What do you all think? Most of my ire regarding the case early on was his treatment at the hands of the folks who abused him for shits and giggles, but by much of what I have read, he did receive a fair trial, even though I think the outcome is wrong and unfair. I think he should be released with time served, and if they want to give him additional years, it should be contingent on whether or not any of these folks ever are disciplined:
Haha. Just kidding. Although Manning does look good dressed up with that carrot for a nose. I guess if we are going to demand accountability for the last decade plus, who better to start with than a PFC who had the nerve to release proof of military and government perfidy?
I also find it amusing that if denied parole after what I think Soonergrunt said could be as “early” as 9.5 years, Manning could, unless he dies young, spend more time in jail than Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen.
And btw- I hold myself partially responsible for Manning’s conviction. If I and millions of others hadn’t been addle-headed assholes and supported Bush and the war, none of these hundreds of thousands would have been in this horrific situation, and some young PFC wouldn’t be doing thirty years in the hole for telling the truth about the war I cheerleaded.
Ted & Hellen
Good god, man. Get help for the mood swings and bipolar thing.
raven
Your buddy Pat Lang thinks it’s so funny that he’s got a nice prison rape thread up. Just click right through from BJ.
piratedan
will you stop trolling us and go play with your pets, and also too, give Kay a raise…..
Comrade Dread
I agree with you. I think he should have been released with a dishonorable discharge and time served because of what happened to him while incarcerated. Then again, the stuff he turned over to wikileaks was in some cases posted without redaction of names, so I can see the case for holding him more responsible for the harm that might have resulted, but 35 years seems too much.
And yes, I think there are a great many people from the former administration who should do far more than 35 years in a maximum security prison. But that’s the way it always is. There’s always a different justice system for the connected and powerful than there is for the nobodies.
You know, until the Revolution happens and we line them all up against the nearest wall and replace them with a new connected and powerful elite.
ruemara
I think what he released right there is significant and a crime. I also think releasing the personal data of I don’t recall how many servicemen is also a crime. I’m torn. I think he needs to serve something, but I don’t think he should do 10 years. Probably time served +3 but in light facility with some real help for him. But I’m a soft touch.
eemom
You are such a troll.
TAPX486
His sentence is longer than a number of convicted terrorist and the American Taliban John Walker Lynd. But isn’t that why enlisted men and the ‘little’ people were invented – to serve as scapegoats!
hildebrand
@Ted & Hellen: Does it confuse you when you have to figure out who is the good cop and who is the bad cop between you and Cole? I mean, at least in this case you can essentially go with your actual thinking (DLC, Third Way, muscular military and surveillance) in order to pick on Cole. I suppose that is much more preferable then your usual script. Keep the faith, though, that comment counter doesn’t go up by itself.
? Martin
There’s certainly a disservice being done there. I think 35 is too long for this. What he did was wrong, but proportionality and all that. I’d agree with ruemara with time served + 3. That seems appropriate.
Belafon
I brought this up at my job and my manager said “Only 35 years?”
Ted & Hellen
@Comrade Dread:
But…hope and change. And Kay’s always yakking on about how important it is to VOTE (hahaha) and to elect Democrats because it all matters so very very much.
Ted & Hellen
@hildebrand:
I know, right?
Belafon
@Ted & Hellen: Exactly. The rich don’t have to put up with you.
John Cole
@eemom: How in the hell am I trolling with this post? For fuck’s sake. Just send me your email addresses and whenever I want to share my opinions about something, I will run it by you first, eemom, so I know the one true truth as spoken by you and not offend someone’s delicate sensibilities by not agreeing 100% with every fucking commenter and front page poster.
Hal
Really? Another thread with one troll posting over and over again? And it’s barely begun.
cathyx
Always remember that if you know of wrongdoing by people in the military, feel free to either keep it to yourself or report it to the people who are doing the wrong things. I’m sure things will be straightened-out in no time at all.
In the U.S. you’re better off being a torturer than exposing the torture.
John Cole
@Hal: Again. Tell me specifically what was trolly about this post? I asked what people think, said what I think, and then left it up for debate. And that’s trolling? You all have less grasp of the term trolling than I think people tossing out the word “mansplaining” have anymore.
Mansplaining anymore means “a guy disagreed with a woman” and trolling means “he said something I don’t 100% agree with.”
So, specifically, what was trolling about this post? Put up or shut up.
chopper
if the only stuff he released was like the ‘collateral murder’ video, i’d agree.
PeakVT
There’s a balance that needs to be struck between our (we, the people’s) interest in having the government be able to keep necessary secrets, and our (we, the people’s) interest in finding out when the government does bad stuff. I think the sentence was harsher than it should have been given that Manning released quite a bit of information that should have come out if the government operated with more transparency and/or internal accountability.
The credit for time served under punitive conditions, which is sort of a separate issue, was far too little. Ideally, there should be a separate investigation and trial to resolve that misdeed, but giving Manning more credit should have been done as a message as a substitute.
MikeJ
Both of whom got life sentences. Ames has already served almost 20 years, but since he’s 72 he probably won’t serve 35. I guess if you’re going to betray your country, you should wait until you’re older.
cathyx
@John Cole: They call everyone a troll who says stuff they don’t agree with.
hildebrand
@Ted & Hellen: Honestly, I don’t think anybody on this blog is going to catch on. Say ‘hi’ to your buddies down at the Veterans for Obama meeting for me.
NotMax
What do I think?
I think I shall hold off judgment until the full appeals and review process has run its course.
I also think that, as the court martial terms of sentencing have unequivocally admitted wrongdoing (or at the least malfeasance) in the manner of treatment of Manning while in incarceration, that there should be disciplinary procedures against those culpable.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
That’s it. Balloon Juice is dead to me.
John O
Someone little always pays for The Man’s crimes these days, forever, and probably forever forward. Beware The Man.
Hasn’t Manning been punished enough? Way to pile on, kick someone when they’re down, etc.
Seems like the truth used to be a stronger defense, though.
cathyx
@MikeJ: And by betray your country, you mean go against the authoritarian regime.
Hal
@John Cole: I wasn’t talking about you at all. I’ll invoke the Voldemort rule here since I dare not speak his/her name, but you can guess who I mean. Sorry foe the confusion.
Roger Moore
@cathyx:
Manning isn’t in trouble for revealing illegal actions by the military. He’s in trouble for releasing a huge trove of undifferentiated documents, a few of which showed wrongdoing and far more of which were rightly classified because they had information that genuinely needed protecting. If he had restricted his release exclusively to stuff that was covering up wrongful actions, he’d probably be in a lot less trouble today.
Gin & Tonic
@John Cole: I’m not Hal, but I get the sense he was referring to your tag-team buddy, in with the first comment.
LT
@johncole
Deep, powerful words, that, almost creepily, really, REALLY hard to take at all seriously. You know why, I think.
I say that as someone who admires you quite a lot.
jamick6000
this is a nice post.
Hawes
Too long. He was guilty and deserved some punishment. But that’s way too fucking long.
Especially because Marc Thiessen roams the earth a free man.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: A GBCW, Fuckhead? Without a “Thought Leader”, how will I know what to think?
jamick6000
The new trolling method is to call someone else a troll.
Belafon
@cathyx: Or you could actually do it the correct way. There are channels to report abuse that actually involve you not giving out any information on yourself. And, if that fails, there are better places than Wikileaks.
MikeJ
@cathyx:
No, I mean turn your back on the oath you took and not even know what it is you’re leaking.
Had Manning heard about the helicopter video and leaked just that because he thought people needed to know, I ‘d have a lot more sympathy for him. He simply copied files wholesale with no idea what he was taking. He’s less a whistle blower and more a Supermarket Sweep contestant.
piratedan
@John Cole: I was alluding to the 200+ thread that Sooner placed earlier today but if you want to go there again, it’s your blog… also too, hope that Rosie is feeling better and that Steve is still in the planning stages of your unfortunate demise. Just do NOT let him see you with a lawyer.
hildebrand
@Gin & Tonic: Or, we could be facing a Harvey Dent situation here. It is a possibility to contemplate. You know, two sides of the coin and all of that. I look forward to seeing which of my theories proves to be true.
Soonergrunt
I don’t think you’re trolling, John. I think you’re wrong.
