomatic cables. The country's vice-president, Alvaro Garcia Linera, this week posted Bolivia-focused Wikileaks cables, in full, on his official website in response to what he called "insults" and "third rate espionage".

US authorities have been lampooned by much of the Bolivian press.

Juan José Toro Montoya, a columnist for the Cochabamba newspaper Los Tiempos newspaper described the accusations against Wikileaks' founder as "laughable".

"Julian Assange may be under arrest but he has been transformed into a hero and will go down in history as being the first human being to massively reveal the dirty-tricks of government," he wrote yesterday.

[pnwmom]

37. Then I'm glad you're not a diplomat, because an understanding

of human nature is a necessary part of the job. No one would intentionally, publicly, insult an ally (or even an enemy, unless you were being intentionally aggressive) -- but many of these confidential cables do just that.

[stevenleser]

39. Exactly, which points to two problems with those who support Manning, Assange and Wikileaks

#1 - They dont understand the institution of diplomacy, how it works and how important it is.

#2 - They dont understand the military, how Manning could have got his issues resolved via either the chain of command, the IG, the CID or the JAGs and avoided compromising classified information and angering our allies.

[grahamhgreen]

40. That would only be true if

You think our current state of affairs is healthy and not a complete balls up, ass backwards screw up that is destroying our country and our way of life, as well as endangering the stability of the world, the environment, and humanity.

These jokers are nothing but screw ups, the more we know about their sophomoric gossip, the better off we all are, IMHO.

Although, I take your point, there are likely things in there that should be kept quiet, although I really don't think it goes far beyond embarrassing.

I'd say their best course of action would be to suck it up, and get our security In order so that such a huge dump of info is simply not possible.

Fact is, if wikileaks got this info, all the people you are worried about getting it, most likely had it already .

[pnwmom]

42. It goes far beyond embarrassing.

In Zimbabwe, for example, the Prime Minister -- an ally of ours who has been working toward a democracy there -- has been charged with treason for secretly working with us and supporting the sanctions we've imposed (sanctions like those on South Africa during the days of apartheid).

After a corrupt election in 2008, Mugabe had been forced by the UN to take on his former opponent as his Prime Minister. Wikileaks has given Mugabe the excuse he needed to dump his P.M. They have now charged the P.M. with treason, based solely on the information contained in the cables.

So Assange and Wikileaks have strengthened the hand of the violent dictator Mugabe. If you can't tell the difference between Mugabe's government and the Obama administration, then there's no point in talking.

[grahamhgreen]

44. Interesting

From the Zimbabwe Independent:

WikiLeaks

The release of 10 cables under the WikiLeaks whistle-blowing disclosures was a game changer in Zimbabwean politics as it fuelled the already rising tensions between Zanu PF and MDC-T. Zanu PF appeared to have got propaganda fodder ahead of the anticipated elections as it has started to build its message around the contents of the cables.

One cable which appears to have excited Zanu PF greatly concerns sanctions where Tsvangirai is accused of double dipping on the issue –– telling Zanu PF he was seeking a lifting of the restrictive measures while urging the Americans to stand firm. Zanu PF at its Mutare conference this month resolved that any person who calls for sanctions against the country should be charged with treason.

The Attorney-General, Johannes Tomana, said this week government was going to set up a commission of enquiry soon to investigate any constitutional violation arising from WikiLeaks reports. "

http://www.theindependent.co.zw/local/29357-2010-a-case-of-political-kung-fu.html

[pnwmom]

45. Yes, what the article calls "double-dipping" simply means

that he publicly was against sanctions while secretly supporting sanctions in his talks with the U.S.; a difficult but justifiable position for a democrat living under a military dictatorship.

What use would it have been to his countryman if he had been open about his support for sanctions against the dictatorship and had been tried for treason? (Which, of course, is now going to happen?) Instead, he was trying to work with us and against a violent dictator who has publicly vowed never to leave office. If Manning leaked the cable to Wikileaks, he will be personally responsible for whatever happens to our ally, Tsvangirai.

[reorg]

46. they are only considering making support for sanctions illegal

so, for now this alone will not suffice for a conviction.

ZANU-PF also demands

# Sanctions - the government should take counter-measures against foreign companies, institutions and entities whose home countries maintain sanctions against Zimbabwe.
# Expulsion of foreign envoys - the Government should expel envoys promoting the West's regime change agenda and interfering in the internal affairs of Zimbabwe
# NGOs - organisations acting as "conduits of regime change" should be deregistered.

