Breaking News: Bradley Manning ACQUITTED of "Aiding the Enemy". Hero :hat :hat

Why do you hate this country so much? This is a legitimate question. You have a long trend of anti American posts and sentiments.
 
I agree on being acquitted of aiding the enemy, that charge should only apply if info is given directly to opposition forces intentionally....

The other charges he plead guilty to/found guilty of are still enough to make sure he never sees freedom... I agree with those charges.
 
CreateDestroy said:
I agree on being acquitted of aiding the enemy, that charge should only apply if info is given directly to opposition forces intentionally....

The other charges he plead guilty to/found guilty of are still enough to make sure he never sees freedom... I agree with those charges.
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nope. max time he can get is 20 years. He already done 3. thats just the max
 
A US military judge has found Army private Bradley Manning "not guilty" of aiding the enemy. However, he was found guilty of 19 remaining charges, meaning that he still faces the possibility of up to 136 years behind bars. Sentencing begins tomorrow.
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zapatohead408 said:
Who the hell is Bradley Manning?
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You remember all those videos of US soldiers shooting from an apache helicopter killing innocent news reporters amd civilians? And the photos of soldiers torturing prisoners and posing along side the torture and humiliation? Yeah, had a pretty huge hand in that becoming public. Also put Wikileaks on the map.
 
Legendairy Stinson said:
zapatohead408 said:
Who the hell is Bradley Manning?
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You remember all those videos of US soldiers shooting from an apache helicopter killing innocent news reporters amd civilians? And the photos of soldiers torturing prisoners and posing along side the torture and humiliation? Yeah, had a pretty huge hand in that becoming public. Also put Wikileaks on the map.
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so what the trial mean
 
Legendairy Stinson said:
zapatohead408 said:
Who the hell is Bradley Manning?
Click to expand...

You remember all those videos of US soldiers shooting from an apache helicopter killing innocent news reporters amd civilians? And the photos of soldiers torturing prisoners and posing along side the torture and humiliation? Yeah, had a pretty huge hand in that becoming public. Also put Wikileaks on the map.
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honestly, don't even remember.
When did all this happen?
 
zapatohead408 said:
honestly, don't even remember.
When did all this happen?
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Think it was sometime around 04, 05 maybe. I forgot.

Edit: Actually mixed up 2004's Abu Ghraib Prison abuse by US soldiers on Iraqi soldiers. Nothing to do with Bradley Manning.

Bradley Manning supplied Wikileaks with information between 2007-2010 and arrested in 2010.
 
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Rell826 said:
Why do you hate this country so much? This is a legitimate question. You have a long trend of anti American posts and sentiments.
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I used to feel the same way bout Rashi, but dude is pretty informed and his opinions are actually appreciated!


Wr said:
Sets bad precedence for whistleblowers in the sense that they will not be protected.
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Pretty much. If you have a clearance, be ready to spend hundreds of years in jail if you are caught breaking that oath.
 
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FORT MEADE, Md. -- Bradley Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison on Wednesday for handing WikiLeaks a massive cache of sensitive government documents detailing the inner workings of America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Manning, 25, was not allowed to make a statement when his sentence was handed down by military judge Col. Denise Lind. Guards quickly hustled him out of the courtroom, while at least half a dozen spectators shouted their support.

"We'll keep fighting for you, Bradley," one exclaimed.

Manning was also dishonorably discharged and demoted from the rank of private first class to private. He was ordered to forfeit all pay and benefits.

Manning was convicted on July 30 on 19 of the 21 contested charges in his trial, including six Espionage Act violations, for his role in the largest leak of classified information in U.S. history. The charges carried a maximum sentence of 90 years, and the prosecution had requested Manning serve 60. His sentencing brings to a close a three-year saga in which he endured nine months in solitary confinement and saw himself transformed into a symbol of one individual's potential in the Internet age to roil the world's sole superpower.

He will most likely serve out his sentence in the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. The 1,182 days he has spent in confinement since he was arrested in May 2010 will be applied toward his term. Added to the military's extensive credits for good behavior, Manning could be eligible for parole in about 8 years, when he is 33.

Yochai Benkler, a Harvard professor who has studied WikiLeaks and testified in Manning's defense, said those reductions in time served would certainly be a "relief" for Manning.

But "the bottom line is it's 35 years, that's what everyone will know," he said. "Basically the decision has done more damage to the American Constitutional order than all of the disclosures put together did to any other kind of American interest."

Amnesty International immediately called on President Barack Obama to commute Manning's sentence to time served.

“Bradley Manning acted on the belief that he could spark a meaningful public debate on the costs of war, and specifically on the conduct of the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan," Widney Brown, senior director of international law and policy at Amnesty International, said in a statement. "The US government should turn its attention to investigating and delivering justice for the serious human rights abuses committed by its officials in the name of countering terror.”

The sentencing phase of Manning's trial revealed that contrary to the claims of pundits and politicians, Manning had no blood on his hands -- the Departments of Defense and State were unable to tie his releases to the deaths of any U.S. informants.