The actual video, which Julian Assange, that champion of truth and justice he, edited out more than half, runs over an hour and shows things that Assange and his buddies didn’t want to show because they don’t fit his narrative. That’s not the video you’re showing here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007_Baghdad_airstrike
WikiLeaks’ rationale for their title of the footage
In an Al Jazeera English interview on April 19, 2010, WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange explained why WikiLeaks titled the video “Collateral Murder”:
And you can see that they also deliberately target Saaed, a wounded man there on the ground, despite their earlier belief that they didn’t have the rules of engagement — that the rules of engagement did not permit them to kill Saeed when he was wounded. When he is rescued, suddenly that belief changed. You can see in this particular image he is lying on the ground and the people in the van have been separated, but they still deliberately target him. This is why we called it Collateral Murder. In the first example maybe it’s collateral exaggeration or incompetence when they strafe the initial gathering, this is recklessness bordering on murder, but you couldn’t say for sure that was murder. But this particular event — this is clearly murder.
Regarding the title Toby Harnden in the Daily Telegraph wrote: “Oddly enough, it was Stephen Colbert, ostensibly a comedian, who skewered him”:
The army described this as a group that gave resistance at the time, that doesn’t seem to be happening. But there are armed men in the group, they did find a rocket propelled grenade among the group, the Reuters photographers who were regrettably killed, were not identified…You have edited this tape, and you have given it a title called ‘collateral murder.’ That’s not leaking, that’s a pure editorial.
According to Harnden “Assange admitted that he was seeking to manipulate and create ‘maximum political impact’.” Dan Kennedy wrote in The Guardian “Even the comedian Stephen Colbert, in an interview with Assange, dropped his rightwing-blowhard persona momentarily to make a serious point, calling the edited version ’emotional manipulation'”.
Bill Keller of The New York Times wrote “But in its zeal to make the video a work of antiwar propaganda, WikiLeaks also released a version that didn’t call attention to an Iraqi who was toting a rocket-propelled grenade and packaged the manipulated version under the tendentious rubric Collateral Murder.”The New York Times reported that “Critics contend that the shorter video was misleading because it did not make clear that the attacks took place amid clashes in the neighborhood and that one of the men was carrying a rocket-propelled grenade.”
And as for PFC Manning’s parole hearing–if he never gets any clemency from the Convening Authority or a sentence reduction from the Clemency and Parole Board, and never gets his sentence reduced by the appeals courts, he’ll have his first parole hearing after serving 1/3 of his sentence. So let’s assume he misses his first parole hearing. Then he’s fucked for…another year. Because after 1/3 of his sentence is served (which is a hell of a lot less than the 85% that we make civilians serve) his case will be reviewed for parole on an annual basis.
? Martin
@PeakVT:
It’s not Manning’s job to do that. It’s Congress’s job.
jamick6000
@piratedan: perhaps it is you, piratedan, who is the troll.
Mnemosyne
Huh? Hanssen got life without parole, as did Aldrich Ames. I suppose that, technically, if Hanssen or Aldrich die in prison, they could potentially have served less time, but I’m pretty sure most people don’t consider “life without parole” to be a short sentence no matter how soon you die in prison.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
The saddest part of the whole sordid Manning affair is that Jane Hamsher got off scot-free.
Omnes Omnibus
I found it interesting that the defense was seeking a sentence of about 25 years. It makes me wonder what information came out during the classified portions of the trial.
@cathyx: Unfortunately, lots of bad things happen in the military. When they come out, it is usually because someone else in the military reported them.
jamick6000
@Soonergrunt:
lol
cathyx
@Belafon: There are channels to report abuse? What are those? Oh, you mean the way Snowden did it. Yes, that was way better because he’s not in jail.
Gin & Tonic
@hildebrand: Hmm. Ideas, newsletter, &c.
piratedan
@jamick6000: very possible, I don’t agree with everyone here, and depending upon the issue, who I agree with changes. If people have pied me, that’s their prerogative to do so.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: And all this shit about comparing what he got to what some other person got is just so much hot air.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: And all this shit about comparing what he got to what some other person got is just so much hot air.
eemom
@John Cole:
um, no — trolling means saying something for the specific purpose of provoking argument, rather than because you actually believe it.
I submit that it’s sometimes hard to know which you’re doing.
But ffs stop jumping down my throat, because (1) I never said you had to agree with ME, (2) I’ve never even expressed an opinion about this, and (3) I don’t actually give a shit if you’re trolling or not. Sheeyit, lighten up.
jamick6000
@piratedan: i was just kidding with you
Chyron HR
I knew America was headed in the wrong direction when Obama shut down the Sunshine Smile Factory and replaced it with the fascist pseudo-government called the U.S. Armed Forces.
Omnes Omnibus
@cathyx:
First, chain of command. Second, inspector general. Third, military police. Fourth, writing one’s Congresscritter.
joes527
@eemom:
dot to dot to dot.
Mnemosyne
@cathyx:
Just out of curiosity, do you understand the difference between quitting a civilian job and going AWOL from the military? Perhaps a hint of a clue that one of those things is an actual crime and the other is not?
Jaysus, the number of people who don’t seem to understand that the UCMJ laws that applied to Manning don’t apply to Snowden because he’s not in the fucking Army like Manning was.
Belafon
@cathyx: Yes, there are. I have seen them in both the time I was in the Navy and as a government contractor. And you can skip to any level you think you need to. If you think your boss is doing something wrong, you can go to his boss, or that person’s boss. Or straight to legal.
piratedan
@Chyron HR: well when they outsourced all those jobs……
eemom
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
now surely THAT is trol–
aw, fuck it. Whatevz.
JPL
Who is Manning? Does he play football?
Where are the pictures of the pets?
I’m going on strike until I get a picture of Steve, Rosie and Lily.
cathyx
@Belafon: And what if the rot goes all the way to the top?
Thlayli
So this week we’re all experts on military sentencing guidelines, are we?
scav
I’m just so glad that everything else in the entire world us so absolutely hunky-dory that there is nothing else to potentially talk about. Granted, I guess that also means that there is absolutely nothing else of possible positive interest in the the entire world to discuss either. So a little more incoherency on well-trodden themes followed by ditto comments is not unexpected. Just the brawling season every so often. still, it’d be a break to argue about something else.
MikeJ
@cathyx:
I remember how moved I was the first time I read MLK’s Letter from the Moscow Hilton.
raven
@Thlayli: Not all of us.
Heliopause
Or Scooter Libby. Or Jose Rodriguez. Or Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, George Tenet, Colin Powell…
Omnes Omnibus
@cathyx: As I mentioned above, there are several options.
cathyx
@Mnemosyne: Whistleblower rules for the military can’t work in this instance because every level is a participant in the illegal activities. So what recourse did he have? He should have left the military before he exposed the wrongdoing.
jamick6000
@Soonergrunt:
the problem here is that the video shows 3 separate attacks. in one of the attacks, the crew sees armed men enter a building, and so a hellfire missile is fired at the building. the killing of the journalists, etc happens PRIOR to that. Talking about “armed men in the group” is misleading.
Gravenstone
@piratedan:
FTFY
? Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: And let’s be clear about something else. ‘Whistleblowing’ is a very specific thing. It means to report a crime or other wrongdoing. Personally, I think outing the video referenced above comes close enough to that to be considered an appropriate leak, and if Manning had done just that, I’d take serious issue with him even being arrested. But Manning didn’t do just that. State department wires didn’t document a criminal act. Service member records aren’t a crime. That’s not whistleblowing – that’s leaking classified or private information, and that’s simply wrong to do.
The video above cannot serve as a defense for Manning’s other acts. It’s unfortunate if others that should be brought to justice aren’t, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t treat these acts seriously. We can want better accountability within government without throwing away the cases where it happens successfully.
cathyx
@Omnes Omnibus: Thank you for proving my point. There was no good option.
Omnes Omnibus
@cathyx: Are you suggesting that the war was illegal and thus everyone participating in it in any way was a war criminal? If so, whistleblowing about the war wasn’t necessary, it was being covered by the major news programs.
@cathyx: Why do you say that there were no good options? What is wrong with them?
@? Martin:
That is pretty much where I come down here. If Manning had blown the cover on specific bad acts, I would say he deserved a medal. That, however, is not what he did.
magurakurin
@Soonergrunt:
this. When I see the unedited video I don’t see a war crime, I see a war. What the fuck did people think they were clamoring for when 90% of the American people sent those men and women over there? They were asking those people to kill other people on the other side of the world. The video is regrettable in that war is a failure of human politics and relations which by definition ain’t gonna be pretty. I was one of the 10%, but I am also one who doesn’t see any war crimes in that video and doesn’t think that every soldier is automatically a murderer. I’m pretty sure that every soldier has to answer to his own soul for the things he had to do and I only wish them the best in that journey. But the people who cheered on the sidelines, there’s your war crime.
