IMO Manning caused severe damage to America because people in other countries will not wish to covertly help us because the fear that it will be made public.
I come from a military background.
What price is treason? Your post mentioned that President Obama assuring that it is understood that Manning broke the law and paid a harsh price. How is the price harsh if Manning does not complete the full sentence?
Also, an abominable abuse of her civil rights? Well... if Treason was not committed then Manning wouldn't be in ANY prison. Manning caused Manning's issues of being in prison.
I respect your opinion. In that same principle, I respectfully disagree. No, Obama did not do the right thing, in my opinion. What kind of precedence does this example show for future traitors?
IMOO.
There was the bizaare Iran Contra affair
https://www.brown.edu/Research/Understanding_the_Iran_Contra_Affair/h-on-gallery.php
To be honest over the years American Troops have been involved in sex crimes abroad, and torture. The country refuses to accept the International Court of human rights and the International Criminal Court, where rape may equal ten years. They are sent back to America where the sentences are much less. This person isn't serving a sentence for a crime against another person but a breaking of a contract. I'd be more worried about the troops in Europe and the signal it's sending the rest of the world, and A 2012 Pentagon survey found that approximately 26,000 women and men were sexually assaulted. Of those, only 3,374 cases were reported. A bigger problem....
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bbm I wonder where this # came from, I don't like words like that.
I don't have personal feelings on this person, as a person. But I did find it odd, seems no one had heard that the person was trans, and chose the day they knew they would be going to a male military prison to disclose. Fine with me, but it would seem to make the sentence a little harder, IMO.
I put in the he/she just in case this was a ruse on their part, not to disparage them.
All MOO only
bbm I wonder where this # came from, I don't like words like that.
Its astounding to me how a person can be both a traitor and a patriot at the same time. It really says a lot about the state of the nation IMO.
Is treason still treason when it is against a corrupt government?
Commuting the sentence of Chelsea Manning, one of the great traitors of our time, is finger-in-the-eye willfulness. Obama took 28 years off the sentence of a soldier who stole and then released through WikiLeaks almost half a million military reports, plus another quarter-million State Department documents.
Even the word leaker is misleading. Leak makes it sound like a piece of information a whistleblower gives Woodward and Bernstein to expose misdeeds in high office. This was nothing of the sort. It was the indiscriminate dumping of a mountain of national security secrets certain to bring harm to American troops, allies and interests.
Obama considered Mannings 35-year sentence excessive. On the contrary. It was lenient. Manning could have been and in previous ages, might well have been hanged for such treason. Now she walks after seven years.
What makes this commutation so spectacularly in-your-face is its hypocrisy. Here is a President who spent weeks banging the drums over the harm inflicted by WikiLeaks with its release of stolen materials and emails during the election campaign. He demanded a report immediately. He imposed sanctions on Russia. He preened about the sanctity of the American political process.
Over what? What exactly was released? A campaign chairmans private emails and Democratic National Committee chatter, i.e. campaign gossip, backbiting, indiscretions and cynicism. The usual stuff, embarrassing but not dangerous. No national security secrets, no classified material, no exposure of anyone to harm, just to ridicule and opprobrium.
BBM
All governments are corrupt.
JM (cynical) O
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Yes, From what I read.Was Manny at first a whistle blower whom was ignored by the powers that be? Not that I have read. Well if you consider the nyt and the wash post as a platform for whistle blowing, but they didn't seem to be interested.
Or did he just leak things without trying to notify any higher rank personnel?
Huh? The sanctions were because of the Ukraine