The Roots of Bradley Manning

“There’s a picture of the World Trade Center hanging up by my bed and I keep one in my Kevlar [flak jacket]. Every time I feel sorry for these people I look at that. I think, ‘They hit us at home and, now, it’s our turn.’ I don’t want to say payback but, you know, it’s pretty much payback.”

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2010/04/07/payback/

How was he accepted in the military as an openly gay person? Further, how did he get a secret clearance? These questions do not infer that gays are more likely to reveal secrets, but this occured in a period where DADT was supposedly imposed.
The revelations have clearly shown that the Pentagon was extraordinarly careless in who they allowed to have access to secrets. All secrets should be on a need to know basis. That does not mean that a lowly PFC stationed in Baghdad could have so much access.
No doubt the State Department, which has excellent security, regrets the sharing of information.

To be fair to our military and intelligence agencies here… the whole concept of “need to know” was greatly expanded after 9/11. On one hand we screamed at them for walling off information, which is something we at first demanded of them both to prevent the spreading of secrets and the abuse of sensitive info. Those walls were torn down after 9/11 because the public, and all the blue ribbon panels appointed to figure out what went wrong demanded those walls be torn down.

If Manning had used his access to foil some plot he otherwise would never have known about we’d be praising the government for deftly using its human resources and bravely pushing past the barricades of old.

Sometimes these guys can’t win!

And if our conduct in theater was a little less questionable, maybe this lonely kid wouldn’t have decided he was doing the world a favor by exposing it.

And we can always count on the left to side with criminals. They will find a rationalization to support lawbreakers. To them the ends always justifies the means.
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First off, I didn’t say he doesn’t deserve what he gets. But there is definitely a difference between legal and moral. Particularly in matters involving the military, there’s a quasi-mystical taboo that insists that soldiers are never evil and that the normal rules of conduct concernming what constitutes aggression and what constitutes self-defense no longer apply.

It permeates our discourse AND it prevents us from acknowleging when things go wrong.

Thirdly, as I’ve stated before, I am not automatically a typical representative of ‘the left’ In fact I’m sure that Ron Paul Sr. might be sympathetic to the same arguments.

Aside from the fact that Freep is absolutely clueless, I wonder if Assange took advantage of a soldier with clear issues and, possibly, an axe to grind.

@nfl: it’s a good question. Though whistleblowers often have an axe to grind and it doesn’t necessarily detract from the value of the information they expose.

You’re right MM, and Manning’s pretty much a pawn in this whole thing. Assange may think he’s a cyber-Robin Hood, but he’s using info as extortion and I think that’s patently wrong.

@nfl: I agree. His whole “I have a super secret” document threat makes me think less of him. If his document is so important or potentially embarassing him, he should release it now, just to be consistant with his own beliefs. Otherwise he’s just using secret information the same way the people he’s fighting use it — to their own advantage.

In Slate Christopher Hitchens wrote that had he access to cables of this sort he’d have published them too. But then he’d deal with the consequences, including defending himself in court against a British state’s secrets act that’s far more Draconian than laws we have in the U.S. And if he lost, he’d accept that he lost.

I believe Hitchens, who has walked the walk time and time again. That’s the more honest way to handle a situation like this.

freeinpa
December 7, 2010
at 8:47 am

And we can always count on the left to side with criminals. They will find a rationalization to support lawbreakers. To them the ends always justifies the means.
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Using an old Reagan adage “there you go again.” What has the left or right to do with this situation? I consider myself a proud liberal and I would have no problem with this guy being executed as a traitor. I am for the death penalty for child molestation, sex abuse and various other assorted crimes. I am anti-war because it rarely accomplishes anything, with the exception of WWII.
Obama inherited a huge mess. No one can deny that. You can’t solve 8 years of total incompetency in two. You appear to be typical of so many Americans who express views without validity or research.

His whole “I have a super secret” document threat makes me think less of him. If his document is so important or potentially embarassing him, he should release it now, just to be consistant with his own beliefs.
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This, in a nutshell, summarizes the problems I have with WikiLeaks. Since the beginning of this story, I’ve read so many defenses of Julian Assange and his work as somehow shedding light on the dark recesses of the American Empire. Accompanying those arguments has been a dismissal of anyone who questions Assange’s motives. But if — as has been hinted — PFC Manning is Assange’s source for all of the bombshells he’s dropped, then it means that he hasn’t been a crusader for truth and justice: he’s sought to control the production and distribution of information to suit his own agenda. He hasn’t simply been a “messenger,” as I’ve seen him described, but a circus master, selecting the forums (re: media outlets) for discussion, choosing the content to drive the news cycle and whetting appetites by promising other revelations from his library.
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So, in sum, for those who take such delight in disparaging the agendas that dictate how traditional media covers the news, how do you square that with the blatant agenda that Julian Assange has informing how he stage manages the release of classified US government information? Wouldn’t a truth seeker, as Michael points out, just have released all of the documents already? Or does none of that matter because his target — the US foreign policy establishment — is a favored whipping boy?

