Bradley Manning found not guilty of aiding the enemy

[TedKennedy]

Many say and feel we knew that Pearl Harbor was going to happen. And the same could be said about that. We were not innocent ole America minding our own business.

And many would be correct. FDR not only knew, but he took actions to ensure that the U.S. would get involved. Whether you agree with the "cause" or not, there is no doubt that FDR made an end run around the non-interventionists of the time. (remember, many adult men had been to Europe during WWI, and knew what a load of crap that was)

 

[caojyn]

Bradley Manning, the US Army private who allegedly surreptitiously copied classified documents onto a fake Lady Gaga CD which he then gave to Wikileaks, has been found guilty of 20 charges, many under the Espionage Act. However, he has been cleared of the most serious charge, which is aiding the enemy.

Manning still faces up to 136 years in prison, as if he’d aided and abetted the enemy, for blowing the whistle on unconstitutional spying. If there was ever a time when this should terrify everyone, immediately after PRISM and Snowden and NSA would pretty much be it.

Most terrifying, the Washington Times is reporting that a former Justice Department official warns that, based on the outcome of this case, being prosecuted for revealing state secrets does not hinge on a leaker’s intent.

Congress is repeatedly lied to about the actions of our security state against citizens. Amnesty International had to sue the government to find out whether their phone records were being analyzed. But they could not even sue, because they could not prove harm without any information from the government. The NSA is operating in a de facto legal gray area, because the Obama administration keeps exempting the applicable laws from challenge in court, citing “national security” concerns.

When information is that protected, accountability is impossible to come by legally. Many have claimed that the leaks should have been performed in “the right way.” But the legal system is designed to offer no legal way to tell America the truth. It’s designed not to protect citizens, it has yet to protect us from a plot it didn’t hatch, but to protect bureaucrats. In the environment we’re all now living in, the oversight problem can really only be solved by protecting whistleblowers.

The Espionage Act was written and intended to punish people who aided and abetted the enemies of the American people. Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden gave, and always intended to give, their information to the press, and ultimately to the people of the United States. They did so because they expected, hoped, that We The People would be horrified at what their country was doing to them, and to people all around the world. But if we instead turn our backs on them. If we do not stand in solidarity with Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden, we deserve the government we’re going to get.


Bradley Manning has been tortured while in prison. He is a hero for undergoing the abuse he received, and for risking even more under this administration’s flagrant abuse of the Espionage Act, all so he could tell the world about what his government had been covering up and lying about. He should be released immediately, and compensated for the abuse he suffered before he was even convicted.

http://thoughtsonliberty.com/i-am-bradley-manning-i-am-edward-snowden

 

[reddog1]

911 was a staged terror attack.

plain as day..

 

[cjjtulsa]

Ah, 9/11: the eternal excuse. Who benefitted from that event, again? It wasn't Tim Osman...er...Osama bin Laden. Such a coincidence that it led to one of the largest (and ongoing) rape of our freedoms since we were owned by the British.

Danny Tanner hit it right on the head.

 

[LightningCrash]

And many would be correct. FDR not only knew, but he took actions to ensure that the U.S. would get involved. Whether you agree with the "cause" or not, there is no doubt that FDR made an end run around the non-interventionists of the time. (remember, many adult men had been to Europe during WWI, and knew what a load of crap that was)

It was mostly Acheson. FDR wasn't in a hurry to get into the war. He knew if we cut Japan's oil off, it would make them attack us. He told Acheson not to do that, who did it anyway without a true oil embargo.

 

[TedKennedy]

End result = Americans go to war. Europe easier pickings for Joe Stalin, China easy pickings for commies. You'd think there were commies in the white house at that time, the way it all worked out. But, hey, it freed up Palestine for invasion. That has certainly turned out well!

 

[ez bake]

The ignorance in this thread is depressing.

This is the main reason I try to avoid anything in General Discussion anymore. Holy crap some folks need to learn more about stuff before getting so emotionally wrapped up in "a cause" that they feel is noble. How the hell do you think the anti-gun movement got it's momentum?

Here is an overview of the material leaked to Wikileaks:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Manning#Material_obtained_by_WikiLeaks


Manning originally leaked two videos of the July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike and the 2009 Granai airstrike in Afghanistan as well as 3 main chunks of info (The Diplomatic Cables, the Iraq War Documents, and the Afghan War Documents) to WikiLeaks.



The first large chunk of info was the 250,000 Diplomatic cables. Over 130,000 of the cables are unclassified, some 100,000 are labeled "confidential", around 15,000 have the higher classification "secret", and none are classified as "top secret" on the classification scale.

There was damage as a result of this leak, most notably the Tunisian revolution and the Arab Spring (which is actually both bad and good, though nobody will argue that it is not dangerous to our troops in the area). The other consequence is that several investigations have lead to legal action against those whose illegal actions were uncovered by the cables, though several journalists have had to flee or be hidden for their safety or publicly hunted by their governments.

Wikileaks originally published the Reykjavik 13 cable in un-edited form, but then agreed with several governments (including the US) to publish the rest in redacted form hiding the identity of anyone who might be harmed by the info. Due to a series of blunders, their backup copy (in case someone "got to them") was decrypted with the passphrase that was not well controlled and the entire series of Diplomatic cables became public-knowledge.

