Bradley Manning Hit with New Charges in WikiLeaks Case, Including "Aiding the Enemy"

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/3/bradley_manning_hit_with_new_charges

The U.S. Army has filed 22 additional charges against Army Private Bradley Manning, who is alleged to have illegally downloaded hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. military and State Department documents that were then publicly released by WikiLeaks. One of the new charges, "aiding the enemy," could carry a death sentence. We speak with Glenn Greenwald, constitutional law attorney and legal blogger for Salon.com. "Although the charging document doesn’t say who the 'enemy' is here, it’s only two possibilities," Greenwald says. "Either they mean WikiLeaks … or any kind of leak now of classified information to newspapers, where your intent is not to aid the Taliban but to expose wrongdoing." [includes rush transcript]

They're trying even more desperately to break him to get him to turn on Assange, but it's already been made amply clear Assange neither suborned this nor could he have been certain it was Manning until the arrests and extensive publicity. If someone that junior in the military had access to these, the fault for these leaks lies far, far higher up in the chain of command, if not the E-ring of the Pentagon, for being such colossal fuckups.

It seems to me as well that it would be impossible to connect Manning to Assange on this. Seems like now they're just slamming on the charges top make a keen example to other similar minded individuals in the military. Poor guy had no idea just how to do what he did properly, and now he's gonna get life in Leavenworth for it. As to your statement that the fault lies high in the chain of command, I'll have to disagree. Both parents of mine were career military, one in Intelligence, and as young officers they dealt with sensitive info on a daily basis. Certainly, it is odd for a private to access such info, but certainly not hard to do at all. Hell, my dad coordinated significant events, including certain aspects of Presidential visits, from his office computer. That was years ago, before big flash drives. THATS why I see these charges stacking up. The army sees the ease at which this info was stolen and is making on HELL of an example out of Manning, so no one would dare try to do this again.

THIS IS BS, what the US is doing to Manning (torture), Wikileaks & Assange IS SO WRONG & AGAINST WHAT THE US STANDS FOR!
POLL IS on NOW!
The GOOD news 69% agree w/ Anonymous!
Time to vote!

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The military is acting like a crazy monkey throwing shit to see if any of it sticks.

Unfortunately, from my angle, a lot IS going to stick. The military has very strict rules on this type of thing. He is completely, utterly fucked.

Sadly, this is true.

FIRST of MANNING HAS NOT BEEN charged but he is being TORTURED BY MY OWN GOV!
The information he has been alleged to provide CLEARLY SHOWED that the US Military's executed innocent people!
PLUS, I don't understand (if he did) as a military serviceman who believed in OUR so-called military code of conduct to report (no matter what) who may witnessed a wrong to WHY he's different from the military serviceman who exposed the Lai Massacre?!



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre

I don't think it was ever in question that he was going to be "taking one for the team" at some point.
If you're a government trying to send out a message about something it doesn't like then it is going to take full advantange in making an example out of someone in the public eye and it would be more unusual if it didn't go the 9000 yards.

Yes, he has been charged. Yes he will go to prison for the rest of his life. As for torture, gonna need links,dox. He is different from the My Lai massacre exposers in that much of the information he leaked wasn't really whistleblowing on much of anything, but the fact that the transfer of info took place, despite it being banal info, is grounds for serious punishment.

Actively, and with full knowledge what he was doing "taking one for the team?" Or an idealistic young guy with good intentions who really screwed his own pooch?

1. Please stop shouting...or drinking...or both.
2. Yes, he has been charged.

You are really not worth my time or energy.

Okee-doke

Yes, I know he has been officially charged.

If that is accurate, it's pretty sad.

http://forums.whyweprotest.net/threads/greenwald-bradley-manning-could-face-death-for-what.77499/
Interesting reading, especially for newcomers with strong opinions.

He's not. He's being railroaded & thrown under the bus like so many military personnel before him. The ranking officers who are charged with criminal acts get a rank reduction, reassignment, or a slap on the wrist. The NCOs go to prison and are tortured. It's always been this way in the U.S. Armed Forces. Remember, Abu Ghraib? The officers got reprimanded; the non-officers went to prison. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse.

