One of the most frustrating aspects of trying to discuss the case of Pfc. Bradley Manning is the weird phenomenon of bandwagoning the issue creates. Working backwards from “WikiLeaks is good,” his staunchest supporters seem to reason that the release of thousands of classified State Department cables is good; therefore the person who released them (as Manning apparently claimed he did) was justified in his action; therefore any punishment of him is unjust and cruel. I’ve lost count of the number of irritating, undergraduate-level Nineteen Eighty-Four references made in this vein.
Manning’s guilt or innocence notwithstanding for the moment, the hapless private has been turned into an avatar by two factions who seek to use his case to move their respective flags forward. There are the WikiLeakers, who, while seeking greater transparency in government, seem to have convinced themselves that any state secret is intolerable. And there are, tragically in my view, those champions of LGBT rights who believe Manning is being treated unjustly specifically due to his struggles with sexuality and gender identity – and they seem willing to ignore or wave aside any wrongs he may have actually committed.
It’s a shame to see so many people approach this case precisely backwards, justifying an act after-the-fact based on either ideology or a selective interpretation of the outcome.
Let’s say that you believe, as I do, that the military’s policy with respect to LGBT soldiers has been perfectly monstrous and discriminatory. From that, it simply does not follow that any particular act on Manning’s part was justified solely on that basis.
(Manning’s own “mental capacity,” however, may be relevant to whether or not he was capable of the necessary intent required for a court martial to find him guilty of a specific crime, but this is not to say that what he did wasn’t wrong – it’s quite the opposite.)
In fact, the attempt to vindicate Manning’s actions based on his sexuality or gender-identity issues does a favor to those who want gays and lesbians barred from military service by essentially making their case for them (as ABLC’s own Nicholas Wilbur pointed out here). Dan Choi (who is no longer a lieutenant in the U.S. Army, by the way) may want to consider this the next time he decides to show up at a UCMJ Article 32 hearing and create a scene.
Perhaps you believe that Manning’s treatment in detention has been cruel and unusual. Granting for the sake of argument that it has been, that fact alone would not justify the act of leaking classified material.
You may be among those who feel that WikiLeaks’ publication exposed important malfeasance by the Department of State and the military. Should this indeed be the case, it again does not exonerate Manning’s leak of the material, if he indeed is responsible. Above and beyond anything else, by WikiLeaks’ own count there were more than a quarter-million classified cables released – a number high enough to suggest (rather forcefully) that whoever it was who leaked the cables was ignorant of the contents of most of them. This would indicate a total (one might say “reckless”) disregard for the information, whether it was damning or not, and – most importantly – whether its release or the release of any part of it could jeopardize the lives of soldiers, diplomats, or informants all over the world. This is particularly relevant when it comes to Manning’s case, since as an intelligence analyst he would have held a security clearance that required him to safeguard protected information.
So I’ll put it a little more forcefully: Even if you grant that the release of classified cables was a valuable service that exposed serious wrongdoing by the U.S. government, it simply does not follow that the release was not a criminal act and violation of a duly-sworn oath.
You may also believe that Manning is responsible for the cable leak, that WikiLeaks’ publication of the entire trove was good, and that Manning has done nothing wrong. If that is the case, then I must ask: Which secrets are states permitted to keep? Which regulations is the military allowed to enforce? Which oaths are we to take seriously, and which can be taken “with fingers crossed”? I would also direct you away from this site, to a place that might have content you’ll appreciate.
The particulars of the case are swept aside by both of the factions – the WikiLeakers and the Dan Chois – who are attempting to use Manning’s case as a club to advance their own ends. His loudest supporters, in fact, are making such cynical use of him that it’s impossible not to feel bad for Manning himself – who, at the core of this, seems to be a very troubled individual who needed more help than he was able to find as a soldier in war-torn Iraq.
Irrespective of any gender or sexuality issues Manning may have, he is obviously a very troubled, even unstable individual. I suspect that would likely be the case if he’d been born straight as well.
He was also clearly unsuited to his position, and became a source of trouble for many others because of that instability and unsuitability.
Rationalizing his actions for those or any other reasons is nothing short of showing contempt for the foundations of any civil society, in which rules, regulations, and guidelines, many with sanctions attached, are necessary.
And I’m sorry, Julian Assange, you’re a complete, cynical jerk and whatever you did or didn’t do relative to the women in Sweden, I don’t think the world is much of a better place with you running around in it unfettered.
Oh, and Dan Choi – grow up.
Highlights! LOL!
The link to Highlights is truly the capstone on this piece :D
One of the things people forget is that this isn’t a case of “he found some wrongdoing.” He did a complete data dump, so large that it took several news organizations with access to it weeks to weed through it to find some “juicy” bits. Overwhelmingly, it didn’t really point to any serious wrongdoing. Yes, there was some, but it wasn’t anything that Manning knew about in the data.
So any painting him as a “hero” or “valiant whistleblower” is particularly stupid. What he did is the equivalent of someone stealing all the medical records at a major hospital, and publishing them. Yes, somewhere in there might be evidence of malpractice, but 99.9% of it is just material that no one thought should have been released.