This why America is the Greatest Country on God’s Green Earth!
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Guilty until proven guilty by the media!
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See, it doesn’t really matter who he is or what he actually did. What matters is that the media will paint a two dimensional picture of someone and we can all as a group decide on their fate. That’s why its called “The Court of Public Opinion”. If I remember my civics right, that’s trumps everything up to the Supreme Court. Only the wives of Supreme Court Justices have more power than the Court of Public Opinion. Its right there in the Constitution.
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Remember, people! Form your opinions as quickly as possible with as few of those pesky ‘facts’ as possible. Justice is best served when served quickly! Let’s Roll!

“Only the wives of Supreme Court Justices have more power than the Court of Public Opinion”
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And Virginia Thomas oughta know, right?

When advocating for the repeal of the ban on openly homosexual members of the United States military, why do the political activists/political lobbyists of the Washington/New York/American press corps never mention that Manning was and remains a militant, virulent, homosexual activist?

Is it because it fits the familiar reason for the predictable silence from members of the Washington/New York/American press corps on various issues, to wit: mentioning Manning’s militant, virulent homosexual activism does not help the cause (i.e., fundamentalist leftism) promoted by the political activists of the Washington/New York/American press corps?

Typical lefty dimwitted ejaculation, nflfag.

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You’re oneliners are so enlightening.

2/3rocks, while I’m somewhat put off at the potty talk, I do like ‘dimwitted’! Ha!
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Liberals have ‘dim’ ‘wits’! That is funny because its true! Hahaha!
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Oo! I got one, too! Liberals are so ‘dimwitted’ they lost in November! Ha! This is fun! Thanks 2/3!

textee, I have never been as proud of a fellow conservative warrior as I am with you today.
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I can only think of the sacrifice you must have made! To have gone undercover into the heart of the militant gayosexual insurgency! I know of no other way you could have garnered the information on Manning without have gone ‘inside’ the homofascist rebel movement. I would not have lasted 3 minutes in the type of ‘bar’ one would have to go to in order to join such an insidious army! I shudder to think of the hours you’ve spent elbow deep in homoliberal manmeat!
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Thank you, textee, for your sacrifice! The nefarious forces at CNN/ABC/PBS/ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNClassic/ESPNkids/Nickolodeon/LadiesHomeJournal/MotorTrend/Cat Fancy/CMT/BET/NBC/CNBC/MSNBC/USAnetwork/F/X/HBO/Showtime/The Golf Channel/TLC/MTV/MTV2/MTV Jams/VH-1/Oxygen/Lifetime/Nick Jr/AMC/IFC/Cinemax/Cosmopolitan/Vogue/VogueHommes/Newsweek/WashingtonPost/Associated (with homosexuals) Press/Europe/FIFA/NCAA/NFL/NBA/MLB and its affiliates/MADD/AARP/NAACP/PBA/LPBA/4H will never know what hit them!

“First off, I didn’t say he doesn’t deserve what he gets”
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Nor did you say he should. In typical fashion you blame America, then when called on it you backpedal faster than the French and give us a moral superiority argument. Thin gruel even by standards of the left..
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“there’s a quasi-mystical taboo that insists that soldiers are never evil”
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There is also a quasi-mystical insistence of the left that says the Pentagon is evil and should only be used as a police force. We get the left not wanting to fund the military then tell us “don’t question our patriotism, we support the military but are against the war.”
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“Aside from the fact that Freep….

The same mindset is why Charley Rangel is still in Congress collecting tax payer money

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“I’m sure that Ron Paul Sr. might be sympathetic to the same arguments.”
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When you agree with him on spending policies then we’ll talk.
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“Obama inherited a huge mess. No one can deny that. You can’t solve 8 years of total incompetency in two”
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First one has nothing to do with the other. Second, the ” huge mess” that he inherited, I am assume you mean the housing crisis was 25 years in the making and there are as many Demos as Repubs responsible for it. To deny that is just more evidence that liberals just lie to themselves.

manning and assange are heroes for putting out the truth.

we should be arresting cheney bush clinton(s) obama and especially geithner and paulson… but not these patriots.

