Mr Crowley, what went on in your head?

[rubato]

What damage? We rotate one diplomat out and the next one in.

Its like rearranging furniture.

yrs,
rubato

[Andrew D]

So, it's becoming more and more clear that Assange and Wikileaks, are doing more damage than good.

Yep. There is no greater harm than revealing the truth.

[loCAtek]

Then in your opinion, why is Manning being charged at all?

[Andrew D]

He revealed the truth.

As I have said repeatedly, there is considerable evidence that Manning committed numerous crimes.

Does that really matter to the people who decide who is going to be charged with what? I see no evidence of that.

What really matters to those people is that Wikileaks has revealed the truth about the Pentagon's lies.

Wikileaks has revealed that "coalition" forces in Iraq have killed at least 30,000 more civilians than the Pentagon has been claiming.

Wikileaks has revealed that "coalition" forces in Iraq have used torture routinely and as a matter of policy.

Etc., etc., etc.

Those crimes are what the Pentagon wants hushed up. And that is why Manning is being prosecuted.

It's a lot like Daniel Ellsberg. His real "crime" was to reveal to Americans the "secret" that our military was illegally bombing Cambodia. It sure was no secret to the Cambodians. What pissed the Pentagon off was that Americans were finally being told the truth.

There is nothing the military hates and fears more than that.

[loCAtek]

Disagree, he knowingly violated the conditions of his security clearance.
That job is to process facts, not truths; while there were far more diplomatic cables 250,000, leaked than military ones.

Manning is quoted as saying basically that the impact would be greater to the diplomatic community;

Manning says in the chat logs, ''Hillary Clinton and several thousand diplomats are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format, to the public."

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/03/ ... z1HLf1qDNH

...thereby suggesting they were his intended targets.

[Andrew D]

Whoever his "targets" were, the fact remains that his crime was to reveal truths that those in power did not want revealed.

[loCAtek]

That is constituioal;

Executive Order 12958-Classified National Security Information, as Amended

Some highlights;

(j) “Damage to the national security” means harm to the national defense or foreign relations of the United States from the unauthorized disclosure of information, taking into consideration such aspects of the information as the sensitivity, value, utility, and provenance of that information.






nn) “Unauthorized disclosure” means a communication or physical transfer of classified information to an unauthorized recipient.





(oo) “Violation” means:

(1) any knowing, willful, or negligent action that could reasonably be expected to result in an unauthorized disclosure of classified information;

(2) any knowing, willful, or negligent action to classify or continue the classification of information contrary to the requirements of this order or its implementing directives; or

(3) any knowing, willful, or negligent action to create or continue a special access program contrary to the requirements of this order.

[Gob]

That is certainly the view of Shelly Otto, a former soldier, whose husband is a marine at the prison where Pte Manning is being held. She sees it as most Americans do:

"I think if you give up secrets that impact our military when they are operating in a war zone then you get what you get. You have to be punished. You can't just go 'here's all our secrets' and expect nothing to happen."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/n ... 434978.stm

[rubato]

Still, no evidence of injury to our interests.

yrs,
rubato

[Andrew D]

That is certainly the view of Shelly Otto, a former soldier, whose husband is a marine at the prison where Pte Manning is being held. She sees it as most Americans do:

"I think if you give up secrets that impact our military when they are operating in a war zone then you get what you get. You have to be punished. You can't just go 'here's all our secrets' and expect nothing to happen."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/n ... 434978.stm

Has anyone suggested that Manning is not guilty of anything?

[Gob]

I don't think so.

Why do you ask?

[Gob]

Back to the OP;

"I thought the treatment of Bradley Manning was undermining what I considered to be a very legitimate prosecution of an individual who has profoundly affected US national security," Mr Crowley said in his first public remarks since stepping down on 13 March.

He said he had not anticipated his criticism of another arm of the US government - the military - would spark such a controversy, and said it was appropriate for him to step down because his remarks had put President Barack Obama in a "difficult position".

"Quite honestly I didn't necessarily think the controversy would go as far as it did but I don't regret saying what I said," Mr Crowley said.