The military is very political & like corrupt politicians, they need to throw someone under the bus to avoid scrutiny over their their own doings.

What enemy? The one they made up, armed to fight the soviets and perhaps continue to clandestinely support just to keep the fear out there? The 9 Faces of Osama Bin Laden? Fucking Emmanuel Goldstein? Seriously, just WHO is really the enemy here?

This is banal?

Frankly, the figures are better than I thought they'd be. Wasn't it closer to 80% at one point? People are waking up.

Regardless, the pro-wikileaks side as already far beyond critical mass. The government needs to just throw up their hands and admit defeat instead of continually shooting themselves in the foot. What am I saying? Governments shoot themselves in the foot all the time, they must like all that self-inflicted pain.

I think you're approaching it from the wrong angle. The pro-government side is pretty much the default of people. It takes something extraordinarily fucked up for most people to be against the position of the government. I think the shift in the numbers is encouraging.

I agree. I see that more and more people support disclosure, although there will be those Fox News watching fools. Wikileaks is good for our society. In the information age, people are hungry for the truth.

You want to blame the Military for firing on guys who clearly look like they DID in fact have weapons, in the middle of a COMBAT ZONE?

Pull your head out of your ass. You blame them because you don't know what it's like because you're too pussy to serve for your country.

Yes, they made a mistake, but it's not like it was fucking planned out to kill the journalist ffs!

They didn't look like they have weapons. People serving in wartime - especially with so many insurgents - are not mentally at their peak. It's what happens when you are constantly in fear of your life 24/7 - and is very sad. None of what happens there is good, and they should all come home.

You're damn right we armed those people. They were being slaughtered by the Soviets, who radicalized them to make Afghanistan easier to take over ( set up gangs/ rivalries).

God I hate you radicals that just don't get it. We are in an undeclared war with a cult/crime syndicate.

Yes, they did, are you fucking blind?

Some of you people I swear... right down there with the scilons..

Shooting at the wounded is the problem here. Men were on the ground, not presenting a threat to anyone. Under every international convention, they are no longer a valid target, nor was the van coming to rescue the wounded. That is the crime in this video.

How many people do you know that have been over there? My guess is none. Funny how it's always armchair libtards who think they have a clue, and the guys who've seen what's going on in the ground support our efforts to help those people.

The big problem wasn't the mistake you speak of.
The big problem was the way it was covered up and kept hidden from the outside world.
Its not a question of whether the guys on the ground screwed up, or to what extent they're responsible.
It IS a question of the brass "upstairs" being scared it would make them look bad, and demanding this episode buried.

But the grunts always DO tend to get flack, and punishment when they fuck up.
The assholes who gave them defective orders and then ordered other grunts to "make it go away" rarely if ever are held accountable.

Transparency is risky (and it DOES allow more badpeople to take pot shots at our guys) but its the only way to motivate the people who design these things, to identify the problems and fix them.

They also fired at people who didn't have weapons. They shot at the guy who stopped to take care of the wounded. You are representative of what is wrong with the U.S.

I definitely agree with you on that.

No, they just went ahead and fired on him a few more times after it was already clear he was down. Last I checked that's a war crime.

Also, last I checked, it takes more balls to tell your government to go fuck itself than it does to "just follow orders."

Actually, it was the CIA who founded the Mujahideen, specifically Brzezinski.


Maybe you need to go get yourself educated.

My cousin was over there fuckface. Were you over there? did you have family over there?

Funny how false conservatives think they know so much yet actually know jack shit.

Help them do what? Guard poppy fields?

My brother was in Afghanistan recently. He volunteered at an orphanage and helped oversee the first non-poppy crop export in years (it was pomegranates). I don't think it was a good idea for us to go over there, and I don't know if the good individuals try to do over there outweighs the bad, but don't you fucking dare say that the people on the ground aren't trying.