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News Bradley Manning guilty of most charges but cleared of 'aiding the enemy'

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Meanmotion, 30 Jul 2013.

  1. Meanmotion

    Meanmotion bleh Moderator

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  2. miller

    miller What's a Dremel?

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    I'm actually surprised that he was cleared of that as I can understand the prosecutions argument of 'aiding the enemy'.

    Surely releasing any classified government information into the wild would always mean there is a high risk of it falling into enemy hands regardless whether the info is released via the internet or passed on directly hand to hand, directly or indirectly, the risk of the info aiding the enemy is always there.

    What message does this send to Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, especially Snowden as he is also considered a traitor for putting at risk both American and British national security?
     
  3. Sheiken

    Sheiken Wat?

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    Bradley Manning is a hero.

    To even think that Bradley should be the focus of his leaks is just absurd! It is nothing but a witch hunt, to divert attention away from the utterly horrible contents of what was leaked. That is what people really should be concerned about!
     
    VipersGratitude likes this.
  4. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    Bradley Manning did not leak information about strategy or tactics to give terrorists advantage; he leaked information about gross violations and war crimes committed by our side in this conflict. There's a difference (and if you don't know what that difference is, well, that's part of the problem, isn't it?). The price of being the good guy is that you have to be the good guy. You don't get to do bad things and justify that by pointing at the other guy and crying that he's doing way worse things.

    Manning is the moral conscience of a nation being sacrificed on the altar of expediency, fear and greed. When you stare into the abyss, it stares right back at you. And it is smiling.
     
    Last edited: 30 Jul 2013
  5. Sentinel-R1

    Sentinel-R1 Chaircrew

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    I have no sympathy for him. He was subject to their law for the handling of classified material and would have known the consequences of his actions, as do any in such a position. He either knew what he was doing and felt so strongly about it that he didn't care about what may come of himself, or naivety played the better part of judgement. Either way, his psych-eval should never have been signed off to give him access to that material in the first place.
     
    Last edited: 30 Jul 2013
  6. Fujukami

    Fujukami What's a Dremel?

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    +1
     
  7. Alecto

    Alecto Minimodder

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    And therefore "leaking" unencrypted videos showing post festum details such as civilians getting killed by an US air-strike (I bet you never saw that one coming when the planes went in ...) lands him in jail for remainder of his life. Yup, working as intended.

    Seriously, politics and political allegiances aside, the prosecution team that deemed this an offense of such a nebulous magnitude should be the target of psychiatric reevaluation. This is Nazi Germany reenacted all over again, the only thing missing so far is the world-scale war that will claim the lives of 20+ million people (but they're getting there; slowly, but surely, both on numbers and geographical front).
     
  8. Alecto

    Alecto Minimodder

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    Oh and I claim 'first' for invoking Godwin's law here.
     
  9. Maki role

    Maki role Dale you're on a roll... Lover of bit-tech

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    Sadly, at the end of the day, it's not the contents of the leaks that are important in this case. Morally he may have done the right thing, people should know about these atrocities, but he knew the risks and must answer to them. To take a different, and more clear cut example, if you preemptively kill somebody who is about to go murder 100 school children, you've no doubt done the right thing in most people's eyes, but you still murdered somebody and must face justice for your actions. It's very much like in a movie where the hero has to take a fall, even when the easy way would be to avoid the situation at all. Classified data is still classified, the system has placed an onus on that individual to maintain that status. The contents may be horrible, but it is your duty as a serviceman to uphold that code.
     
  10. RichCreedy

    RichCreedy Hey What Who

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    this is also my take on it, he may not have liked the material, but he was duty bound to keep it classified, he could have raised concerns with the relevant authorities, but should never have published them on the internet. he must now face the consequences of his actions.
     
  11. John_T

    John_T Minimodder

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    A lot of people in the public have been comparing Bradley Manning with Edward Snowden, but really, they're nothing alike at all. Edward Snowden had a crisis of conscience over what he was doing, and then leaked several carefully chosen pieces of information to the worldwide press, to highlight, in general terms, what he believed was wrongdoing.

    That is not what Bradley Manning did.

    Bradley Manning downloaded wholesale databases of information and simply dumped it into the public domain with almost no regard for what he was actually releasing:

    - A quarter of a million diplomatic reports.
    - A half a million army reports.

    The fact is, he had absolutely no idea of what it was he was releasing - or the consequences of releasing it.

    He wouldn't have even known the NAMES of 99.99% of the reports he released, let alone any detail of what their contents were. To say he put peoples lives at risk probably doesn't even begin to cover it. And not just lives of American soldiers, or Western allies of American soldiers, (like our British soldiers) but all sorts of people: Middle-Eastern soldiers, civilians working for us, (eg interpreters) - and their families - now open to revenge attacks. Civilians and would-be politicians who were in anyway sympathetic to the West, or even just pro-democracy.