Manning broke military law. He was tried and convicted. He will serve his time. And so it goes. Let’s just hope next time we don’t have 90% cheering for a war that had little basis in reality in the first place. Bush couldn’t have invaded without the overwhelming support of the American people.
And I respect Cole’s opinion, even if I don’t agree. And I respect his willingness to own up for his mistake even more. Your an honest man, John Cole, and they are rare.
piratedan
@Gravenstone: now, that’s not what I meant at all…. JC doesn’t need to play in traffic in order to do himself harm, just day to day life in finding a jar of mustard or closing a door or opening an ironing board can spell disaster. Besides, he seriously loves his pets, they love him back; there’s nothing more seriously righteous after working all day than coming home to a sanctuary where everyone loves you.
Roger Moore
@cathyx:
It behooves you to make a real attempt to find that out before going public. Also, too, there was no need to release a whole trove of stuff totally unrelated to any wrongdoing.
LT
@John Cole: I should just state that more plainly.
If you actually feel that Bradley Manning has been and is being wronged, and if you actually hold yourself somewhat responsible for that, simply because of your words on this blog about the Iraq War – how do you begin to justify allowing this blog to be used by several writers for months and months and months to tear down Manning in so many little and big ways, and to support much worse treatment for him?
I will never get this.
cathyx
@Omnes Omnibus: The war was illegal, but that’s not my point. My point is he would have gotten gagged and in a lot of trouble anywhere along the line up the ladder, and we wouldn’t know anything about what he wanted to expose if he tried to expose the wrongdoing that way.
? Martin
@jamick6000:
You’re assuming perfect knowledge. Did the pilots have reports of people with RPGs in the area? Did they observe things just prior to the other event. The helicopter was in the area for a reason, and there were armed men in the group. Its reasonable to assume that the helicopter was sent to the area expecting to find armed men, and the tape proves that they did. I think you’re expecting a level of compartmentalization and clarity that rarely exists in a combat zone.
Put short, innocent people die in wars. That’s not an indictment of the people that pull the trigger, but an indictment of the people that start the war.
Gravenstone
@John Cole: Pretty sure Hal was referring to Special Timmeh shitting all over the thread, early and way too fucking often. A fella can develop diabetes from seeing that much pie.
raven
@? Martin: “Put short, innocent people die in wars. That’s not an indictment of the people that pull the trigger, but an indictment of the people that start the war.”
Not always.
jamick6000
One horrifying thing in the cables Manning leaked is the State Department’s efforts to stop Haiti from raising its minimum wage:
hoodie
You’re kidding, right? A lot of good that’ll do Manning or the thousands that died in that war, deaths of more import than Manning being convicted and sentenced for a crime he willingly committed. It’s unfair only in the sense that more culpable parties go unpunished, but that’s always the case. As you said, it looks like he got a fair trial, the law’s the law and he broke it. Manning didn’t reveal anything about the war that someone with half a brain and knowledge of what a general goat fuck all wars are wouldn’t have assumed was going on, or what foreign press was already reporting, so most of what he did was put a lot a people in danger for nothing. He isn’t a hero or a whistleblower, mostly just a witless victim of that fuckwad Assange, who has allegiance to nothing and no one. Hopefully the clemency board will show mercy for Manning, but spare us the whining about your sense of guilt.
Omnes Omnibus
@cathyx:
You are making pretty big assumptions there. Notice, in this story, that one of the people was charged with not reporting the crime. BTW all of the soldiers in this case were convicted. Disclaimer: I went to OCS with the battalion commander of the unit – the guy who heard rumors of a crime and ordered an immediate investigation.
JPL
@LT: So does that mean you link to balloon juice for the pets also?
JPL
whoops double entry
LT
@? Martin:
Yay us.
P.S. “Ultimately, Calley served only three and a half years of house arrest in his quarters at Fort Benning.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Calley
cathyx
@jamick6000: Oh, that’s embarrassing. Manning should have gotten life in prison.
Emma
Not so long ago, liberals were up in arms when the Bushies outed one Valerie Plame for political reasons. So this kid hoovers up whatever he can find and turns it over to Wilileaks, and they publish it unredacted, including personal information on American personnel. FOR POLITICAL REASONS.
So it’s all a matter of whose ox’s being gored?
(added) And that’s the same group that is siding with the far right wing in the Australian elections, right?
(added some more) And I actually feel sorry for him. Once Assange had him he was screwed. He was just too damn young and inexperienced to realize it.
ruemara
@Thlayli: This is the internet. Where we are all experts on law, military, everything-as required to prove we don’t have to think about your opposing view.
@Emma: Yes.
John Cole
@LT:
Because everyone who writes here or comments here is doing so under their own agency, and the things they say reflect on them. That’s why I rarely ban people. I just assume everyone here is an adult and whatever idiotic, wile, stupid things they say reflects on them, including whatever stupid things I say reflect on me. It’s also why I don’t delete my archives and get rid of all the awful embarrassing horrifying things I wrote. To delete them would be to deny who I was and who I am now.
If that makes sense.
JPL
@Emma: I’m not sure how much time should be served but he did release personal information. He might not have realized what he was doing, but he did it.
jamick6000
@cathyx: a 61 cent/hour minimum wage? It had to be stopped.
MikeJ
@Mnemosyne:
Whitey Bulger is 83 years old. I think Cole is going to set a really low maximum sentence for murder if he continues in this vein.
Gravenstone
@piratedan: I believed you were responding to Timmeh the Troll (who can FOADIAF at his and our earliest convenience). It was not clear to me you meant Cole with your statement.
Emma
@JPL: Exactly. Look, as I said, I think the kid meant well. But you know what they say about good intentions. I do hope that when he comes up for parole it’s a quick, fast out. I think 7 or 8 years is enough to think about it.
? Martin
@raven: I’m just saying that if we’re outraged that innocents die in uncertain circumstances, then blame the people that set up those uncertain circumstances form the comfort of their DC office rather than the 19 year old whose first concern is not getting tagged from an unforseen RPG.
That’s not to say there aren’t just wars or war crimes, but the sheer volume of grey in the middle is immeasurably large.
dmbeaster
Unfortunately, as noted above, we are missing the information to determine the legitimacy of the sentence. As Soonergrunt pointed out, the defense significantly increased the suggested length of his sentence after the closed session concerning the impact of classified information that was handed over.
Manning had a whistleblower’s intent, but none of the discretion of someone deciding to break the law for a point. It matters that he handed over such a huge undifferentiated mass of data.
PopeRatzo
I want to be liked, so here goes:
“Bradley Manning deserves the death penalty because Assange has such an out-of-control ego and Glenn Greenwald is gay”.
Really, though, I pray a lot more whistleblowers come forward. Redacted or not, we deserve to know what our government is doing. There are way too many fucking secrets and I’m comfortable taking my chances with terrorists over living in this happy-crappy police state. I like my odds when it comes to avoiding terrorism. I don’t like the odds so much when it comes to avoiding the ubiquitous surveillance state.
mai naem
I think if he gets out with the 7.5 its fine. You can’t have just any peon deciding what’s appropriate and what’s not. There has to some kind of punishment. The 35 is crazy. Like, really?? I would lurvv to see Obama pardon him but that’s about as likely as pigs flying. I would also like to see Cheney/Wolfowitz/Paul Bremer/Dan Senor etc. etc. in prison.
piratedan
@Gravenstone: it was, but I wanted to make sure that it was understood that I have no antipathy towards our humble blog host, sometimes assumptions like that get you bitten in the ass around here.
cathyx
@PopeRatzo: TROLL!
Emma
@PopeRatzo: Amazingly enough you can be a whistleblower without turning the information over to a maniac with an oversize ego and no interest in the safety of other human beings.
And you are comfortable taking your chances and so am I but I can guaran-double-damn-tee you that a majority of the country isn’t. Or don’t you remember after the Boston bombing how many people were screaming about the government not knowing about it in advance?
max
@Belafon: Yes, there are. I have seen them in both the time I was in the Navy and as a government contractor. And you can skip to any level you think you need to. If you think your boss is doing something wrong, you can go to his boss, or that person’s boss. Or straight to legal.
WaPo, today:
The litany of people who reported genuine crimes and were punished for it is starting to get quit long.
I also find it amusing that if denied parole after what I think Soonergrunt said could be as “early” as 9.5 years, Manning could, unless he dies young, spend more time in jail than Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen.
Quite. Robert Bales (according to FOX!):
In case anyone was unclear on where our priorities lay.