>>double-dipping ... a difficult but justifiable position for a democrat living under a military dictatorship<<

Interesting, I didn't know Zimbabwe is a military dictatorship now? I thought they regularly hold elections. It may have escaped your notice, but Tsvangvirai is not some dissident, he is Prime Minister in an "inclusive government" right now, and not quite, but "by and large, a democrat", if we can believe the former US ambassador Dell.

I hope you don't mean by "democrat" that someone has to be a liar? If Tsangvirai is a tool of outside forces that most of all want him to roll back the land reform which triggered the US sanctions, maybe he should publicly say so. Perhaps his countrymen like the idea of an "alliance" with the US and elect him president. As long as he publicly voices the opinion that sanctions should be lifted, maybe he should stick to this view also in private conversations with the ambassadors of the Great Empire and not ask them to further harass his coalition partners. You never know what comes out and will be used against you in an election campaign.

[pnwmom]

49. You think the last election was an honest election? The reason

Mugabe was forced to take on Tsangivai as his P.M. was because the UN pressured him to -- after violent, tainted elections. Did you know that during the 2008 election Mugabe vowed that whatever the outcome, he would never leave office? (An office he has held for 24 years -- even more if you count the years he spent as Prime Minister.)

Whatever the state of the "law" there is, Prime Minister Tsangvirai is being tried for treason, as a direct result of the released cables.


Here is more about Mugabe, the "elected" dictator Wikileaks is helping to keep in office, with their strategic leak of a US cable about talks we were having with his chief opponent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mugabe

President
In 1987, the position of Prime Minister was abolished and Mugabe assumed the new office of executive President of Zimbabwe gaining additional powers in the process. He was re-elected in 1990 and 1996, and in 2002 amid claims of widespread vote-rigging and intimidation. Mugabe's term of office expired at the end of March 2008, but he was re-elected later in 2008 in another election marred by allegations of election fraud and intimidation.

First-round defeat and the campaign of violence
The presidential elections were conducted on 29 March 2008, together with the parliamentary elections. On 2 April 2008, the Zimbabwe Election Commission confirmed that Mugabe and his party, known as ZANU-PF, had lost control of Parliament to the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change. This was confirmed when the results were released.<65> Both the opposition and his party challenged the results in some constituencies.<66> According to unofficial polling, Zanu-PF took 94 seats, and the main opposition party MDC took 96 seats.<67> On 3 April 2008 Zimbabwean government forces began cracking down on the main opposition party and arrested at least two foreign journalists, who were covering the disputed presidential election, including a correspondent for the New York Times.<68><69>

On 30 March 2008, Mugabe convened a meeting with his top security officials to discuss his defeat in the elections. According to the Washington Post, he was prepared to concede, but was advised by Zimbabwe's military chief Gen. Constantine Chiwenga to remain in the race, with the senior military officers "supervising a military-style campaign against the opposition".<70> The first phase of the plan started a week later, involving the building of 2,000 party compounds across Zimbabwe, to serve as bases for the party militias.<70> On an 8 April 2008 meeting, the military plan was given the code name of "CIBD", which stood for: "Coercion. Intimidation. Beating. Displacement."<70>
The official results for the presidential elections would be delayed for five weeks. When British Prime Minister Gordon Brown attempted to intervene into the election controversy, Mugabe dismissed him as "a little tiny dot on this planet".<71>

When the official results for the presidential elections were finally published by the Zimbabwe election commission on 2 May 2008, they showed that Mr. Mugabe had lost in the first round, getting 1,079,730 votes (43.2%) against 1,195,562 (47.9%) collected by Mr. Tsvangirai. Therefore no candidate secured the final win in the first round, and a presidential run-off will be needed. The opposition called the results "scandalous daylight robbery", claiming an outright victory in the first round with 50.3% of the votes.<72> However, closer analysis of the opposition MDC's own figures, as published on the party's website at time, showed they had secured 49.1% of the vote and not the claimed requiste of +50% to avoid a run-off election.<73>

Mugabe's run-off campaign was managed by Emerson Mnangagwa, a former security chief of the conflict of Gukurahundi.<70> The Washington Post asserts that the campaign of violence was bringing results to the ruling party, by crushing the opposition party MDC and coercion of its supporters. By 20 June 2008, the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights had "recorded 85 deaths in political violence since the first round of voting".<74> News organizations report that, by the date of the second-round election, more than 80 opposition supporters had been killed, hundreds more were missing, in addition to thousands injured, and hundreds of thousands driven from their homes.<70>

