[Luis Dias]

I mean wtf is this? Have we entered the Twillight Zone and not know it somehow?

Not judging. At all. But it is as if the world is even crazier than I modeled it. And I thought I was going overboard with it.

[Hobbie]

Chelsea Womanning, more like.

[redsniper]

I guess if you're already going to prison, you might as well get all of your issues on the table.

[MP-Ryan]

How is this a big deal / why do we care?

[Luis Dias]

I have no idea why you care. To me, when I watched the news I was flabbergasted. But you know, I really can't explain exactly why.

[Luis Dias]

Perhaps it was the perverted mix of two very ****ing different subject matters into just one central figure. Manning was about discussing the behavior of the US army, the CIA and what bad things they were hiding from the public, why should he or shouldn't he have leaked these papers, how we can have a democracy with all these secrets, or if it's even possible to have a democracy without these nasty secrets, etc.,etc.

Suddenly Manning changed the subject to transsexuality.

Jesus F Christ. It's like a really shocking pun to a long winded joke.

[Mongoose]

How is this a big deal / why do we care?

I think at least some people care because there's certainly going to be a big legal fight over it regarding his prison situation, and Manning's statements about it seem to suggest that (s)he views it as an excuse for what (s)he did.

[Al-Rik]

So what ?
Bradley Manning had some issues. If he had been one of the square guys he would never talked to wikileaks or to the guy who reported him.
Normally all armed forces try to keep such persons out, just to avoid such things. Seems that someone failed to noticed that Bradley Manning was a safety risk.

The whole story is a tragedy.  Bradley Manning told nothing shocking new about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and no Government would  let him got scot free for that he has done.

[Aardwolf]

Manning's statements about it seem to suggest that (s)he views it as an excuse for what (s)he did.

This is contrary to every statement of his that I've read/seen summarized. IIRC he said at one point that he should have been removed for psych reasons. Now I don't remember reading whether that was for "I'm trans" reasons, or "I'm disillusioned with the military" reasons, or even "I tried to report war crimes to my superiors but they just shut me up" reasons (though I suspect it was one of the latter). But even if it were for being transsexual, the fact they failed to remove him has never been presented as an "excuse" for what he did. What he did needs no excuse: he revealed evidence of numerous specific violations of international law committed by the United States. Having discovered such evidence, he was obligated to release that information internationally.

As for why he released so much information instead of just select documents on the specific and indisputable war crimes (such as the "Collateral Murder" incident)...

I think he was aware there would be retaliation against him, and that even if he won in court with a whistle-blower defense he would still have been denied any further access to those databases. Databases which, were he to continue perusing, he could reasonably expect to uncover a multitude of similar instances of bad **** the United States was up to. He couldn't just give the documents to WikiLeaks one at a time as he discovered them: he would be found out and silenced after one or two times. Better to take the whole database and give it to a publisher he can trust to disseminate it publicly and discreetly (see below).

I believe WikiLeaks generally looks through the information they are given and for the most part avoids publishing things that would be directly useful to Al Qaeda, e.g.: cryptographic keys, deployment schedules, etc..  There was one case where they leaked the names of undercover agents (possibly via Manning?), but I believe that is the exception, not the rule.

[NGTM-1R]

I believe WikiLeaks generally looks through the information they are given and for the most part avoids publishing things that would be directly useful to Al Qaeda, e.g.: cryptographic keys, deployment schedules, etc..  There was one case where they leaked the names of undercover agents (possibly via Manning?), but I believe that is the exception, not the rule.

You would be wrong, as they freely published the names of people in Afghanistan who were cooperating with the US, precipitating the need for a massive effort to move these people to safety if possible and of which a number were killed in retaliation by Taliban forces.

[Nemesis6]

of which a number were killed in retaliation by Taliban forces.

I'd like a citation for this. This has been asserted many times on this subject in general, but I have yet to see evidence that anyone were ever actually harmed as a direct result of these being published.

[Luis Dias]

What you don't believe the same government that is spying you, hiding things from you and lying about really big things to you all the time?

Why, I have no idea what made you become such a damned skeptic. tsc tsc.

[NGTM-1R]

I'd like a citation for this.

How about Manning's own prepared statement that went the with the guilty plea?

