I’m with Dom on this, who commented on today’s morning news:
The exorbitant sentence for Manning is a bummer. What he did wasn’t legal, and it was a little sloppy, but it was whistle-blowing done with noble intent, exposing horrible things our government has done. Manning has benefited the world more than he’s harmed it, and I’m extremely grateful to him. His sentence is draconian.
Amy Davidson points out: “He offered to plead guilty to enough counts to put him in prison for twenty years. The prosecutors pressed on, insisting on trying him under the Espionage Act and for ‘aiding the enemy.'” She also points out, “The WikiLeaks files have been a useful and important part of what had been about a dozen underdeveloped debates about our wars and foreign policy.” And on the subject of this sentence being a “deterrent” for future leakers, she points out the government’s horrible mistreatment of Manning in custody (the UN found it “cruel, inhuman, and degrading”) and wonders: “Where is the deterrent for that?”
Meanwhile, John Cassidy adds: “Much of the wrongdoing that Manning exposed hasn’t been dealt with nearly as harshly as he has,” and quoting from a New Republic article arguing that Manning should be pardoned, offers a list of such incidents Manning is responsible for letting the world know about:
American troops killing civilians, including women and children, and then calling in an airstrike to destroy evidence; the video of an American Apache helicopter gunship shooting civilians, including two Reuters reporters; American military authorities failing to investigate reports of torture and murder by Iraqi police; and a “black unit” in Afghanistan tasked to perform extrajudicial assassinations of Taliban sympathizers that killed as many as 373 civilians.
“What has happened to those responsible for these acts?” Cassidy writes. “In most cases, not much. For example, no charges have been brought against the U.S. military personnel who were in the Apache helicopter when it opened fire in Baghdad, in July, 2007.”
