Brad Manning: Traitor or Hero?

[hambone]

politics and war aside-when you join the military you swear an oath to never ever disclose secret information not even to your spouse.He knew the consequences, whether or not his intentions were good is irrelevant. He is subject to military law which pretty much forfeits all but the most basic of rights. He did this to himself and should've been more careful.

[Kanda444]

according to what i found, he was moved to a medium security facility at Fort Leavenworth and is in an 80-square-foot cell with a window and a normal mattress...he is also able to talk with other pre-trial detainees and keep personal objects in his cell.

horrible situation he's in though.

[kellyhound]

His superior(s) should be on trial too as the signs of him having mental troubles were there for awhile and they still let him work with classified docs.

After 4 weeks at the Joint Readiness Training Center in Fort Polk, Louisiana, he was deployed to Forward Operating Base Hammer, near Baghdad, arriving in October 2009.

From his workstation there, he had access to SIPRNet (the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network) and JWICS (the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System).

Two of his superiors had discussed not taking him to Iraq – it was felt he was "a risk to himself and possibly others," according to a statement later issued by the army – but again the shortage of intelligence analysts held sway.

The 10th Mountain Division's shoulder sleeve insigniaA month later, in November 2009, he was promoted from Private First Class to Specialist.

That same month, according to his chats with Lamo, he made his first contact with WikiLeaks, shortly after it posted 570,000 pager messages from the 9/11 attacks, which it released on November 25.

Also in November, Manning wrote to a gender counselor in the United States, said he felt female, and discussed having sex reassignment surgery.

The counselor told Steve Fishman of New York Magazine that it was clear Manning was in crisis, partly because of his gender concerns, but also because he was opposed to the kind of war in which he found himself involved.

He was by all accounts unhappy and isolated. Because of the army's "don't ask, don't tell" policy (known as DADT and repealed in September 2011), he was not allowed to be openly gay, though he apparently made no secret of it; his friends said he kept a fairy wand on his desk.

When he told his roommate he was gay, the roommate responded by suggesting they not speak to each other. His working conditions – 14–15 hour night shifts in a dimly lit secure room – did not help his mental health.

On December 20, 2009, after being told he would lose his one day off a week for being persistently late, he overturned a table in a conference room, damaging a computer that was sitting on it, and in the view of one soldier looked as though he was about to grab a rifle from a gun rack, before his arms were pinned behind his back.

Several witnesses to the incident believed his access to sensitive material ought to have been withdrawn at that point. The following month, he began posting on Facebook that he felt alone and hopeless.

Army investigators told a pre-trial hearing that they believed Manning downloaded the Iraq and Afghan war logs around this time.

In April, just as WikiLeaks published the video, Manning sent an e-mail to his master sergeant, Paul Adkins, saying he was suffering from gender identity disorder and attaching a photograph of himself dressed as a woman.

Captain Steven Lim, Manning's commander, said he first saw the e-mail after Manning's arrest – when information about hormone replacement therapy was found in his room in Baghdad – and learned that Manning had been calling himself Breanna.

Manning told Lamo that his commander had found out about the gender issue before his arrest, after looking at his medical files at the beginning of May.

He said he had set up Twitter and YouTube accounts in Breanna's name to give her a digital presence, writing in the Lamo chat: "i wouldn't mind going to prison for the rest of my life, or being executed so much, if it wasn't for the possibility of having pictures of me ... plastered all over the world press ... as [a] boy.

On April 30 he posted on Facebook that he was utterly lost, and over the next few days that "Bradley Manning is not a piece of equipment," that he was "beyond frustrated," and "livid" after being "lectured by ex-boyfriend despite months of relationship ambiguity ..."

On May 7 he seemed to spiral out of control. According to army witnesses, he was found curled into a fetal position in a storage cupboard, with a knife at his feet, and had cut the words "I want" into a vinyl chair.

A few hours later he had an altercation with a female intelligence analyst, Specialist Jihrleah Showman, during which he punched her in the face.

The brigade psychiatrist recommended a discharge, referring to an "occupational problem and adjustment disorder." His master sergeant removed the bolt from his weapon, and he was sent to work in the supply office, though at this point his security clearance remained in place. He was demoted from Specialist to Private First Class just two days before his arrest on May 26.

[Impotent Rage]

He leaked the information because it contained evidence of wrongdoing. If he took an oath then I'm sure it was intended to protect strategically sensitive material, not criminal activity.

[Kanda444]

Originally Posted by Impotent Rage

He leaked the information because it contained evidence of wrongdoing. If he took an oath then I'm sure it was intended to protect strategically sensitive material, not criminal activity.

sounds like "defending from a domestic enemy" to me

[Oswald2001]

There is a price to being a passive/aggressive mindf*cker.

Consequences don't care if you like it or not.

[Impotent Rage]

Numerous crimes were highlighted after the leaks and it seems like nothing has been done about them.

The fact that the government didn't do anything about them initially isn't surprising but the apparent lack of public pressure or interest is astonishing.

It seems to me (as an outsider) that American sentiment is easily sidetracked. I'm not sure how the average American sees Manning but in Britain there would not only be overwhelming support for him, there would be an appetite for justice to be served in relation to the crimes that were exposed; more so than demonising the individual who leaked it in the first place.

[Brometheus]

hey i remember this shit..