Or perhaps it’s because before this whole incident no one gave a whit about PFC Manning? Because this story (wikileaks, et al) has nothing to do with DADT?
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Nevermind of course that it’s patently absurd to insinuate that all homosexuals, or even just those in the military, are “militant, virulent . . . activists.”
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therealestamerican: you forgot Comedy Central and the Discovery Channel. And the NHL. Or are they excluded for being un-American Candians? You did include FIFA, which is French/European based.

Assange is Australian. There is nothing patriotic about all this. I’m all for government transparency and accountability, but doing it this way undermines the ability of the government to conduct business and diplomacy at home and abroad.

“you forgot Comedy Central and the Discovery Channel.”
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The list of America’s enemies grows by the day! I’ll not forget them next time!
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“And the NHL. Or are they excluded for being un-American Candians?”
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You are correct, npo42, Canada is not American enough for my Red, White and BLUE tastes!
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“You did include FIFA, which is French/European based.”
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French AND European! I think that speaks for itself!

My point, TRA, (may I call you TRA?) is that if you include FIFA, you should include the NHL, which still is in America and has a majority of American teams. FIFA, on the otherhand, is a global organization, based in Europe, and FIFA itself is a French acronym.

I think this little episode teaches two things. 1. If you don’t want something widely known, don’t write it down (or don’t send an email about it). and 2. perhaps most importantly, we classify too much crap. Some of these “secret cables” are little more than he said/she said gossip emails. What is “secret” about that? Those in our diplomatic corps need to learn some decorum, cease the gossip and get back to classifying only what would be deemed important to keep secret.

Freeinpa.
4.1″Obama inherited a huge mess. No one can deny that. You can’t solve 8 years of total incompetency in two”
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First one has nothing to do with the other. Second, the ” huge mess” that he inherited, I am assume you mean the housing crisis was 25 years in the making and there are as many Demos as Repubs responsible for it. To deny that is just more evidence that liberals just lie to themselves.
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No, I mean the Iraq war which was based totally on lies and the Bush insiders knew it. Spend some time reading former Deputy Secretary of Defense papers to see why we attacked.
The Bush Admin – primarily Cheney (who was pretty much the ghost president) did not care about deficits.
They did not monitor or oversee the financial markets where greed was rampart.
They reduced taxes for the wealthiest Americans and watched jobs being outsourced to India and China with no effort to offer incentives for the companies to remain in the US.
The list goes on…………………………

“No, I mean the Iraq war which was based totally on lies and the Bush insiders knew it.”
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This is where you lose your argument. The “lies” were shared by Bill and Hilary Clinton, Harman< Boxer and many others who read the same intelligence reports. This nonsense about Bush lies is just well a lie.
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"The Bush Admin – primarily Cheney (who was pretty much the ghost president) did not care about deficits"
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Conspiracy theories backed up by nonsensical assumptions
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"They did not monitor or oversee the financial markets where greed was rampart"
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Madoff was audited by the SECand NASD over 5 times and found nothing. So what you are really arguing is that the government is incompetent, yet you ask for more.
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And yet when Bush wanted to revamp Fannie and Freddie (which was full of Fraud committed by ex-Clintonites) Barney Frank stopped it. So even when he wanted to regulate more the Demos stopped it, so you complain about Bush.
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"They reduced taxes for the wealthiest Americans and watched jobs being outsourced to India and China with no effort to offer incentives for the companies to remain in the US."
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They reduced taxes on all taxpayers. Jobs were outsourced because of higher cost form regulations, EPA requirements, mandates and the idiotic assumption by Democrats that you can have growing wages,benefits and pensions with rock bottom prices for goods and services..
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Take a break from Bush Deranged Syndrome and visit reality.
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As far as how Bradley Manning is being treated at Quantico, as confirmed by a brig official, the accused leaker is subjected to detention conditions likely to create long-term psychological injuries.

From the beginning of his detention, Manning has been held in intensive solitary confinement. For 23 out of 24 hours every day — for seven straight months and counting — he sits completely alone in his cell. For reasons that appear completely punitive, he’s being denied many of the most basic attributes of civilized imprisonment, including even a pillow or sheets for his bed. For the one hour per day when he is freed from this isolation, he is barred from accessing any news or current events programs.

http://moraloutrage.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/so-what-of-bradley-manning-accused-wikileaks-source/

I always say, if you see something, say something. Maybe this guy saw something?
http://s1081.photobucket.com/albums/j356/aNannyMouse/?action=view&current=SeeSomethingSaySomething.jpg