Incidentally, because I couldn’t remember the guy’s name, I hit google and type ‘murder children Afghanistan soldier’ and it auto-suggested an addition. Will that earn me a visit from the cops/feebs, one wonders?
If I and millions of others hadn’t been addle-headed assholes and supported Bush and the war, none of these hundreds of thousands would have been in this horrific situation, and some young PFC wouldn’t be doing thirty years in the hole for telling the truth about the war I cheerleaded.
Quite. Good of you to own up. Pity so many other Democrats haven’t. Pity I’m still listening to the same style of fucking apologetics fucking 12 goddamn years after this long chain of fuckups started.
max
[‘Now it’s goddamn gonna rain again.’]
LT
@John Cole: It sort of makes sense, but only if you are completely taking away the fact that this is your blog. This is your house. Your castle.
This is, in fact, your blog, right?
If it is, then you control *who* writes here, and, more importantly, who gets whatever power and prestige and reach comes with this blog. And that, I think you’ll humbly acknowledge, is pretty substantial. Because of you. (And DougJ, but you more so, right?.) And the fact is that writers here have used the power, prestige, and reach of this blog to denigrate Bradley Manning for a long time now. To mock him, to smear him, to insult him, and to call for even worse treatment of him.
If you actually feel badly that your words about the Iraq War had power to help that, how do you let your blog be used to help it even more? To use words not about the Iraq War, but about Bradley Manning directly, to help with those words whatever forces are out to beat him down in every way possible?
So I guess I still don’t get it.
Long Tooth
“.. the war I cheerleaded”.
You cheerleaded the war because you were lied to (along with the rest of the planet) by the President of the United States and his administration’s officials. That makes all the difference (recall there was no attack on the USS Maddux in the Gulf of Tonkin, either). In that sense, you have a right to be even angrier than those who already knew the score in March of 2003. You got played.
Bobby Thomson
@hildebrand: he doesn’t have principles or “usual thinking.” his sole purpose is to troll. He can’t be bargained with. He can’t be reasoned with. He doesn’t feel pity.
mai naem
I was listening to some long piece on Manning a few days ago. This guy is a messed up young guy. How was he even allowed to serve in the army. They said he was thinking of sex change surgery around the time he downloaded the files. They also mentioned that his mother was drinking while she was pregnant with him and that she was mentally ill while he was growing up, with multiple hospitalizations. It sounded like he was also abused by his dad or stepdad. I have to wonder if he doesn’t suffer from fetal alcohol syndrome. I have a friend who adopted an infant who had fetal alcohol syndrome and while her now grown daughter manages, she needs way more guidance from her mother than the average adult and I sure as heck wouldn’t trust this kid with loaded weapons.
cathyx
@LT: I have to say that I agree with you. John brought in a lot of obamabot front pagers.
PeakVT
@Long Tooth: There was plenty of information available in early 2003 that indicated there was no reason to go to war. That’s why so many opposed it. Cole made a bad call, and he has the guts to admit it. He should be forgiven, not excused.
Emma
@mai naem: Please tell me that he didn’t use “confused sexuality” as an excuse. Gay soldiers don’t need any more shit flung their way.
Omnes Omnibus
@cathyx: Were you planning on explaining why none of the channels for reporting problems were any good or are you resting on the bald assertion?
Ted & Hellen
@hildebrand:
I Will!
J.D. Rhoades
You know, we pick and choose the worst of the bad stuff that Manning released in order to paint him as a “whistle-blower,” but let’s not forget he also indiscriminately dumped hundreds of thousand of other documents: 91,731 documents from Afghanistan, 251,287 State Department cables,391,832 classified military docs from Iraq–so yeah, there’s not just a possibility, but a near certainty, that he released information that could compromise security and put people in danger.
ruemara
@cathyx: Ah, the crux of the problem. Good to know.
LT
@J.D. Rhoades: If Bradley Manning had released the Apache killings video and 10,000 cables you and those like you would have said the same thing.
If Bradley Manning had released the Apache killings video and 3,000 cables you and those like you would have said the same thing.
If Bradley Manning had released the Apache killings video and 1,000 cables you and those like you would have said the same thing.
If Bradley Manning had released the Apache killings video and 500 cables you and those like you would have said the same thing.
If Bradley Manning had released the Apache killings video and 10 cables – you’d find another way to go after him. Because it is NEVER about what X person actually does – it’s about *something else*.
P.S. If Edward Snowden had not gone to Hong Kong, had not gone to Russia, if he had immediately turned himself in – you’d be going after him too. Because it’s NEVER about what X person actually does…
Cowards. The whole lot of you. Lying fucking cowards.
cathyx
@Omnes Omnibus: I thought I did. There were no good reliable places for him to take his information. If I were him and wanted to expose the wrongdoing, I would never consider any of those people you mentioned.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: I think I’m gonna go with door #2, Monty.
Roger Moore
@Long Tooth:
Yeah, but plenty of other people were lied to with those exact same lies and were either able to see them for what they were or at least remain skeptical. Even people who believed didn’t all become cheerleaders to the extent John did.
Omnes Omnibus
@cathyx: Why not?
ETA: I am sort of anticipating that your answer will be along the lines of the military being a corrupt institution. If so, why have crimes been reported through the system and prosecuted?
JPL
@LT: If the god darn sun would come out, I might not be in a pissy mood. Manning manned up, how about you.
If is a cowards way out btw…
Jay
Hanssen and Ames are rotten bastards, but in terms of time served, the comparison to Manning is a little off. Both Ames & Hanssen have life bids and Ames has been in nearly twenty years now, whereas Hanssen has been in since 2001. Both have no chance of getting paroled. Yes, either one, or both, could die off within a few years, meaning Manning’s bid could eclipse theirs, but I also think Manning’s a mentally-ill, nonviolent man, whereas the other two are cold, calculating shits, and maybe, just maybe, somebody will see the illogic of keeping a sick guy caged for a bunch of years.
cathyx
@cathyx: In other words, I fear that they would react just like that 8th grade cool girl that says she’s your friend, but when you tell her your deepest secrets and promises not to tell, she squeals to the entire school. Only the squealing would be to my boss and I would be in deep doodoo.
Alexandra
@Emma:
God forbid gay people get confused with those yucky freaky transpeople. Isn’t that how the HRC rolls? No femmes?
scav
@LT: Uhh, yeah, what we really need from blogs is more controlled from the top strictly monitored and uniform messaging from the entire team of clone heads. The chaos of voices and general argumentativeness is what generally allows minds to potentially be changed. Doesn’t guarantee it, doesn’t guarantee it’ll be in the direction you want, but it is a coherent stance to maintain.
PIGL
@Bobby Thomson: and he absolutely will not stop. Well, not until melted down for scrap.
Trollhattan
That very goddamn video front paged on this very blog is the very first I heard of Wikileaks. The video still nauseates me as much as it did then.
What has changed, other than Manning continues life in a box for a good long while?
LT
@scav: What does that even mean? There are a lot of blogs that have just one person, you know? In fact I’m pretty sure John at one point was the sole writer here.
That’s just dumb.
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ
@magurakurin:
Yeah, I was in the 10% too (and called a traitor for it). I also don’t trust Assange as far as I could throw his skinny white butt, never did even when the left and the glibertarians had anointed him. Totally, totally agree with all you had to say.
NotMax
@mai naem
Keep in perspective that the charges to which Manning pleaded guilty carried a maximum sentence of 20 years, and the 35 year sentence includes those and also certain other charges to which he had pleaded not guilty.
There were further charges dismissed by the court as well, thus not a part of the sentencing judgment.
joes527
@Long Tooth: Bull-fucking-shit. Look. I really like John and all, but you would have to be willfully stupid to not have seen the Iraq war as an historic clusterfuck long before the shooting started.
All the information was there. Anyone not deep in denial knew, and was talking about it. (I know, I know … but they were the wrong sort of people)
Myself, I was deep in denial in another way. I told myself it would be OK, because despite all the sabre rattling, there would be no way in hell that we were going to invade. We’re better than that. That was a pretty fucking stupid assessment too.
The “it’s OK, we were lied to” is just another lie.
WE. DID. THIS.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@LT: So brave.
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ
@hoodie:
Whoa…First, it’s his blog he can whine about anything he wants. Second, I think it’s refreshing and rare to hear someone admit they were wrong. Third, everyone in the U.S. that supported that abomination of a war should stand up and say the same damn thing as JC.
Betty Cracker
@LT: Can you name names or drop a link or two to substantiate the charge that front pagers routinely smear, insult and advocate maltreatment of Manning?
