I'm curious why you ascribe giddiness to the commenter, given that the commenter themselves ascribed sadness.Considering that he stole classified material after swearing an oath of allegiance, this is not very surprising. Sad, but not not surprising.This is a really depressing feature of human culture. Of what use is allegiance when you discover that the principles you thought you were fighting for turn out to be a lie?
If I signed up to be in the Red Army only to discover that I was killing people fighting for equality rather than protecting people fighting for equality, would you be as giddy at the prospect of seeing me rot in a gulag?
Then there's the blithe acceptance of his treatment- with no charges laid.Why do you think no charges have been laid against him?
"But it was around two years ago, when Pfc. Bradley Manning came here to visit a man he had fallen in love with, that he finally seemed to have found a place where he fit in, part of a social circle that included politically motivated computer hackers and his boyfriend, a self-described drag queen. So when his military career seemed headed nowhere good, Private Manning, 22, turned increasingly to those friends for moral support. And now some of those friends say they wonder whether his desperation for acceptance — or delusions of grandeur — may have led him to disclose the largest trove of government secrets since the Pentagon Papers.posted by ericb at 12:32 PM on December 17, 2010 [4 favorites]
... Former students at his school [in Haverfordwest, Wales], Tasker Milward, remembered Private Manning being teased for all sort of reasons. His American accent. His love of Dr Pepper. The amount of time he spent huddled before a computer. And then, students began to suspect he was gay. Sometimes, former classmates said, he reacted to the teasing by idly boasting about stealing other students’ girlfriends. At other times, he openly flirted with boys. Often, with only the slightest provocation, he would launch into fits of rage. 'It was probably the worst experience anybody could go through,' said Rowan John, a former classmate who was openly gay in high school. 'Being different like me, or Bradley, in the middle of nowhere is like going back in time to the Dark Ages.' But life ahead did not immediately brighten for Private Manning. After his troubled high school years, his mother sent him back to Oklahoma to live with his father and his older sister.
... Before being deployed to Iraq, Private Manning met Tyler Watkins, who described himself on his blog as a classical musician, singer and drag queen. A friend said the two had little in common, but Private Manning fell head over heels. Mr. Watkins, who did not respond to interview requests for this article, was a student at Brandeis University. On trips to visit him here in Cambridge, Private Manning got to know many in Mr. Watkins’ wide network of friends, including some who were part of this university town’s tight-knit hacker community. Friends said Private Manning found the atmosphere here to be everything the Army was not: openly accepting of his geeky side, his liberal political opinions, his relationship with Mr. Watkins and his ambition to do something that would get attention...And as he faces the possibility of a lifetime in prison, some of Private Manning’s remarks now seem somewhat prophetic. 'I wouldn’t mind going to prison for the rest of my life, or being executed so much,' he wrote, 'if it wasn’t for the possibility of having pictures of me plastered all over the world press.'"
Examining chat logs purportedly between Lamo and Manning, BoingBoing zeroed in on comments made by "bradass87" (Manning) that seemed suggestive of a gender identity issue.posted by hippybear at 12:38 PM on December 17, 2010
"i feel, for some bizarre reason... it might actually change something," wrote bradass87 of the leaks he’d perpetrated. "i wouldn’t mind going to prison for the rest of my life, or being executed so much, if it wasn’t for the possibility of having pictures of me... plastered all over the world press... as boy..."
A subsequent posting amended the last part to, "as a boy." bradass87 also wrote, "i’ve totally lost my mind... i make no sense... the CPU is not made for this motherboard... i just wanted enough time to figure myself out... to be myself... and be running around all the time, trying to meet someone else’s expectations.. im just kind of drifting now... waiting to redeploy to the US, be discharged... and figure out how on earth im going to transition... all while witnessing the world freak out as its most intimate secrets are revealed."
