Ha! The very idea that American citizens would ever vote for someone who broke the law is laughable. HA!

Dear Bradley,

Treason has consequences.

Sincerely,
Your Commander In Chief

The Obama administration's aggressive prosecution of whistleblowers would make Dubya blush.

oooh, TraitorTrolls..! oh my!
"trait'r'olls" as I call 'em for short.

projecting their treason on the whistleblower and telling us aaalll about it. shocking!

Dear troll @4,

So much for a trial as guaranteed in the constitution, huh? Cruel and unusual what? Never mind.

Sincerely,
Whatever, I guess he deserves it.

Leaking classified information when you work for the military isn't "whistleblowing"

Did anything positive actually come of any of this? Did it end up being pointless?

"No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."

1. Not sure I see anything in there about a right to have a formal trial-like hearing, like @9 assumes. So, nothing says you get counsel, or can confront witnesses against you, or admit evidence in your defense. Also, procedural due process, which is what you are complaining about, is usually based on balancing the interests of the plaintiff against the interests of the gov (I'm not being exact here) and the gov gets away with a lot more when national security interests are at risk. So, not talking about torture, but the procedural stuff is probably constitutional. Ethical, no. But that's not new.

2. There's a difference between whistleblowing and giving classified documents away. If this had been the former he might have been able to claim some protection. I think this is probably a good kid with a good heart who didn't make the best decision. I think the law will be applied in a non-biased manner and reach a lamentable, heartbreaking result. I hope some great lawyers out there are working on this. He doesn't deserve what he's going through, and I hope he keeps his head up. He's not a bad person, he just repeated 'candyman' three times.

10- He leaked a video of the US military murdering two Reuters journalists and medical aid workers, documents showing that the US military believed most of the Guantanamo Bay prisoners were innocent and included people as young as 14 years old, details of over 15,000 Iraqis murdered that were never revealed to the press, incidents of torture in Iraq that continued after Abu Ghraib, and thousands of pages more.

If that's not whistleblowing, what is?

oh, also gotta say, as an american citizen, hey I want this prosecuted. don't go leaking private docs to randos.

and yo, if you think (as I do) that there is a problem with the proportionality of the punishment to the crime in comparing something like this with something like Jack Abramoff, the answer isn't to make it less punitive for someone like Bradley but to make it more punitive to be someone like Abramoff. Let's be straightforward here.

Did I accidentally click on a Fox news comment thread? Oh, that's right, when war crimes like, oh I don't know....an American helicopter gunning down a group of civilians in Baghdad are exposed under Democratic administrations....it's loving and liberal. People just need to keep their big mouths shut and follow orders in the face of crimes against humanity. I can't quite remember where I've heard that mantra before...whatever.

Also, how to get your name and address put on a federal list of "troublemakers"

I'm not saying he deserves to be freed. I'm saying he scarified his life to sound the alarm with "Collateral Murder," and he deserves respect.

@9, You are right, it is better to not try and understand the conversation, but to paint the people you disagree with as Bush conservatives.

So, with that in mind, you are a Bush conservative because you are resorting to painting your opponents as anti-American. How Fox-newsy of you. Is this how you win these arguments? Did I win? You're right, much easier than trying to be thoughtful.

@19, agree completely.

I have no doubt he knew the consequences of his actions. He should pay the price.

"I'm not saying he deserves to be freed. I'm saying he scarified his life to sound the alarm with "Collateral Murder," and he deserves respect."

Perfectly understandable. He needed to be "locked in a 6-foot-by-8-foot cell for 23 hours a day" and "kept naked for long periods". He needs to be given a life sentence. The Obama's state department needs to keep up their valiant efforts of prosecuting more whisleblowers under the World War I-era Espionage Act than all his predecessors combined, including law-and-order Republicans John Mitchell, Edwin Meese and John Ashcroft.

I hate to know how the Stranger would like people they don't respect treated.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-humilia…

@25 tsk tsk tsk...there shall be no truth that makes Democrats look bad allowed on Slog. We only want the GOP to look bad.