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Ms. D. Ranged in AZ:
Look, we only demand personal responsibility of others here in the U. S. of A. Holding ourselves accountable is crazy talk. I mean, sure, John does it, but he’s a grown man living alone with pets. KER-AY-ZEE.
(This comment was meant in complete parody and does not entirely reflect the views of the writer, who is also a grown man living alone with pets.)
LT
@Betty Cracker: I could. Not sure I want to.
Most of the regulars here, and John Cole, will not need substantiation on this.
EDIT: And I did not say “maltreatment.” I said even more harsh treatment. I personally think that would be maltreatment, but those posters certainly don’t.
LAC
@Roger Moore: don’t bother to explain. The color of the sky in her world is either jackboot black or authoritarian gray. The baby Jesus manning show continues in syndication
Emma
@Alexandra: That has nothing to do with it, for God’s sake. There are still powerful political and military forces in this country who are trying to roll back any progress made by gays or transexuals in the military. I will bet you $10 bucks that if he did, it is going to become another right wing meme. “You know you can’t trust them, look at Manning, unless your 100% heterosexual you shouldn’t serve in the military, what if next time someone gets that confused they decide to use a bomb?”
scav
@LT: His blog, he allows free range of expression on both front pages and in comments — coherent, logical personal position, with a rationale, and maintained. Or are you playing dense?
fka AWS
I have watched with bemusement on Twitter and in comments here and about over this whole thing. So much ALL CAPS WORST INJUSTICE EVAH energy expended by people I normally respect. The system in this case (with the exception of the fucked up incarceration) WAI (to used a phrase from She Who Shall Not Be Named).
I’m less inclined to waste valuable energy getting worked up over it.
raven
@LT: Your mouth is over runnin your ass pal.
LAC
@cathyx: as opposed to the whiny
sit on the sidelines and do shit “real”folks like you?
Soonergrunt
@Omnes Omnibus: “That is pretty much where I come down here. If Manning had blown the cover on specific bad acts, I would say he deserved a medal. That, however, is not what he did.”
Absolutely 100% correct.
Sometime between document 7 and document 700,000 he stopped being a whistleblower and became a criminal.
LanceThruster
Well…at least it’s not sports talk.
Go team to whom I have some emotional connection playing games more important than brain science and rocket surgery combined!
Heliopause
“Manning could, unless he dies young, spend more time in jail than Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen.”
I forgot to mention in my previous comment, the sentencing for Robert Bales is still underway but it is conceivable that Manning will serve more time than Bales.
raven
@LanceThruster: One week and one day.
cathyx
@LAC: So if you’re not an obamabot, you’re a whiny
sit on the sidelines and do shit “real” folk?
eemom
@Soonergrunt:
@Omnes Omnibus:
Also why it is so fucking ridiculous to compare him to Ellsberg.
Yes, even though Ellsberg himself does it (which is because he was a forgotten old has been before Wikileaks and is thrilled to be relevant again, imo).
cathyx
@LAC: And it’s actually a lot more work to oppose the conventional wisdom than to do what you do and just agree with everything everyone here says.
JPL
@Betty Cracker: Remember that picture of your dog the other day? Several of us interpreted that as a dog whistle.
LanceThruster
@raven:
xD
Alexandra
@Emma:
So? We have to tailor and present our lives in order that we don’t become — horror of horrors — a right wing meme? They get to set the bounds of discourse? Is that what you’re pre-emptively conceding?
Fuck that shit.
Steve Crickmore
John Cole and Bradley Manning failed to understand that citizens must be kept in the dark from learning what their government agencies are doing to them and what they really think on behalf of them. Additionally, the interent should be not be used as a liberating forcé. as it was with the first wikileaks revoulution, a few weeks after Manning released his documents, which occurred Tunsia in January, 2011 and the subsequent domino revolutions in the Arab Spring. Samuel Huntington:” Power remains strong when it remains in the dark., exposed to sunlight, it begins to evaporate”.Obama understands this, as to the authoritarian leaders around the world, even the Pentagon, which blocks its soldiers from accessing the Guardian, less they know what the average Guradian knows, otherwise our well drilled soldiers might be les prown “to spread freedom”, the traditional American way, from the end of a barrel of a gun.
raven
@JPL: Jason has a broken jaw, out for the rest of the season.
Like that LanceThruster ???
LT
@scav: So my comment is allowed then.
Thanks.
Just Some Fuckhead
Every time we stray out of the safe confines of John’s pet sex life, a fight breaks out. Why can’t we all just get along?
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@cathyx: Also so brave.
JPL
@raven: Heyward has a fractured jaw and will miss the rest of the regular season.. Oh not that team…
haha.. my typing is to slow..
PopeRatzo
scav
@LT: did I suggest otherwise? But yes, you have the last word and thus win.
ETA oh yes OT noctilucent clouds and aurora borealis for those pining for an ad break.
coin operated
Every single damn day he got a stern reminder, as he logged into his system, of EXACTLY what was going to happen if he broke trust. Every….single…day.
Had Manning used some discretion, we wouldn’t be talking about him. He didn’t…some documents that were marked secret for legitimate reasons got out into the wild, and I have no qualms about him serving hard time for the transgression.
He deserves his 10 years before parole.
cathyx
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: What are you doing that is so brave?
geg6
@Ms. D. Ranged in AZ:
Me, too. That’s exactly my feelings on the matter.
piratedan
@Steve Crickmore: for christ sake Steve, get some markers, make a sign and find a corner will you?
LanceThruster
@raven:
So bring Freddy Kruger up from the minors.
Problem solved.
(YVW)
Omnes Omnibus
@PopeRatzo: A good statement.
ETA: He takes responsibility for his actions and provides an explanation.
Emma
@Alexandra: A right wing meme can turn into legislation real fast under the right conditions. But I am assuming that you’re a member of the military willing to take on even more risk to your career and your future. I hope your fellow soldiers are of the same mind.
Betty Cracker
@LT: That’s interesting that you could but you’re not sure you want to. Would it help if I said pretty please with a cherry on top?
ruemara
a file dump =/= principled leaking. I may know about some highly unethical things, but if I also leak every damned bit of confidential information I can get my hands on, I’m not being principled-I’m either crazy or malicious. You don’t get to say it’s all ok because he leaked some critical things in the middle of the dump. I don’t understand how there’s such a huge pass for Manning and Snowden. It’s not ok because you agree with it. If you have principles, you don’t act that randomly, you don’t endanger other people, you do what you need to do but you don’t do it like this. Some of you are acting as if there’s absolutely no way that the leaked information was harmful at all and if it was, then it’s just a price to pay. God, I never want to hear about the Plame affair again. It seems natsec is strictly dependent on who you agree with, not on laws, boundaries and reality.
Donut
@LT:
For years I have read this blog several times a week, sometimes daily, and comment sporadically. I cannot for the life of me recall any of the front-pagers saying the things about Manning that you just accused them of. There are searchable archives here. Cough up some posts. Back up what you’re saying. Don’t chicken out. You’ve gone there, put on some big kid pants and prove what you’re saying.
Donut
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I blame Obama, natch.
Steve Crickmore
@piratedan: Most of you guys are doing a terrific job of putting Obama’s feet close to the fire? Dick Cheney would be proud of you!
LAC
@cathyx: well since you started the labeling.
LanceThruster
@PopeRatzo:
This squares with what my freind’s son, who was with Marines 1/5 for the fall of Baghdad, told me when I asked him about his experiences in combat. The very first words out of his mouth were,
“We killed people for no reason.”
gbear
@LT:
This is at least the second time this week that this video clip has come to mind. It’s a classic, and Goldfarb is such an ass.
piratedan
@Steve Crickmore: I dunno Steve, as soon as you can tell me what he’s done wrong and what he should have done instead, instead of regurgitating the usual myopic talking points of the theocratic right and the libertarian left, then perhaps I could give due consideration to your posts, but all you do is bring in the same dead horse and you haven’t even upgraded the stick that you use to beat it with.
Donut
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
Until now, I didn’t realize “opposing” what people write on blogs and in anonymous blog commenting sections was such an important part of the national political narrative.
Very forceful and very effective, this opposition, such as it is.
Gin & Tonic
Way OT and way down in this thread, but Marian McPartland has died, at the ripe old age of 95. RIP.
Alexandra
@Emma:
What a self-righteous cowardly cop out. Oh noes, the soldiers.
I’m post-op trans, know more about and have seen more related pain related to the issue than you’ll ever know from a month of Sunday movie of the weeks. Appalling that you’d want people to closet themselves, lest people associate trangender people with gay people and create scary ‘right-wing memes’.