Zimbabwean officials alleged that activists of the MDC, disguised as ZANU-PF members, had perpetrated violence against the population, mimicking the tactics of the Selous Scouts during the liberation struggle. They alleged that there was a "predominance" of Selous Scouts in the MDC.<75> The Sunday Mail published an article which claimed that former Selous Scouts were training MDC youth activists in violent tactics, at locations near Tswane (Pretoria) and Pietermaritzburg in South Africa.<76>

In addition, at least 100 officials and polling officers of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission were arrested after the first round election.<77><78>
Tsvangirai initially agreed to a presidential run-off with Robert Mugabe,<79> but later withdrew (on 22 June 2008), citing violence targeted at his campaign. He complained that the elections were pointless, as the outcome would be determined by Mugabe himself.<80>

The outcome of the run-off election

The run-off election was held on 27 June 2008, and Zimbabwe’s Electoral Commission released the results two days later. The official results showed that Mugabe had managed to double his votes since the first round, to 2,150,269 votes (85.5%), while his opponent Tsvangirai obtained only 233,000 (9.3%).<81> However Tsvangirai had pulled out previously because of widespread violence from the ZANU-PF's forces. The violence includes beating, rape and others. Many voted because if they didn't they could face violence against them. Although witnesses and election monitors had reported a low turnout in many areas of the country,<82> the official tally showed that the total vote had increased, from 2,497,265 votes in the first round<83> to 2,514,750 votes in the second round.<81>
Two legal opinions commissioned by the Southern African Litigation Centre (SALC)<84> declared the run-off election illegal because it occurred outside the 21 day period within which it had to take place under Zimbabwean law. Under item 3(1)(b) of the Second Schedule of the Electoral Act, if no second election is held within 21 days of the first election, the candidate with the highest number of votes in the first election has been duly elected as President and must be declared as such. According to the figures released by Zimbabwe’s Electoral Commission, that would mean that Morgan Tsvangirai is the de jure President.

Mugabe's inauguration to his sixth presidential term of office was a hastily arranged ceremony, convened barely an hour after the electoral commission declared his victory on 29 June 2008.<85> None of his fellow African heads of state were present at his inauguration; there were only family members, ministers, and security chiefs in the guests' tent.<86>

The Zimbabwean military, and not President Robert Mugabe, is now running the troubled country, in the opinion of a South Africa-based NGO called the Zimbabwe Solidarity Forum (ZSF) - 10 Jul 2008.<87>




A sidelight for interested DUers –

Mugabe has been uncompromising in his opposition to homosexuality. In September 1995, Zimbabwe's parliament introduced legislation banning homosexual acts.<36> In 1997, a court found Canaan Banana, Mugabe's predecessor and the first President of Zimbabwe, guilty of 11 counts of sodomy and indecent assault.<37>

[reorg]

51. I think you are overreacting

For the time being they are only investigating if Mr Tsvangirai can be tried for something, much like the prosecutors in Sweden or the US with respect to Assange's alleged crimes. He is not accused of acting as a "mole" or an informant, the cable only shows that he apparently said different things publicly than he did in private conversations.

If anyone is to blame for making the cable public, it would be the editors of the Guardian, not Wikileaks or the person who made it available to them.

[treestar]

53. You didn't read the article.

[kestrel91316]

17. Well that's just fine, IF he is guilty as charged and is convicted in a fair trial,

THEN he should be punished. From what I have heard, he is already being punished.

Again, SHAME on the US military.

[bhikkhu]

26. If you have been asleep for the last 10 years

...and think that there's no need for us to know any more than we do about how our government represents us in the world, then fine.

On the other hand, if you haven't been asleep for the last ten years, and if you know a thing or two about the last two wars we were duped into, and if you actually care how we have conducted ourselves in the rest of the world, and if you would prefer to have war crimes and crimes against humanity out in the open rather than secret, regardless of the cost, then Manning has done us a great favor; let us all hope there are more men like him, who still retain a functioning conscience and are willing to use it.

[pnwmom]

50. Why do you view this as a black and white, all or nothing proposition?

In addition to the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg had access to several volumes of diplomatic cables, much like those Manning (or someone) leaked to Assange. Ellsberg chose not to release the cables, however, because he didn't want to interfere with diplomacy. Why couldn't Manning have done the same thing? Instead, he appears to have simply leaked, willy nilly, everything he could get his hands on, not just Iraq/Afghanistan war logs, but hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables; whether or not the contents had any value to the public and whether or not sensitive interests -- particularly those related to maintaining peace -- would be harmed.