    And that's just the obvious stuff. How many peace-talks have ground to a halt over revelations made public? How many secret peace-talks have been scrapped? Many of these things have to be done in private, simply because neither side can afford to be seen making compromises in public. How much of this work has been set back years? How much has been utterly destroyed? It's incalculable.

    Also incalculable is the damage to our information gathering networks. But hey, not to worry, we won't thwart the next suicide bomb or attempted gas attack on a major city and thousands of people will die, but that's alright, because a 22 year old private decided he didn't agree with his bosses and so he, and he alone, decide to make that call unilaterally on behalf of everyone.

    He may have felt he was doing the right thing, but even if he did feel that, he went about it in a ridiculously stupid and reckless way.

    I don't know precisely what punishment he deserves, but he definitely does deserve some form of punishment. The kindest thing that can be said about him is that he is a misguided idiot. He is certainly not a hero.
     
  12. Harlequin

    Harlequin Modder

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    some would say that the Nazi`s actually gave there people greater freedom than those in the USA ` enjoy` now.....
     
  13. VipersGratitude

    VipersGratitude Multimodder

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    Duty-bound to whom? He had evidence of his military violating both international law, and the constitution of the country that very military serves. Are you saying that he should betray his country in order not to betray his country?

    So you're saying that if you clicked on, say, the "Hardware" section of bit-tech you would have no idea what to expect? Or do you think that military-grade electronic filing systems use no metadata? :duh:


    Of course everything you're speculating is incalculable, because it's speculation - by your own admission all these things you are claiming as fact happened in secret, beyond your knowledge. :wallbash:
     
    Last edited: 31 Jul 2013
  14. xrain

    xrain Minimodder

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    So your saying there is some secret folder somewhere labeled "Human rights abuses"? I call bs, if you release 750,000 of any countries classified documents you will find something bad. Only thing Manning did was copy databases he had access to, with no regard to what was actually in them. If he really wanted to expose human rights abuses he would only release documents related to them not entire databases.
     
  15. markwalker84

    markwalker84 What's a Dremel?

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    Do not feed the troll...
     
  16. Meanmotion

    Meanmotion bleh Moderator

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    Right, let's get this back on topic people.

    Konstantine, if you'd like to put forth your propaganda please do so in another thread.
     
  17. konstantine

    konstantine What's a Dremel?

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    I read his 200 hundred years together and Solzhenitsyn clearly points out the fact that with the exception of Stalin (whose father was Jewish which doesn't make him Jewish by Talmudic law), the early communist leaders were by a high percentage Jews. I read his book in Russian. And btw Solzhenitsyn is originally from a Jewish family.

    The evidence are ? It's not delusion to consider evidence. Again. You're telling me stuff that are not proven. The possibility or rather sensibility of performing gas execution in those camps were proven by specialists to be null. The Holohoax is an industry used to extract trillions from Germany every year and retain German/white guilt.

    I honestly didn't intend to start this topic. it's just a crucial part of what the news is about, and it came along on its own.

    I'm not asking you to believe me. Actually my English is not the best language I speak, and that's why I linked the videos so you can hear my points from the original sources.
     
  18. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    Back on topic, please.
     
  19. konstantine

    konstantine What's a Dremel?

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    Why is it so taboo to discuss a historical topic here? Is it because it's anti-Semitic? Well, I don't care if it is, and I'm not bothered one bit by this whole antisemitism fraud. Actually, over 80% of the Jewish people are not from the Middle East. They are from Central Asia from. Ashkenazim Jews are Turkic in origin. So, I'm not sure what Semitism or whatever they call themselves has to do with it.

    And why do you all seem to have the same exact reaction to politically incorrect history? didn't it ever accrue to you that the official WW 2 history is likely less accurate than the "conspiracy version" of WW 2 history?

    BTW, do you put people in prison in your country if they are accused of being anti-Semitic? They used to kill people in Soviet Russia for being anti-Semitic.
    Lenin declared: "We are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class."...Bourgeoisie was a Bolshevik code-word for Gentile. The first law passed after the Communists seized power in Russia made anti-Semitism a crime punishable by death. (Izvestia, July 27, 1918)
     
  20. GeorgeStorm

    GeorgeStorm Aggressive PC Builder

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    I think they'd rather you just make your own thread if you want to talk about it rather than post in this one.

    On topic:
    I don't think I know enough to give proper judgement as to whether he should be considered a hero or a fool, it's most likely a bit of both, trying to do good but possibly in a rather clumsy way.
     
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