Above all else, Manning owed a responsibility to his government and the military to honor his oath. I have sympathy for whatever angst he was experiencing that is related to his sexuality, but it doesn’t excuse the fact that he violated the oath he took. What has turned me off recently have been the tweets from Glenn Greenwald begging for cash on Dan Choi’s behalf because, somehow, someway, by someone, Choi has been “disrespected.” I would probably donate something to Manning just out of human compassion even though I don’t agree with what he did, but there is no way in h3ll I’m donating one red cent to someone who’s using the man’s troubles to line his/her own pockets. How despicable can some people be? Wait, sorry, rhetorical question there. I am beyond disgusted by the members of Grifters, Inc.
Amazing that media whores like Greenwald, Michael Moore, Tom Morello and wannabes like Daniel Choi spend so much time defending this goofball for thankfully only exposing nonsense or telling a bunch of college kids that just squatting in parks and chanting played out 90′s anti-IMF slogans are enough to stave off the Right Wing March towards Gommarrah – instead of using their resources and connection for real organizing?
Imaging stepping our game up from tired 60′s sloganeering and mid-90′s anarchists and move into a real 21st century model?
But, alas, one can dream. So we’ll continue to watch liberals fawn over an unstable GI who if he wasn’t downloading classified documents for Julian Assange, he’d probably be the next Fort Worth shooter.
So, wait, Chris Brown is a pariah, but this guy is a hero and was just stressed out?
Wow, different standards thing is so damn glaring, its not even funny anymore
I guess one guy slapped Rihanna, while the other guy want to be Rihanna (but he apparently had no problem slapping other women in his regimen). Or something.
Look, because this kid sent his documents to WikiLeaks and not, I don’t know, the Late Kim Jong Il, Private Bradley “Baby Jesus” Manning fits into the Emo-Prog “Fight the Power” BS and is being put on pedestal that somewhat defies logic.
Are we shocked by a movement of disorganized malcontents who think OWS with no voting strategy is a movement?
I’m not sure how OWS ties into this post? No doubt there are OWS supporters who are on the blind Manning support side; they do not represent the movement — no one issue represents the movement. As Occupy has been growing “out of the parks” there is a strong branch that is Occupying the Vote / the Voting Booth. There’s an informative article regarding this branch at the Nation (Dec. 12).
Excellent post……….and with the best Rick-Roll EVER.
All of this is patently obvious, and is part of why there is no useful discussion to be had with FREEBRADLEYMANNING people, other than to mock them.
Were you aware that Special Agent Dan Shaver’s testimony on Dec. 19th casts significant doubt on whether Manning leaked the Cablegate documents or the Collateral Murder video? He admitted that the diplomatic cables found on Manning’s personal laptop didn’t match the ones in the Cablegate archive, and there was a plausible work-related reason for the Apache video to have been on the laptop.
Despite the circus in the court of public opinion (and I agree that Dan Choi does seem to be inserting himself into the limelight), I think it’s much more important to look at the argumentation going on where it makes a difference, in the courtroom. Coombs has pointed out some fascinating gaps in the government’s case and I look forward to hearing the closing arguments. I wonder, though, whether any of it will make a difference in the end. :-/
First thing, you have to understand, as I’ve pointed out elsewhere here: This is not a trial. This is an Article 32 hearing, which is the military equivalent of a grand jury proceeding. Unlike grand jury proceedings, the Article 32 hearings can be open.
So you’re not going to see everything the government has here. What you’re seeing is their laying out their ground case, and the defense trying to poke holes in it, to persuade the investigating officer that the charges they’re preferring should go to court-martial.
Making an assumption about the strength or weakness of the case based on what you see reported – and remember, some of this is closed – and assuming this is “the trial” is a major mistake.
I wish the entire legal proceedings against Manning had been allowed to go forward without the media circus ginned up by Glenn Greenwald and Jane Hamsher, and that we’d spent all that time talking about the contents of the cables instead of misleading stories about the conditions of his detention.
And now I’m going to talk about the conditions of his detention.
The point was often made on this site, regarding the police crackdown on OWS, that a remarkable number of people seem to have just discovered the existence of police brutality, which they sought to explain via a conspiracy theory originating in the White House. Of course, the ability of police to be quite brutal all by themselves has long by the known by black Americans.
I can’t help but note the similarities to Bradley Manning and the issue of solitary confinement.
Dan Choi is a straight up opportunist.
Yes indeed he is:
http://lezgetreal.com/2010/07/dan-choi-confidential-is-it-dan-choi-inc/
“Above and beyond anything else, by WikiLeaks’ own count there were more than a quarter-million classified cables released – a number high enough to suggest (rather forcefully) that whoever it was who leaked the cables was ignorant of the contents of most of them. This would indicate a total (one might say “reckless”) disregard for the information, whether it was damning or not, and – most importantly – whether its release or the release of any part of it could jeopardize the lives of soldiers, diplomats, or informants all over the world.”
This is absolutely a solid point, and I accept that if Manning did leak these cable, then he committed a crime. However, I’m still glad that they were leaked. Guilty or not, I think the details of his confinement were still pretty shameful.