Mr Crowley, a former Air Force officer and national security aide to former President Bill Clinton, declined to say whether he had been asked to resign.....



...."I'm a believer in something like strategic narratives," he told HARDtalk on Monday, "that the US, as an exceptional country in the world, has to be seen as practicing what we preach."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12886702

[Lord Jim]

It's perfectly acceptable to say; "in my opinion Bradley Manning is a traitor, and these are my reasons for thinking him so..."

Golly, I really thought I had covered that....(repeatedly)

I'll give it one more shot....

If it'll make ya happy, I'll say "in my opinion" Anyone who:

steals hundreds of thousands of classified documents, including one's that detail the sources and methods of ongoing military operations, and makes them available to our enemies is rightly called a traitor ....


Just as "in my opinion" someone who goes about slitting the throats of a number of people could rightly be called "a serial killer"...

Just "in my opinion" of course...

Hey, who am I to judge?

[Lord Jim]

If we're going to define the concept of "traitor" by the narrow specificity of being found guilty of "treason" under the law, the concept becomes meaningless...

Using that definition, Julius Rosenberg wasn't a traitor, Alger "Winner Of The Order Of Lenin" Hiss wasn't a traitor, Philip Agee wasn't a traitor...

Hell, even Benedict Arnold (who's name has become synonymous with being a traitor) wasn't a traitor...

[loCAtek]

Hmmm, and so where are the felons?

[Gob]

He's on the move..

The US soldier accused of leaking a trove of secret government documents later published by the Wikileaks website is to be moved to a military prison in Kansas, officials have said.

Pte First Class Bradley Manning has been held pending court martial at a Marine Corps base in Virginia.

His transfer comes amid international criticism of his treatment.

His supporters say he has been confined to a cell for 23 hours a day and forced regularly to undress.

At a press conference at the Pentagon on Tuesday, defence department general counsel Jeh Johnson said he would be moved to a new pre-trial jail at Fort Leavenworth, in the state of Kansas, imminently.

Mr Johnson said the transfer should not be interpreted as a criticism of Pte Manning's treatment at the Marine base in Quantico.

Officials have denied Pte Manning has been mistreated, though last month a top US state department official, spokesman PJ Crowley, resigned after saying the military's treatment of the Wikileaks suspect was "ridiculous and counterproductive".

Pte Manning, an intelligence analyst who joined the US Army in 2007, is suspected of leaking 720,000 diplomatic and military documents, including a database of military records from the Iraq war, Afghan war records, classified diplomatic cables and other materials.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13138050

[Gob]

Files obtained by the website Wikileaks have revealed that the US believed many of those held at Guantanamo Bay were innocent or only low-level operatives.

The files, published in US and European newspapers, are assessments of all 780 people ever held at the facility.

They show that about 220 were classed as dangerous terrorists, but 150 were innocent Afghans and Pakistanis.

The Pentagon said the files' release could damage anti-terrorism efforts.

The latest documents have been published on Wikileaks,the Guardian, the New York Times and in other newspapers, although it was not clear whether the papers had co-operated with Wikileaks in their release. The Times said they received the files through "another source".

The Detainee Assessment Briefs (DABs) also give details of alleged plots, revealed under interrogation, against US and European targets.

They included unverified claims that al-Qaeda had hidden a nuclear weapon in Europe for detonation should Osama Bin laden be captured.

Other alleged plots include plans to put cyanide into the air conditioning systems of US public buildings and attempts by al-Qaeda to recruit workers at London's Heathrow Airport.

But the files give little information on the allegations of harsh treatment and interrogation techniques at the camp.

The BBC's Jonny Dymond in Washington says many of the details have been heard before in various forms, but never from an official US source.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13184845

[MajGenl.Meade]

His supporters say he has been confined to a cell for 23 hours a day and forced regularly to undress.

Getting into his PJs?

[Crackpot]

From what I hear Manning has foot-in-mouth-itis. Doesn't seen to get the idea that saying "I could kill myself with 'X'" Gets 'X' taken away from him.