There is plenty of dirt in those cables, and there is enough information to put some of our own diplomats in danger but nothing that would compromise our military or other personnel to the degree that the zealots have been pushing.

More info on the Diplomatic Cables and the dirt they uncovered:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_diplomatic_cables_leak



The second major chunk of information is known as the Iraq War Documents.

The logs contain numerous reports of previously unknown or unconfirmed events that took place during the war (many of which violate our own rules/laws and demonstrate a lack of willingness to investigate such behavior/activity and some of which suggest that attempting to blow the whistle on such behavior would not result in favorable conditions to the whistle-blower).

The logs show everything from mis-reported body-counts of civilians (and cover-ups involving violations to the rules-of-engagement) to the US failing to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers. In short, there's a lot of dirty stuff in there and a lot of rule-bending to the point of absolutely unacceptable behavior on the part of the US, the Coalition, and the Iraqi police/military - the kind of behavior we would in some cases classify as "terrorist activity".


More info on the Iraq War Documents here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War_documents_leak



The last chunk of info leaked is the Afgan War Documents.
Same type of info as the Iraq War Documents with staggeringly high numbers of civilian casualties covered-up as well as friendly-fire casualties covered up. This one has some pretty serious proof that we knew the Pakistani government was supporting the Taliban and there were several behind-the-scenes questionable activities we were engaged in. This one had the greatest potential to put informants and undercover troops in danger, but on 11 August, a spokesman for the Pentagon told the Washington Post that "We have yet to see any harm come to anyone in Afghanistan that we can directly tie to exposure in the WikiLeaks documents". Also, in October, the Pentagon concluded that the leak "did not disclose any sensitive intelligence sources or methods", and that furthermore "there has not been a single case of Afghans needing protection or to be moved because of the leak."

More info on the Afgan War Documents here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_War_documents_leak



Too many folks in here acting just like the people they bash on a regular basis (race-baiters = statist-zealots / PC-police = patriot-police).

But once again, don't let me F!#@ this whole thread up with facts.

 

[bettingpython]

9/11 happened because we were warned prior to the gulf war that if American boots set foot in the Holy land there would be a Jihad. But oil being important we decided to go after a dictator we helped place in power.

Why did we go after him for invading Kuwait? Saddam Hussein asked for UN assistance in settling a dispute with the Kuwaiti's who were slant drilling into Iraq oil reserves. The UN said not our issue fix it yourself, so he did. and our response was to vilify him for that.

Their culture and history is so different from ours that at times it might be considered alien. In the world of public opinion we applied our western values to nations that are uniquely different.

Now this is just second hand from a friend of mine but the road to Basra was not just filled with Saddam's troops retreating back to Iraq, there were civilians as well, he described burned out buses full of charred corpses.

 

[cjjtulsa]

I'd say one big reason we went into Iraq was to protect the petrodollar; if the dollar falls as the world reserve, the U.S. falls, and we know it. Any petroleum producing nation that wants to trade in anything other than the dollar starts the domino effect of other nations following suit, so we have to continue unconstitutional wars to keep our house of cards propped up. It's why we effed up Libya (who was doing fine before we supported that fiasco), and why we have such a undying need to find a reason to go into Iran. Here's where Saddam effed up:

Europe's dream of promoting the euro as a competitor to the U.S. dollar may get a boost from SADDAM HUSSEIN. Iraq says that from now on, it wants payments for its oil in euros, despite the fact that the battered European currency unit, which used to be worth quite a bit more than $1, has dropped to about 82[cents]. Iraq says it will no longer accept dollars for oil because it does not want to deal "in the currency of the enemy."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,998512,00.html

Gaddafi:

Qaddafi was wedded to the idea of floating a ‘gold dinar’ in conducting international oil trade. He urged the OPEC members to re-price their oil in the gold dinar, instead of dollars. His view resonated well with the African petro-economies. Such a bold move could have had ‘ground-shifting’ implications for the world economic order. A country’s economic strength would depend on the gold reserves and not on its dollar assets.

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2011/06/13/why-is-libya-in-the-crosshairs-of-the-west/

Iran:

Last week, the Tehran Times noted that the Iranian oil bourse will start trading oil in currencies other than the dollar from March 20. This long-planned move is part of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s vision of economic war with the west.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/commodities/9077600/Iran-presses-ahead-with-dollar-attack.html

 

[uncle money bags]

But what caused the 9/11 attacks? Let's not pretend like Muslims hated us because of our bald eagles and freedoms. "Don't mess with the bull, son, you'll get the horns." Doesn't justify what happened, but it does help to understand that we weren't just innocent ole America minding our own business when all of a sudden we were blindsided.

Im curious. Lets say; as a hypothetical, we were to divulge ourselves completely from overseas influences either military, economic or political. Is there a length of time, in your opinion, that can pass where our past sins are absolved and we would be justified in using force against aggression? Or, is there a reparation that can be made which would have the same effect?
Any one else, feel free to answer this as well. I am genuinely interested.

And many would be correct. FDR not only knew, but he took actions to ensure that the U.S. would get involved. Whether you agree with the "cause" or not, there is no doubt that FDR made an end run around the non-interventionists of the time. (remember, many adult men had been to Europe during WWI, and knew what a load of crap that was)

lets be fair about this. He knew because the Japanese were attempting to blackmail us into continuing our material support of their conquests in Asia by telling us we would be attacked if we cut off the oil. The context makes all the difference.