Utterly, mind-bendingly craven and pathetic. Christ, I hate hand-wringing liberals at times.
geg6
@Donut:
Yup. Put up or shut up, asshole. (Not you, of course.).
LT
@Betty Cracker: Well Sonnergrunt is right here. Let’s ask him
Hey Grunt, have you ever written here that Bradley Manning a) was not mistreated while being held before trial, b) deserved whatever treatment he got, c) deserved the nightly strip searches he received for a time.
Just for starters.
And I could ask if you ever mocked, demeaned, or smeared him, but people who do that generally don’t see themselves as doing that, so that’d be silly. But youre’ certainly free to say you did. Lord knows you did on Twitter.
Emma
@Alexandra: Show me where the fucking hell do I say you should closet yourself. Or do not speak to me again. I say, and I will continue to say, that using “confused sexuality” as an excuse for committing criminal acts will rebound badly on the honorable gays and transexuals trying to serve.
I’m done.
eemom
@LT:
You are a spectacularly cowardly and disingenuous little shit, you know that?
The burden of proof’s on you, the accuser — not on anyone else to prove a negative.
Asshole.
Davis X. Machina
Is there no possible world where the sentence is an abomination and Manning’s actions constitute a crime under the UCMJ?
Omnes Omnibus
@Davis X. Machina: Are you new here?
Donut
@LT:
The archives are searchable. I am genuinely interested in seeing which posts you’re referring to. Could you please provide some links to the archives?
Davis X. Machina
@Omnes Omnibus: I’ll take that as a ‘no’ to my question….
LAC
@cathyx: it would be if you bothered with facts. I know it takes away from your “the man ain’t right” posing.
Unless I am wrong and we will be seeing you at anniversary event about march on Washington this weekend.
Ted & Hellen
@Bobby Thomson:
I know…totally, right?
jamick6000
@geg6: you have some anger issues.
Donut
@Davis X. Machina:
Bah!!! Ambiguity and shades of gray are cop-outs!! That kind of equivocation on these matters is strictly for grown-ups!! No no no. Can’t have any of that. This is the INTERNET. It is very important to oppose stuff. And things.
Steve Crickmore
Everyone agrees that there should not have been wholescale dumping,( though I think Ellsberg’s pentagon papers where even more highly classified) but I think this pales in comparison with the wholescale lying as to the causi belli of the war, (after all Manning was not making anything up), the subsequent widespead sytematic torturing of suspects and prisoners and far from uncommon murdering of civilians and other war crimes.. Punishment should be proportionate to the seriousness of the crime .It seems pretty clear what our present adminstration thinks is the more serious crime, just like the last one.
Alexandra
@Emma:
Is that some kind of an order or a threat? Literally laughing my fucking arse off over here.
Anyway, I think you’ve made it perfectly clear from your first comment, that you think that anyone who identifies as trans and potentially troubled, would be a threat to those manly gay soldiers by risk of association.
Got you pegged, Missy Emma… but it’s late in London, gotta split. The pleasure, of course, has been all mine.
LT
@eemom: I’m just replying to you to tell you you’re a crazy person.
Omnes Omnibus
@Davis X. Machina: FWIW getting too wound up about today’s sentence is like the people who get upset over the McDonald’s coffee verdict. I would not be surprised at all if the sentence were not reduced as the process detailed by SG moves forward. But, yeah, if it sticks at 35, I think it is probably too harsh. Ten years would probably be about right – IMO.
SiubhanDuinne
@Gin & Tonic: I actually expected a HUGE obit for her on today’s All Things Considered. To my surprise, it didn’t happen.
JPL
@jamick6000: geg6 has anger issues… you must be new here.. hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahaahahhahahahahahahahah
Donut
@geg6:
No need to qualify, but thanks for doing so anyway.
@jamick6000:
She said asshole on the ONTERNET. (Typo, but I’m leaving it)
Very indicative of anger issues, I totally agree.
Ted & Hellen
@PeakVT:
Perhaps…BUT the problem with Cole and almost all of the government and MSM douche bags who cheer led the great wars for freedom is that they have not examined or altered HOW they think about things…nor learned to question themselves or their standing for a good period of time before telling the rest of the world how things are…about the new things they are wrong about.
Cole still flies off the handle and has a huge chip on his shoulder when he thinks he’s right in the moment, just as he did when he as a George W Bush ball licker.
So other than the team for which he now cheers, what has really changed?
I’m one of the ten percent who knew on the face of it that Bush was full of lying shit and Colon Powell was lying thru his teeth, and that Barack Obama is a cynical fraud who talks a liberal game and walks a Nixonian Republican walk. But what do I know?
Roger Moore
@Davis X. Machina:
There must be, because I live there. Well, at least I live in a universe where Manning deserved to be convicted but also deserved to be given more consideration for his pretrial treatment.
Long Tooth
@PeakVT: I wasn’t excusing anything, because there’s nothing to “excuse”. There’s no shame in having fallen prey to the evil, calculated lies of a President of the United States, fashioned to advance war, and not deter it.
geg6
@jamick6000:
Heh. Yeah, because you know me so well, right?
Gawd, Cole. Your latest groupies are an incredibly lame bunch.
mai naem
@Emma: I’m not sure. It was towards the end of the trial. It sounded like his supporters were just talking about what seemed like a pretty rough life that Manning had led.
rikyrah
he should have gotten more years.
he’ll be out in 10.
he should be happy.
cathyx
@LAC: Wait, let me have a couple of drinks so I can understand you.
Donut
@Ted & Hellen:
OMGOMG. Youaresoawesome! I can’t wait until you put your money where your mouth and your martyr complex are and run for office. I’m still first in line to donate to your campaign, hoss!
Moe Gamble
@Omnes Omnibus:
You should get ten years for saying he should get ten years.
He’s a hero. You’re a legalistic nerd.
jamick6000
@geg6: I’m not trying to troll you or put you down here buddy. I’m just thinking of your own happiness and the effect your temper might have on the people who interact with you irl
(your mom, your inflatable adult doll, the other 11th graders,
LAC
@cathyx: oh my dear, go all the way. Finish a bottle and pass out. I am sure you will manage to use the words
Obamabot or authoritarian while hungover tomorrow.
MikeJ
@Roger Moore:
I agree with you on that, but that wasn’t the issue today. How much credit he got for the pretrial stuff was decided several months ago and didn’t really have any bearing on what the actual sentence was.
burnspbesq
We may not ever know what was in the classified testimony at the sentencing hearing, but after hearing it Manning’s counsel changed his position to “no more than 25,” so it’s not unreasonable to think it was pretty damning.
I explained earlier today why I was hoping for > 35. No need to repeat that.
All that said, it’s hard not to feel sorry for messed-up kid who did something massively stupid on the advice of people he never should have trusted.
I continue to hope that Assange will someday get what he deserves.
LAC
@Ted & Hellen: to your last question: SHIT! That’s what you know. Oh, and how to dress your dog in sexy lingerie.
Betty Cracker
@LT: Seriously? Sooner is the villain you’re condemning Cole for enabling? I’d have thought a Balloon Juice regular would have a better sense of what actually qualifies as insults, smears and advocacy of further mistreatment.
Omnes Omnibus
@Moe Gamble: You should get ten years for saying I should get ten years for saying he should get ten years.
Seriously, I believe what he said in his statement. I believe that he thought he was doing the right thing. I also think he was in the wrong.
Roger Moore
@Moe Gamble:
No, you should get twenty years for saying Omnes should get ten years for saying Manning should get ten years. So there!
eemom
@LT:
To quote a beloved Dickens character, “Vun of the truest things as you’ve said for many a long year.”
LT
@Betty Cracker: You disagree with me?
OMG!
Sooner has downplayed Manning’s mistreatment for ages. And labeled him a common criminal, if not worse. He has also covered the trial with an even voice, while., I think it’s fair to note, using a much uglier voice in comments, and on Twitter. ABL – maybe it’s just been in comments and not posts.
Steve Crickmore
@Ted & Hellen: Yes, Obama has become a moderate Republican, but there aren’t any plumbers, in so far as we know, and neither would he promote something as liberal in today’s climate as the Family Assistance plan “Tory men and liberal policies,” the President (Nixon) reflected, “are what have changed the world.”
Ted & Hellen
@Soonergrunt:
Please and spare me.
You’re a murderer and walk free. You lack standing to comment on the Manning case, let alone present the information.
Jay B.