I dunno man, we shouldn't trust the person whose leaks we trust?

[karajorma]

I don't think we can trust anything said by someone trying to mitigate the amount of time they'll spend in jail. There's obviously an enormous reason to lie.

Something like this needs an independent source of some sort to be confirmed. If Manning quoted one, we can use that, sure. But if he doesn't, any statement he gave is pretty dubious.

[Aardwolf]

@NGTM-1R: Nope, that's the single exceptional incident I was just talking about. s/undercover agents/collaborators

[NGTM-1R]

I don't think we can trust anything said by someone trying to mitigate the amount of time they'll spend in jail. There's obviously an enormous reason to lie.

Something like this needs an independent source of some sort to be confirmed. If Manning quoted one, we can use that, sure. But if he doesn't, any statement he gave is pretty dubious.

If there's not a shred of evidence that people have died, and the judge is aware that none has been presented, and they are solely responsible for your sentencing, declaring yourself responsible for several deaths is obviously an optimal strategy.

Christ on a pogo stick, did the "cop to negligent homicide  when it wasn't charged will reduce my sentence" idea actually make sense in your head? Because that's what you're suggesting!

[karajorma]

Do you really believe that someone wouldn't plead guilty to a single trumped up charge if it would get them several years off a jail sentence for other crimes?


Cause what it seems you are saying is that just cause Manning was charged with a crime, that it definitely must be true. Which sounds ludicrous given the number of trials where a person has not merely been innocent of the crime, but where no crime turned out to have actually been committed.

What I am saying is that I would want to see proper evidence that a crime was committed. If that was presented at the trial, fair enough. But the fact that Manning pleaded to having committed a crime does not automatically prove that the crime was actually real. Especially in a case like this.

[MP-Ryan]

You both are making a mistake.

While the source is Salon, there's a good explanation of the goings-on here:  http://www.salon.com/2013/08/01/counter_intel_officer_manning_leaks_did_not_lead_to_deaths/

Basically, while the Taliban killed someone in Afghanistan and claimed it resulted from the leaks, there is no information in the leaked documents themselves that suggests that person was ever named, let alone made a target.  In other words, there is circumstantial evidence that Manning's actions may have inadvertently led to the death of at least one person as a result of the leaks, but that person was not named in the leaked documents and either the Taliban randomly killed someone, claimed it was due to the leak (counter-productive, since the Taliban you'd think would want more such leaks, not less), and it turned out to be a lucky target, or they gleaned some identifying information from the documents that made it likely that person was a target for their actions.

[karajorma]

I don't see where there was a mistake I was making there. I was suspicious that there was proof that the Taliban killed someone based on the leak and you're basically saying that they may have done but there's no proof of it.

In addition I was further suspicious that if the government flat out says that there was proof (as NGTM-1R claimed) and Manning had plead to it, that it would still turn out to be more like the situation you describe.

[MP-Ryan]

I don't see where there was a mistake I was making there. I was suspicious that there was proof that the Taliban killed someone based on the leak and you're basically saying that they may have done but there's no proof of it.

In addition I was further suspicious that if the government flat out says that there was proof (as NGTM-1R claimed) and Manning had plead to it, that it would still turn out to be more like the situation you describe.

The mistake you were making was in assuming there is likelihood of improper factual statements in a guilty plea.  In point of fact, the liklihood of non-factually support statements in the American equivalent of an "agreed statement of facts" is very low as it has to be drafted by both prosecution and defense, agreed to, and factually supported by the evidence available.  It is then subject to judicial review.  These documents can contain errors and inaccuracies, but the likelihood of that happening during a guilty plea in a high-profile case is exceptionally low.

The "agreed statement of facts" or equivalent in most judicial systems is the closest thing to a factual record of the crime and is considerably more reliable than any judicial or juridical findings in a case, particularly in the United States and Canada (Britain's system differs due to differences in rights and inferences that can be drawn based on testimony).  In that regard, statements made in a guilty plea are ordinarily quite reliable if a defendant is well-represented, and Manning was.

NGTM-1R's error, on the other hand, was factual - there is no definitive evidence that the death in Afghanistan attributed to the leak by the Taliban was actually due to the content of the leak itself.