[bhikkhu]

52. Good question, and I suppose it comes down to one's predispositions

My post downthread summarizes my predisposition: the system is rotten, and secrecy has allowed it to spread rottenness everywhere. Not to impugn the good intentions of some people involved, but since the US invaded the Philippines and began an overseas empire, the "forces of good" intending to spread freedom and democracy have been outmatched. The culture of secrecy is the most basic reason for the failure, and all the harm it has caused and taken part in globally for a hundred years.

On the other hand, if you look at history and see the US as the beacon of hope and goodness for the world over the last 100 years (as it has been famously described by certain politicians who did far more harm than good, IMHO), then you would be predisposed to think that our diplomacy should remain secret as it has been, and Manning should have weeded carefully through those 250,000 cables to sort out only the bad apples.

[mudplanet]

30. George Bush perjured himself to the entire citizenry and started two illegal wars so

excuse me if I'm not calling for the blood of someone who helped compile the evidence of these crimes.

Nearly every attempt to get the evidence through legal means was met with "We can't let you see those files, it'll damage national security." And as we can see from the files, the only security it threatens is the security of international criminals who should be in prison permanently.

[bhikkhu]

32. Not to mention decades of crap in S. America, Africa, and the Middle East

...our diplomatic response to coups, regional instability, civil unrest, irresponsible government, economic distress, etc, seems to be to flood the arena with weaponry (http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/congo.htm for example), and secrecy has largely allowed a miserable history of failure to continue.

If we had wikileaks back in the 90's, we would have changed our rotten way of doing things by now. If we had wikileaks back in the 80's, we would have changed our rotten way of doing things years ago. Secrecy encourages incompetence, war and death.

[reorg]

43. the author appears to be soliciting serious crimes that deserve harsh punishment

in the countries where they are being committed. At least he calls for the protection of "moles" and informants the US appears to have in foreign goverments - individuals who, if subjected to treason charges, may be in danger of being "apprehended and executed", he speculates.

Ironically, his apologetic view of such criminal activities leads him to call for excessive, "harsh punishment" for those who make them publicly known.


The only other argument for "harsh punishment" he puts forward is that most of the documents are rather trivial. They don't contain any information concerning government abuses and are therefore not really worth publishing. He selects a random sample of four documents and concludes:

"That anyone would assert that these four documents, or the vast majority of the rest are whistleblowing or somehow make government better by sunlight is laughable."

Well, I checked out one of those documents, a short survey on the development of MUSLIM DEMOGRAPHICS, as they call it, in the UK. The information contained, as interesting as it may be for instance regarding the dangers of Muslim extremism in Britain, is certainly not a secret and most likely publicly available in many places.

However, it is classified "Secret, for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). Why is that? Jordan Stancil, who apparently has some experience with the procedure, explains:

"The classification rules were supposed to induce openness by requiring cable authors to choose from a list of justifications in the controlling executive order before classifying a document, but in reality, as I saw during my own Foreign Service postings, everybody chooses reasons 1.4(b) and (d)—foreign government information, and foreign activities of the United States. In fact, nearly all officers simply had those justifications pre-pasted into a cable-writing template on their computers. As everyone can now see, almost all the WikiLeaks cables released so far were classified based on reasons 1.4(b) and (d)."

http://www.thenation.com/article/156835/wikileaks-and-government-secrecy


If this is true, if the "secret" label is frequently applied without necessity and even frivolously, publishing such cables with their classification would expose violations of the Executive Order 13526 (Classified National Security Information). It says:

“Our democratic principles require that the American people be informed of the activities of their Government. Also, our Nation's progress depends on the free flow of information both within the Government and to the American people. Nevertheless, throughout our history, the national defense has required that certain information be maintained in confidence in order to protect our citizens, our democratic institutions, our homeland security, and our interactions with foreign nations. Protecting information critical to our Nation's security and demonstrating our commitment to open Government through accurate and accountable application of classification standards and routine, secure, and effective declassification are equally important priorities.”

http://www.justice.gov/open/declassification.html


So, unless the author can show that publication of any of those cables he finds so laughable endangers "our citizens, our democratic institutions, our homeland security, and our interactions with foreign nations" he would have to agree that their publication is indeed an act of "whistleblowing" which he so vigorously purports to support.

[Doctor_J]

47. Why Dick Cheney's, George Bush's, Karl Rove's,

Anton Scalia's, Slappy Thomas's, John Roberts's, John Yoo's alleged crimes are serious and deserve punishment...

Focus, people. Focus.

This opinion, besides being full of errors, is wrong-headed to an absurd degree.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

48. OR, "Reasons why Daniel Ellsberg's alleged Crimes are Serious and deserve Harsh Punishment"

see?

The crimes were revealed by the leak.

The leaker is not the criminal.