Oh wait...Kucinich wants to meet with him... 'Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich has asked the Defense Secretary Robert Gates for a visit with an Army private suspected of giving classified material to WikiLeaks.' http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/02/04/national/a152856S67.DTL#ixzz1D2roa6ft Odon I have respect but I'm not sure where you are coming from. Unfortunately Kucinich may lose his seat from re-districting. I don't always agree with Kucinich-but I like that people like him are there. Odon face it-Manning has changed history. Tunisia..Egypt..would not have happened without him. Yes it took very brave people after him..people who gave their life in Tunisia and Egypt..but they would not have done it without the leaking of his memos.
Boredom. A deep sense of being bored of hearing about him like he is the second coming of our lord Jesus Christ. Given the protests in Egypt have been brewing for the last 3 years, I highly doubt wikileaks/BM had any great bearing on the current events. Please don't patronise the dead as if they have anything to thank BM for. I know Jesus is given credit for any and everything but, like I said, BM is not Jesus.
No not Jesus Christ. And yes some of the 'respect' given him is not warranted. He released documents that he shouldn't have. He is going to jail. Did he realease these docs knowing that he would probably get caught and go to jail? But the simple release of these documents have had a huge impact on certain parts of the world. Yes the events in Tunisia did not rely on these documents but the simple knowledge that America agreed with what the average Tunisian knew as fact sparked this. Who was it during the Watergate Hearing said if everything is secret then nothing is really secret.
False. Totally false. It's hindsight. It's totally about people wishing to give these document/releases more credence than they deserve. It's the Jesus effect.
About a week before the Tunisia uprising a local paper published a story detailing some of the wikileaks emails concerning Tunisia. They detailed how corrupt the regime was. It is said that this really coalesced the young Tunisians. Someone outside had agreed with them.
A week???!!!! I appreciate some wish to attribute this with that but it simply isn't true. The recent Egyptian protests have been attributed with Facebook. It's basically Facebook apologists. Give people more credit, imho.
I honestly really have compassion for Manning as he is the "person" in all of this that it is the easiest to punish by the powers that be. They are going to take their "pound of flesh" as they can and it makes a statement to anyone else who may consider this to be a great idea in the future. To assume that he did not know the consequences of releasing those confidential documents is in my opinion an insult to his intelligence level. He had to have known that if it was traced to him he was going to be held accountable. He was employed with a code of conduct in place that is very clear. His boss is not the forgiving kind. He is in different position than any other whistle blower. While the public in general loves nothing more than a whistle blower as it is usually juicy news, no boss likes them. They tend to be rather unemployable after the fact. Loose lips are not generally regarded as valued in any business. Like it or not the military is also a business with a bully for a boss. People hold out the hope that wilkileaks is the answer to all. They also want to attribute far too much to wikileaks. In my opinion that is rather a stretch in many cases to attribute change to wikileaks when the change has been evolving for a period of time before there was wikileaks. Sometimes we see what we wish to as it is more palatable. I stated in another thread that I wondered what Manning would say about the handling of wikileaks if he could. I have a feeling (personal) that if he could openly speak about it he would consider it a dismal failure. When he "took" those documents, if he did so for transparency, it has not happened. If he did it for personal honourable reasons, he has been let down those he entrusted with that information. Those who now control those documents now control transparency. So far much of the so called really damaging information is being held and used to protect those who have them now. I do not think that was what Manning would have intended. This is my own opinion. We have simply changed the handlers of the puppets as far as information. I personally do not trust the present handlers any more than the original. I do not feel it is "just" that Manning is going to pay the price for this but I also do believe that he knew the consequences. To know the consequences though and have to live with them is often a whole different thing. He made himself a target by his own free will and actions. He is the only person who can say if it was worth it to him. The rest of the world is not going to face the consequence, he is.
if egypt was mannings doing, all he has done thus far is kill people the guy insn't budging until the end of his term. the storm will have to calm.
Another poster was discussing - on Facebook - white phosphorous and Depleted Uranium...I think I was being fair here
Pure democracy is two wolves and one sheep voting on what's for dinner. Manning may or may not have been a witting participant in leaking the information. Proper justice would absolutely find him guilty of any military oath that he violated- with mitigating factors to be considered as weight against any sentence to be imposed... he is sworn to protect the constitution of the United States and if he sees something that he believes poses a danger to that document would it not be his duty to bring it to light in the manner he sees as the best and quickest possible route toward effecting corrective action? The quandary rests in the event that the best possible route necessitates that he violate part of his oath. Another factor that hasn't really been discussed and I'm as guilty of this as anyone, is that Manning was actively serving in the military which is in essence NOT a democracy- but a necessary dictatorship operating to presumably protect and defend that constitution and the "democracy" it represents. The question becomes in my mind which presents a greater peril to that constitution; the act of leaking secret information or the act of making it secret in the first place? All this talk about Manning and Assange is a big, gigantic distraction from the questions that SHOULD be asked, like what other kinds of secrets are there? Indeed it would be easy to make a case that the act of leaking secrets for the press to make public at its own discretion by a member of the armed forces is worthy a court-martial and the severest punishment possible but when it is revealed that the nature of the secret information does not really compromise national security to the degree that we are being led to believe- but that it illuminates the epitome of corruption by governments and their corporate puppet masters I begin to see why our government and corporate cronies would have us see Manning and Assange as central to the issue and to drown out the best they can the flow of leaked information with media smear campaigns concurrent with harassment of the two by both civil and military courts. This latest discussion about Manning is just another extension of what is being used to distract from the important issues relating to whether governments of countries like the United States have a legitimate right to govern? Openness and transparency have become political buzz words in the US- and in that vein, those who make greatest use of them in their political double-speak tend to act in the least open and transparent manner. This is probably because it is shown that pledging to do something is the same as actually doing it to a public that has been carefully weaned away from engaging in the process by the allure of a capitalist consumer economy and cheap entertainment over the last 60 years or so. Additionally our "free" education/indoctrination system assures that as many people as possible are rendered intellectually comatose- particularly in areas related to politics and history. Meanwhile the business of government (and I mean BUSINESS in every sense of the word) is conducted in a purposefully opaque manner well above the collective comprehension that the "education" system and pop culture stunts. We have no appetite for these types of things and isn't speaking out and demonstrating someone else's job? It's no big surprise that so much of the rest of the world not only regards the United States government with contempt but also increasingly its people. If I am to accept that this is a democracy then I must also accept that the hatred is richly deserved. Had we chosen to remain engaged in the process and paid attention to what our leaders were doing after we had voted them in then there would be no need for Wikileaks--- Bradley Manning and Julian Assange would not be hot topics. In a sense they are monsters we ourselves have created.
Did I actually have a comment deleted from here? If so, LOL censorship irony. If not, my memory needs a kick.