Added bradass87, "its such an awkward place to be in, emotionally and psychologically." [emphasis added]
Atmar said he insisted the journalist be told that publication would endanger lives. His request was that the U.S. quash the article and release of the video. Amb Mussomeli responded that going to the journalist would give her the sense that there is a more terrible story to report. Atmar then disclosed the arrest of two Afghan National Police (ANP) and nine other Afghans (including RTC language assistants) as part of an MoI investigation into Afghan "facilitators" of the event. The crime he was pursuing was "purchasing a service from a child," which in Afghanistan is illegal under both Sharia law and the civil code, and against the ANP Code of Conduct for police officers who might be involved. He said he would use the civil code and that, in this case, the institution of the ANP will be protected, but he worried about the image of foreign mentors. Atmar said that President Karzai had told him that his (Atmar's) "prestige" was in play in management of the Kunduz DynCorp matter and another recent event in which Blackwater contractors mistakenly killed several Afghan citizens. The President had asked him "Where is the justice?"posted by adamvasco at 12:52 PM on December 17, 2010 [5 favorites]
"American officials view persuading Pte Manning to give evidence that Mr Assange encouraged him to disseminate classified Pentagon and State Department files as crucial to any prospect of extraditing him for a successful prosecution. To facilitate that, Pte Manning may be moved from military to civilian custody, they say. Since being charged in July with disseminating a US military video showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters that killed 17 people in Iraq including two Reuters employees, the soldier has been held at the Quantico Marine Base in Virginia. But members of his support network insist that he has not co-operated with the authorities since his arrest in May." *posted by ericb at 1:02 PM on December 17, 2010 [1 favorite]
I hope you're being facetious but somehow I doubt it. How about that innocent German getting kidnapped and tortured by the CIA, then the US obstructing justice in Germany?Most of this information has been known since 2005, when it was written about in an excellent investigative article by Dana Priest. The fact that the US sought to prevent its officials from being prosecuted in a foreign country is unsurprising. For the record, the story was, and continues to be, an outrage. But you didn't need Bradley Manning and Wikileaks to be outraged by this story.
And as for the American people issuing a collective yawn over this, these are the same people who give Fox News top ranking, and a majority of whom are creationists. Nearly half of them wanted Sarah Palin to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.Actually, many in the foreign policy intelligencia have reacted with yawns as well. See the liberal Peter Beinart for instance.
humanfont:See Juan Cole's commentary on this: Ahmadinejad once again fails to call for the annihilation of Israel, despite what you heard on CNN. As to whether the phrase "wiped off the map" was used in the official translation of his speech -- to which officials do you refer? American officials? Israeli officials?Ahmadinejad-wants-to-wipe-out-Israel lie
He's given a number of speeches suggesting this very thing.
An earlier episode involving Washington and executive privilege had taken place in 1792, when Congress asked the administration for information regarding the failure of a U.S. military expedition. Washington discussed the issue with his cabinet; according to notes kept by Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, all agreed that a president has a right to withhold information when it's in the public interest to do so.Granted, you might debate whether or not the keeping of these particular secrets was justified (you might also debate whether the current leaks actually revealed much of substance that wasn't pretty well already popularly understood). But the idea that keeping state secrets is in principle antithetical to the American Way or whatever is childishly naive.
Our problem is civil obedience.posted by Marla Singer at 4:49 AM on December 19, 2010 [1 favorite]
... Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world, in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem.
...
There is nothing sacred about the law. Think of who makes laws. The law is not made by God, it is made by Strom Thurmond. If you nave any notion about the sanctity and loveliness and reverence for the law, look at the legislators around the country who make the laws. Sit in on the sessions of the state legislatures. Sit in on Congress, for these are the people who make the laws which we are then supposed to revere.
The online leak of thousands of secret military documents from the war in Afghanistan by the website WikiLeaks did not disclose any sensitive intelligence sources or methods, the Department of Defense concluded.Robert Gates continues to fearmonger of course, but I hardly expect otherwise.
This part of Wired's conduct deserves a lot more attention. First, in his interview with me, Lamo claimed that all sorts of things took place in the discussion between him and Manning that are (a) extremely relevant to what happened, (b) have nothing to do with Manning's personal issues or sensitive national security secrets, and yet (c) are nowhere to be found in the chat logs published by Wired. That means either that Lamo is lying about what was said or Wired is concealing highly relevant aspects of their discussions. Included among that is Manning's explanation about how he found Lamo and why he contacted him, Manning's alleged claim that his "intention was to cripple the United States' foreign relations for the foreseeable future," and discussions they had about the capacity in which they were speaking.At this point, Greenwald had just finished typing approximately 1000 paragraphs on why Lano's account of anything can't be trusted, and indeed Lano has already been caught in several untruths and exaggerations about the chat logs, including the New York Times. Yet Greenwald turns around and concludes that Lano isn't lying and that Wired is deliberately concealing relevant parts of the discussion?
« Older The George Ewart Evans collection of oral intervie... | Leandra Medine is 21 and lives... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
Article 19 has made their support very clear, but Amnesty has been quieter.
posted by jeffburdges at 6:00 AM on December 17, 2010 [1 favorite]