@PopeRatzo:
Clearly the statement of a sexually-confused, Assange-led dupe, just like everyone here says. It’s awfully white of you guys to collectively top it off at 10 years too. Me, I add his sentencing it to the literally endless list of moral atrocities we’ve committed in our “war on terror’. It’s long past sickening, honestly. But thankfully, I now can have my stomach churned by authoritarian “liberals” who are now so outraged over something something classified personal information something dump, as if any of you have a single fucking clue of anyone harmed by Manning’s actions. Our institutions are a total joke. They can prosecute this kid, but turtle against the big game? That’s OK with you? We can without a doubt engage in systematic war crimes — including the fact of ginning up an entire fucking war in which America killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions — but you are reserving your scorn for a person who tried, however feebly, to stop it? In a way I’m glad. Shows that when it comes to killing scores of people in the name of “freedom” and living in a security state most liberals couldn’t give a fuck.
hildebrand
@Bobby Thomson: Sure he does, the north star in all of his activities is to rile up the masses, to take the piss out of every single person who decides to engage him. This is how I know that he and Cole are buds, likely old army comrades, his shtick is so evidently over-the-top that it can only be an act. It is a persona, an avatar, meant only to drive the comment meter up, up, up. It works every single time.
Which is why I now sit back and watch – because it is so damned effective, and utterly meaningless. I have made the guess that Ted and Hellen is likely a DLC-Third Way Democrat who had to move to the left to vote for Obama, and has happily done so, mostly because he saw Obama as more able to get stuff done than even his beloved Clintons. By 2015 he will be working on Hillary’s campaign, and advocating a muscular defense and surveillance program. His spats with Cole are theatre – planned and plotted like professional wrestling. Remember, somebody has to be the heel.
PeakVT
@Long Tooth: Well, I think there should be some shame in it. There was plenty of information around that indicated that Bush was lying. The media in this country is generally horrible, but we don’t live in a totalitarian state, and there are alternate sources. If someone was too lazy to look for the truth, or too biased to see it, then they should feel bad about it. And if they can’t admit they were wrong, they should be hounded for it. Cole has admitted he was wrong, repeatedly, so I, for one, forgive him, and generally forget about the issue until someone here brings it up.
ETA: Not that Cole or anyone else needs my forgiveness for anything to get on with their lives.
Mandalay
@magurakurin:
He could, and he did.
You are suffering from the fog of war. Bush never ever had “the overwhelming support of the American people”:
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay B.:
I have never said that. Nor have I expressed scorn for him.
eastriver
glad to see you replaced the light bulb over your bathroom mirror.
Soonergrunt
What I love about this whole thread–LT and T&H have nothing but impotent whining. And when it’s over, I’ll still be here. The ONLY one who has the power to do anything about that is John Cole. He seems to see some value in keeping people around who disagree with him from time to time. In case you were wondering, the only guidance he’s ever given me was to please exercise common sense and not do something illegal. I’m on my own with everything else. The emotional and intellectual insecurity held by some people on this blog who don’t want their beautiful minds polluted by having to deal with contrary views, and the two I just mentioned in particular, is only slightly more hilarious than it is pathetic. My mentioning either of them here is more recognition than either of them deserve, and the last they’ll get from me.
Some day, I might wear out my welcome on the this blog. That’s John’s call, and if that ever happens, all he has to do is ask me to go. And if that day ever comes, my only action will be to thank him for the ride.
Cacti
Now that Cole’s dashing white martyr is going to do hard time, I imagine his concern about pretrial confinement conditions, and jail/prison conditions will go back to what it was before…
Non-existent.
Cacti
I also noticed that only one of Turd & Heckle’s “3 black teens” that shot the jogger in OK is actually black.
Oops.
So much for the racial angle.
jamick6000
@Soonergrunt:
please bask in the self-importance of that
jamick6000
I am a liberal blogger’s water boy. When I merely mention someone’s username, it is a Big Deal.
Anne Laurie
@Ted & Hellen:
How to spark another starling mobbing, at least. Even your meanest critics concede, as JK Galbraith used to say…
gbear
@Soonergrunt: You forgot to mention CathyX. You don’t ever have to mention her again either.
Wayners T
This thread is a downer.
Look at my pet pig! http://www.flickr.com/photos/hollymo/7271880972/in/set-72157629900583840
J.D. Rhoades
@LT:
Actually, you’re completely full of shit when you or anyone else tries to claim what I or anyone else “would have done.” You’re arguing with a voice in your head like a street loony.
Betty Cracker
@LT: i don’t think this is really a difference of opinion. You made specific allegations, denouncing Cole for giving smear-merchants a forum to repeatedly abuse Manning. I asked you to substantiate that allegation, but you got nothing, or at least nothing much. It’s okay. I was genuinely curious, and now I have my answer. So thanks!
Long Tooth
@PeakVT: I can take you to the exact spot where I was on in August, 2002, when I heard a CBS news report that left no doubt in my mind that Bush/Cheney were intent on war in Iraq, and meant to have it. (I also remember when the truth was first told about the Maddux). So I knew the score going into March, 2003. I even made efforts to stop it, but was a spectator along with everyone else as the United States War of Aggression unfolded. But that’s just me.
A President of the United States intentionally deceived and manipulated the American people, that he could war. The vast majority of Americans so fouly tricked placed their faith in the office, and reasonably so. They had every expectation to believe their trust would not be betrayed. They were wrong only because they were naive.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@burnspbesq:
Wasting away inside the Ecuadorian embassy?
DennisMunro
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, you’re always right, Betty. Nobody around this place would ever say an unkind word about Manning, or Snowden or Greenwald or Assange. No hate for those guys around here, including you.
You ignore Soonergrunt calling out Manning as a “criminal” on this very thread. But you win Betty.
LT
@Soonergrunt:
Oh hurt me.
Derp. Who the fuck doesn’t know that? ONLY!
We all do. And I like what you do here a lot of the time, and I remember you years ago on DKos, too. It’s the dishonesty and smearing people don’t like. And you do that. And it’s not the same as “people who disagree with him.”
That’s too funny. You and all the other Cescas attack anything (Manning, Snowden, Greenwald, the ACLU, Amnesty Intl., the Guardian, etc x a billion) as EMOPROGS – exactly because you are the penultimate beautiful mind insecurity grovelers embodied. You are too much.
And ibid.
Omnes Omnibus
@DennisMunro: Manning was convicted, no? That tends to make criminal an accurate description.
Keith G
@PopeRatzo: I will repeat your word as thay are probably the brightest passage typed on this thread.
A lot of people are so busy chopping down trees that they are not noticing what is happening in the forest around them. There is an ongoing process of increased secrecy and police power fortification in our society. Add that to the growth of surveillance and big data, and we find ourselves on a vector moving away from the the concept of civil liberties that at one time was our selling point.
There are so many individual parts to this unfortunate process; whether it be asset seizure and forfeiture state-side or masking the horrific effects of of our military adventurism over seas, attempts are being made to marginalize both the rule of law as well as the ability of the public to give informed consent.
The American people, their government and their military are simply a means to an ends of increasing share holder value. The major out come of the war that Soonergrunt gave his service to was not increased security, it is increased profits for corporate America. Too bad so many died, but death have never been a deal breaker in the drive for increased wealth.
The real danger that Manning and others presented was not the aid to our enemies but a view behind the curtain as to how corrupt and hapless our activities have been since December 2001. Those are truths that can never be shared since doing so would end the make-believe fairy stories about who we are and why we do what we do. How politicians and generals play game with our trust and how soldiers and other everyday Americans are just means to and ends of greater corporate profit.
LT
@Soonergrunt: And this is just fucking brilliant – Soonergrunt is a Guardian computer birther:
https://twitter.com/soonergrunt/status/369966789725134848
angler
@cathyx: plus one
LT
@Omnes Omnibus:
The Grunts of Balloon Juice underlined.
Keith G
@Keith G: WP is denying editing permission now…..nice.
FYWP
LT
@DennisMunro: @Betty Cracker:
But that’s not smearing or anything…
geg6
@jamick6000:
Did FDL or KOS experience some sort of server meltdown? Jeebus, you people are the most boring people on earth. At least the wingnuts and Teabaggers come with some small amount of comedy relief. You and your buddies have made the last few days about as exciting and intellectually stimulating as a mission statement committee meeting.
Ripley
Cole should get 10 years for this thread.
Omnes Omnibus
@LT: Oh ffs. What was incorrect about what I said? You can argue that he should not have been convicted, but you can’t credibly say that he is not a convicted criminal.
LT
@Soonergrunt:
And the beauty of this smear…
…is that Soonergrunt will not give you the number between between 7 and 700,000. Because there’s not one. It’s just a smear.