Unless the Stranger is working on a piece that goes into the lies the Obama Administration spins about the drone attacks? And how Eric Holder has publicly said if we kill you with a drone attack that makes you an enemy combatant. Maybe the Stranger is pulling that sort of reporting together right now? LOL!! Who am I kidding!

But sorry Spindles...the Stranger is nothing more than a mouth piece for the DNC...not for facts and certainly not for liberalism. Try Democracy Now for that.

In the interest of "National Security", I think that this entire post and comment thread should be deleted. It's just not worth chancing...

I can't believe how young he is.

@26 - Why don't you both try Democracy Now for all of your unhinged and half thought out rants instead of just some of them?

Yeah the rich never go to jail
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-2…

@26 Umm the Stranger is a mouthpiece for liberalism, who on the staff is not super liberal?

Reader01 @18, my thoughts exactly. In order to obtain a Top Secret Codeword security clearance, during my time in the US Army, I too swore an oath of secrecy.

Like everyone else in my unit, we took that responsibility very seriously and would never have knowingly violated it even slightly -- let alone download tens of thousands of secret documents to unauthorized recipients. He has earned a sentence of life in prison, with parole coming only at an advanced age.

And these lame-ass people yelling whistleblower. What a crock! If he was truly blowing the whistle, he would've revealed only the few documents necessary to reveal the transgression -- not the mass dump that he did.

This thread is another example of how fascism knows no political party boundaries. Fucking war crimes apologists.

Jesus - you guys and your crimes of war and the flag waving nationalists that are upset that they get found out.

Buhoo... "he's a traitor" you do realize how pathetic that sounds, right? Considering all things surrounding the case - you do realize that you sound as stupid as someone who calls "just following orders" a sound moral defence?

If people are actually interested in being supportive of Private Manning, please bear in mind that she identifies as female and uses the name Breanna. In fact, regardless of what you may think about Private Manning's actions, please do her the courtesy of treating her like a person.

@35 didn't know that. Cheers.

OK. If we can try GW Bush for war crimes (after keeping him in the brig for a couple of years incommunicado) then I have no problem with frying Bradley Manning.

To elaborate, because this makes me sick, I've seen several people talk about how Manning "pledged an oath". The fact that Americans believe this exonerates a person from behaving in an otherwise moral manner is a huge part of what is wrong with our country today. Is the military you're a part of killing civilians in a pointless and morally bankrupt war? Too bad, you pledged an oath! Is the company you work for contributing to the rapidly approaching ecological suicide of the human race? Sit back and wait for it, because you should be local to the company!

I heard someone at the gym yesterday whining about what a loser his friend was dating. Said person was a loser because he still believed in that "idealistic crap" and refused to get a real career. If we had a few million more like him, and a few million less like the asshole running his mouth, maybe we wouldn't be running headlong for the cliff like we are.

Treason has become synonymous with acting in the interest of peace and human well-being. Ugh.

eddie @11 (and other places) - Gee, thanks for puttin' words in my mouth, lord knows I didn't put my own words into writing. Good thing you were there to help out. I was addressing a troll; I couldn't say for sure if he was a Fox News conservative, but there's a fair chance he's a moron.

Anyway, treason is so clearly defined in the constitution in order to limit its use to silence political dissidents. Treason had been used in England to execute anyone thought to have spoken ill of the king, and nothing about what you quoted suggests that treason is in any way exempted from the due process parts and the cruel and unusual parts of the Bill of Rights. If anything, treason (and the punishments for it) is more strictly defined and restrained than any other crime. In fact, it's the only crime defined in the constitution. If only they had foreseen that the same tactics would be used but in the name of "national security".

Oh, also, you're a fuckin' fuckwad. Fuck you, fuckity fuckface.

Well it is a shame that this sensitive female identified lady is having a hard time in jail. But what exactly the fuck did she think was going to happen? Slap on the wrist?

There are enough unregistered comments on this post that, combined with the opinions of various registered commenters, I'd bet there are multiple calls for Manning to "hang" or "fry" or whatever.