LT
@Omnes Omnibus: For starters, do you view all people convicted of crimes as “criminals”?
The word does have more meaning than simply convicted of crimes. Especially as used in the slur by Soonergrunt.
Omnes Omnibus
@LT: Smears and slurs? SG’s statement was making the point that the release of specific documents relating to wrongdoing would have been whistleblowing, but the release of hundreds of thousands of documents that one could not have read was something different.
And yes, a person convicted of a crime is a criminal. At least, it is not an inaccurate way to describe the person. I get that you disagree with what has happened to Manning, but that does not mean you get make up your own definitions of words.
LT
@Omnes Omnibus: You need to look up the word in a dictionary.
Ted & Hellen
@LanceThruster:
It’s all good. Soonergrunt says so.
Omnes Omnibus
@LT: Okay.
Ted & Hellen
@Long Tooth:
It was willful stupidity. The lies and manipulation were as clear as day to see.
And there is great shame in having pretended not to see.
Ted & Hellen
@hildebrand:
I know, right?
LT
@Ted & Hellen: There was by many straight up war lust. Macho shit. Along with a very lot of pretending about what war actually is and does.
Ted & Hellen
@Long Tooth:
Please stop looking back and move forward please…nothing to see here.
LT
@Omnes Omnibus: So did you read that?
And by the way – what’s the number between 7 and 700,000?
You or grunt can answer. Thanks very much.
Joey Maloney
Don’t beat yourself up too much, John. Cheney didn’t care what you thought. He was going to war with or without your approval.
The only thing that could’ve stopped him was a different Supreme Court.
Omnes Omnibus
@LT: Of course I read it.
That is the the way SG used it.
Why does a number matter? You are being hyperliteral. At some point between sleeping with one woman and 1000 women, I became a slut. Since I (putatively) got to the 1000, it doesn’t really matter if the number was 7 or 812, does it?
Joey Giraud
@John Cole: @LT:
It’s called a commitment to free speech and as a bonus, intellectual honesty.
Cole deserves better then he gets here.
LT
@Omnes Omnibus:
That’s funny. Because Soonergrunt called Manning a criminal many times before he was convicted.
Anyhting else?
Joey Giraud
@PeakVT:
With all the authority-respecting, military-admiring here, I find it hard to believe that the vast majority of the BJ commenters didn’t support invading Iraq.
Virtually everyone I knew who supported it then, now deny they did. That alone puts Cole a cut above, in my eyes anyway.
LT
@Joey Giraud: So why not let Weekly Standard writers write here, yeah?
Or, shits likt that can write at shit sites like that, and we can have smart, perceptive, honest writers here.
Omnes Omnibus
@LT: Okay, so now I am being asked not to discuss the specific comment in this thread, but to deal with every comment made by SG over the past three years? But sure… Manning admitted the conduct. The conduct was a crime. Still fits the definition. Now, Manning could have offered an effective affirmative defense and not been a criminal, so, if SG was calling him a criminal, he was premature. However, given the sheer volume of the material released, it is unlikely that Manning could have mounted a good whistleblower defense. And he didn’t go for insanity. So SG wasn’t totally offbase in figuring that what Manning had done was a crime and Manning a criminal.
Joey Giraud
@LT:
I would guess that Cole is the loyal type, something else I respect.
I happen to agree with you that many FPers have dumped all kinds of indefensible crap on Manning, Snowden, et al. But it’s Cole’s blog, and he apparently feels it more important that Balloon Juice be what it is, then to make it the blog you would prefer it to be.
Complaining about things like this comes across as entitled whining.
LT
@Joey Giraud: Making a critique that that many FPers have dumped all kinds of indefensible crap on Manning, Snowden is “elite whining”?
Didn’t you just…?
Omnes Omnibus
@LT: No, complaining that someone else’s blog isn’t exactly as you wish it to be is what comes across as entitled whining. Entitled, not elite.
Joey Giraud
@Ted & Hellen:
It was willful stupidity. The lies and manipulation were as clear as day to see.
And there is great shame in having pretended not to see.
I happen to disagree. The deception was easy to see, I saw it at first and some folk did too.
But as the hurricane of lies picked up steam, ( audio: every MSM harpy screaming, a choir of banshees… visual: piles of bull feces flying through the air in Wizard of Oz style, ) most skeptics I knew fell for the fear and switched to support.
The bull and the shrieking got so intense that, for a period of about 36 hours, the hard-headed anti-authority gadfly named Joey Giraud thought that, since Saddam had oil, he could get money and perhaps, just *maybe*, buy a nuke or something and it might not be entirely bad idea to just topple his regime….
Then I remembered that reasoning through fear isn’t reasoning at all and resumed my Quixotic opposition, losing a few friends along the way.
It’s easy to say people should have known better, but you’re probably forgetting or dismissing the strength of the propaganda.
Joey Giraud
@LT:
The whining part is where you want Cole to kick people off the front page because you don’t agree with them.
And you want him to replace them with writers you prefer.
That’s the part that comes across as entitled whining.
Incidentally, are you and “Long Tooth” the same? And are you really old? Older then me? ( possible, not likely…. :) )
AxelFoley
@Mnemosyne:
You and your facts. Don’t you know where you are? You in the jung–I mean, you at Balloon Juice, baby! We don’t got no time for facts here, just emotion and wild speculation.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@ruemara:
I think what he released right there is significant and a crime.
After all, he committed treason by releasing information that could hurt the American state in its struggle with its greatest enemy, the American people.
Omnes Omnibus
@Phoenician in a time of Romans: Your country keeps no secrets? Classifies no information? Has no laws that call for the punishment of those who have access to classified information and release it off their own bat?
Manning was not charged with nor convicted of treason.
LT
@Joey Giraud: Well, you complained abotu those writers, too. So I kinda don’t get you. And I don’ tsimply “disagree” with them. I object to their lying and smearing. And calling that “entitled” is just weird. Do you think I actuall ythink Cole’s gonna do anything? I’m just givine him an earful, as one does on blogs.
And I never said anything about replacing them with other writers.
And am I “Long Tooth”? What?
I’m 50.
Omnes Omnibus
@LT: The writers offered their opinions. Comment threads are often full of people offering other opinions and supplying facts to support them. This is how blogs work. Cole has a pretty broad stable of people writing here currently. Cole and mistermix have been pretty much on the your side on these issues. I think AL leans that way as well. Others don’t. Deal with it.
dmbeaster
@eemom:
There is nothing ridiculous about comparing Manning to Ellsberg, and in fact it is instructive. Manning released far more data and much more sensitive data than anything Ellsberg released. Ellsberg knew he would go to prison for what he did, and expected to be convicted and sentenced. He got off for fortuitous reasons — the government burglarized his psychiatrist’s office, and the Court threw out the case on grounds of gross government misconduct in the prosecution.
So pointing to Ellsberg as an example demonstrates what?
dmbeaster
@Alexandra: They did mention his confused mental state as mitigation, including his uncertainty about his sexuality.
Omnes Omnibus
@dmbeaster: Point taken. Ellsberg is instructive but not in the way most would expect.
dmbeaster
@LT: Manning pled guilty to some serious charges. So he admitted he was a criminal early in the process. The subsequent proceeding was about how guilty, and how serious was the damage.
burnspbesq
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
Better there than in Margaritaville, but a date with a Swedish judge is more what I had in mind.
burnspbesq
@LT:
Long before his trial, Manning admitted doing exactly what he was ultimately convicted of doing. From that point forward, Sg was on solid ground in leaving out the word “alleged.”
Betty Cracker
@DennisMunro: Bollocks. I never claimed no one has ever said an unkind word about Manning at Balloon Juice, ever. I asked LT to back up the very specific allegations he made, which were as follows:
“And the fact is that writers here have used the power, prestige, and reach of this blog to denigrate Bradley Manning for a long time now. To mock him, to smear him, to insult him, and to call for even worse treatment of him.”
If it was such a sustained, pervasive and prominent anti-Manning campaign, it should be pretty easy to find examples of it. I honestly didn’t know when I asked the question whether or not LT could back it up — I read most posts, but not all. Now I know.
lojasmo
I am pleased with this outcome. Manning is directly responsible for putting the names of US service members in Bin Laden’s hands.
Fuck her.
scott
God bless you, John Cole. You’re a righteous dude!
Steve Crickmore
Bradley Manning in a World of Cheneys, Hadithas, and NSA Domestic Surveillance Which of these, is what Obama views is far and away the most serious crime?
Zerotense
@lojasmo:
Yep. No way those terrorists would know who to attack without Manning.