I'd further wager that some of those same people have prattled on in the past about not "killing" "babies." What part of "thou shalt not kill" are you unable to grasp? It didn't come with an asterisk.

And whether you think Manning should be freed, or hung, or suffer some punishment in between, you must admit that 1) you will have fuck-all to do with what actually happens, 2) you are extremely unlikely to possess adequate information to decide his fate even if you had that power, and 3) wherever you fall on the spectrum from deeply religious to godless secular humanist, the advice to comfort the afflicted, visit the sick, and help the poor is hard to fault.

@40 Perhaps he thought his sacrificial action would propel our population to question their complicity in the slaughter and subjugation of entire nations. If this is a democracy, and we are still occupying these countries, then logically it's because we as citizens desire this course of action. If not, if there are actually a small group of people carrying out murder in all of our names, using our tax dollars, without our permission, it's every citizens' duty to challenge the system at least as much as Manning has. Otherwise, we should accept our roles as collective perpetrators.

@39, oops the 2:16 post was intended for Spindles. You were just easily recalled because you like to invent constitutional rights. Or whatever will help you make your argument.

And I never said anything about treason being EXEMPT from DP, I said courts use a balancing test to determine what process you get and when you get it. Hope you didn't spend too much time researching your moot point/getting emotional.

@9: Individuals in the military are under the jurisdiction of military courts. They have somewhat abridged versions of many rights. (And they give this up voluntarily, since the draft isn't in use.)
@32: THANK YOU. If he'd just leaked the documents pertaining to civilian casualties and such, the sort of thing that needs to be addressed, I'd stand by his actions and call for him to be given a slap-on-the-wrist punishment (OTH discharge, a couple years' probation). But he indiscriminately dumped sensitive information into the hands of a foreign organization and trusted THEM to decide what should be released and what needed to be kept under wraps. And that is reprehensible. I'm not going to call for his execution, but he ought to serve some serious time.

A serious discussion on the nature of treason in the modern age would be just as useful as a serious discussion on the subject of impeachment would have been 15 years ago. Unfortunately, we didn't have that discussion then, and we won't have this one now. Instead, we will again wallow in our adolescence, painting all we don't like with too broad a brush, and come out the other end slightly worse off than before. And having clearly learned nothing from our mistakes at all.

Among the things he did leak were...

Names of Afghan informants, many of whom were providing valuable intelligence.
GPSs of MEDEVAC sites, down to the tens of meters. Dial-a-mortar!

PFC Manning could have released the one video, but noooooooooooo.

What you said, @44. Thank you.

@34: Thank you -- fifty comments here so far, and you've written the only one worth taking the time to read.

He didn't 'fuck up' and he deserves to be free. Bradley Manning had the balls to do the right thing of such proportions and you can't even give a freaking verbal support without caveat?
And these comments! When it comes to things that matter and moments of truth, Americans are so similar to the citizens of every other country of the world, yet they speak with such self-righousness about other peoples (China, Russia, MENA countries etc) as if they owned everything about ethics, morality and freedom... the discrepency is nauseating.
You are being lied to by your government (like every other people in the world), and he showed you the tip of that iceburg.
Learn to recognise your heros, you guys.

I'm a little amazed how many commentators are perfectly fine with living in a state that has embraced over the past 80 one of the most fundamental elements of every totalitarian state...endless secrets and a lack of transparency.

And I assume everyone demanding a variety of punishments for Manning, including Mr. Frizzelle, have spent hours studying the case, reviewed all the evidence and have come to that decision after careful thought? But we know that the level of Slog has turned into the same level as the comment section of Drudge. Foolish cowards who make knee jerk reactions and hide under assumed names and then claim free speech.

Sewage coming from the left is just as nasty as sewage coming from the right.

@ 55, are you claiming to have "spent hours studying the case, reviewed all the evidence and have come to that decision after careful thought" ?

This is a complicated issue. I'm not generally okay with leaking of classified secrets because I understand the importance of secrecy to national security. That doesn't mean I'm unaware that that's abused, and that the military commits despicable and horrific acts we never hear about because of them.

Right now, I'm more concerned with Manning's treatment in prison, where it sounds like he's being abused. That's not right, no matter if he was a hero or a fool.

That said, I'm not okay with the knee-jerk beatification that comes from every hard left mouthbreather. They haven't spent hours studying the case, reviewed all the evidence and have come to that decision after careful thought either. They just saw someone give them something that they needed.

It's interesting, the phenomenon of people who are very close politically turning on one another over a disagreement. Drudge? This is nothing like Drudge.

@10: Nobody died as a direct result of this information being released, but that won't stop fearmongers from demanding that Manning deserves what he's been handed because "somebody might get hurt."

@57 Again, your concept of betrayal is bizarre. Let's start with the fact that this was never about one specific event that Manning was trying to bring to light. He figured out that wars are a blood-stained racket for rich people through his experiences in Iraq, and wanted to stop all of them*. American citizens have no way way of ending them through normal political channels. You can't vote to get rid of the military-industrial complex. So he did something that clearly did have an effect in undermining the whole rotten system, based on the freak-out our government has had over it.

This question of loyalty really needs to be turned around. Why does each of us enable imperialism in our names through collective apathy? Why don't we all follow Bradley Manning's lead?

http://nymag.com/news/features/bradley-m…

Hmmm. I recognize some of the handles here but a lot of the comments look like they're coming from sock puppets. I almost feel like I'm back at the Blethen Highlands Seattle Times during the public debate on healthcare reform.

If the Clean Hands Doctrine applied in criminal proceedings, the case against Manning would be thrown out of court. And if he were to be treated equitably, he would be bumped right up to the top of the transplant list for whatever organ he might happen to need, like Dick Cheney (who helped gin up false pretexts for an illegal war of aggression), and have his prison sentence fully commuted, like Scooter Libby (who actually did endanger lives when he intentionally outed an active CIA operative whose husband was exposing the aforementioned false pretexts).

Tell you what: here's another scrap of meat for the sock puppets and the right-thinking jingoists: The PSY scandal: singing about killing p… Go nuts, guys.

Traitor

One the rarely talked about in the US but none-the-less very interesting effects of the Manning/WIKILeaks fallout was how it effected the nacent Arab Spring.

When I was in France last year there was quite a bit of punditry discussion about the unexpected details in the leaked diplomatic cables that was picked up by the democracy movements in Egypt and Libya.

What the cables said was the US State Department had become totally frustrated and fatigued by Bush era policies and fuck ups and that basically if all our pocket-dictators in the middle east were over-thrown most of the high level US diplomats would cheer and argue against US interference. The kids running what was going on in Tahir square read THOSE leaked cables and took heart. Despite all the stuff about torture and what not the Arab Spring saw that at least some people in the US government believed in their ideals.

And guess what? That's exactly what happened. It's fascinating. But nobody in the US talks about it.

As for Manning. His treatment is deplorable. Shameful, in fact. And we should see that he gets a fair trial and humane treatment.

But he knew what he was in for in terms of consequences of the leaks. UCMJ is pretty clear. You can say he's a hero all you want but those laws are there for a reason and there can be no exceptions even for somebody who is doing the right thing. And he, he admits this, was not very mature or prudent in what material was released.

Undoubtably some of that material cost not only US military lives, but probably the lives of a few innocent and crucial informants throughout Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia. We'll not know for years what the fall out really is.

But you have to ask yourself this: Is it worth it?

The war in Iraq itself was immoral. The war in Afghanistan is just fucking pointless. Both are costing innocent lives no matter what. The moral calculus is not easy.

Do you believe that releasing this information may save lives in the long run? Maybe. Hard to say. But he has to live with the consequences and shouldn't just be set free. It's the deal HE made joining the US military in a time war with the laws in place he agreed to obey. There are no whistle blower protections under the UCMJ. He's free to exercise his conscience and violate those rules. But he's got to face the consequences.

He needs a fair trial. He needs to be treated humanely. But his heroism is really for history to decide. All the facts simply are not in.

We have laws. They may not always be just or hold the right people accountable. But you can't ignore them out without very dire consequences. What you can do is change the laws.