Manning's small but vocal contingent of supporters, many in the anti-war movement, have argued that his massive document dump accelerated the pullout of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and helped spark the Arab revolutions in 2010 and 2011. His detractors, noting that Manning could not possibly have had time to read through the 700,000 documents he leaked, claim that he recklessly put his fellow soldiers and U.S. informants at risk.

His leaks included a video of an Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad that killed civilians including two Reuters journalists, 250,000 State Department diplomatic cables, and 500,000 battlefield action reports from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Before the trial Manning admitted to 10 lesser charges that could have given him a 20-year sentence on their own. He also pleaded guilty to a minor charge relating to one diplomatic cable, and the government accepted the plea. But military prosecutors pushed ahead with trying to prove his guilt on 21 other charges, including aiding the enemy.

Aiding the enemy is a charge analogous to treason. It carries a maximum life sentence. Because prosecutors insisted that Manning had aided al Qaeda simply by knowing his documents, once leaked on the internet, would wind up in the terrorist group's possession, some press freedom advocates claimed that in a sense journalism was also on trial.

Lind acquitted Manning of aiding the enemy but gave little explanation as to why. And she did so only after allowing the charge to proceed for so long that advocates still worry it could be used against whistleblowers -- or even organizations like WikiLeaks.

"The fact that Manning was ultimately found not guilty will likely influence the cost-benefit calculus of future prosecutors about whether it is worth their while to try again to stretch for such a draconian verdict," Benkler said. "But the acquittal did not close off that legal avenue."

As Manning's 38-day trial came to an end, his lawyer, David Coombs, asserted in his closing sentencing argument on Monday that Manning was far more complex than partisans on either side acknowledged.

"The government has labeled him as a traitor, as an insider. Others have labeled him as a hero," Coombs said. "Either one of those are overgeneralizations. They ignore who he is as a person."

Coombs' sentencing pitch to Lind for lenience was filled with references to Manning's difficult upbringing and his struggles within the Army as someone considering transitioning genders.

To the prosecution, meanwhile, Manning was an "arrogant" young soldier who had usurped the military's right to decide which documents remained classified and deserved to spend most of the rest of his life in prison.

Under military law, Manning's sentence will be subject to immediate review by Maj. Gen Jeffrey Buchanan, the commander of the Military District of Washington. Buchanan can only reduce Manning's sentence or toss convictions against him.

After that, the verdict can be reviewed by the Army Court of Criminal Appeal and the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.

Coombs told a group of supporters gathered outside Manning's courtroom on Friday that the conditions at Fort Leavenworth "did not look anything like Quantico," where Manning spent months in solitary confinement and was forced at times to strip down naked at night.

UN special rapporteur on torture Juan Mendez found after a 14-month investigation that Manning's treatment at Quantico was cruel, inhuman, and degrading. Lind said the conditions had been "excessive" in relation to the government's legitimate interest in holding Manning. She granted the soldier an additional 112 days credit for enduring those conditions, which will also be applied to shorten his sentence.

"He's made friends there," Coombs said of Leavenworth. He added that Manning will finally be able to respond to supporters' letters. Manning will also be within driving distance of his sister Susan, who testified during the trial about their life growing up with two alcoholic parents.

But Manning also faces a spartan, monotonous life in prison. He will also not be allowed to grant interviews to the media, according to a Fort Leavenworth spokesperson.

Manning's sentence is one year longer than that given to a man who offered to sell secrets to Iraq during the first Gulf War, and five years longer than that of a man who passed "sophisticated defense secrets to communist East Germany.”

Speaking on Monday before the sentence was handed down, Andrea Prasow, senior counterterrorism counsel and advocate in Human Rights Watch's U.S. Program, told HuffPost that the massive investigation involving hundreds of State and Defense Department employees into Manning's leaks stood in stark contrast to the government's unwillingness to prosecute those involved in torture and abuse at places like Abu Ghraib.

"It's hard to look at the aggressive prosecution of someone so young, who is clearly troubled, and probably did have a fair bit of concern about the public interest ... and compare that to people who authorized a regime of torture and abuse and will remain free," Prasow said.


35 yrs because he showed us the military was killing civilians...

 
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FORT MEADE, MD. Bradley Manning plans to live as a woman named Chelsea and wants to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible, the soldier said Thursday, a day after being sentenced to 35 years in prison for sending classified material to WikiLeaks.

Manning announced the decision in a written statement provided to NBC's "Today" show, asking supporters to refer to him by his new name and the feminine pronoun. The statement was signed "Chelsea E. Manning."

"As I transition into this next phase of my life, I want everyone to know the real me. I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female. Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible," the statement read.

Manning's defense attorney David Coombs told "Today" in an interview that he is hoping officials at the military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kan., will accommodate Manning's request for hormone therapy.

"If Fort Leavenworth does not, then I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure they are forced to do so," Coombs said.

In a statement, the Army said it "does not provide hormone therapy or sex-reassignment surgery for gender identity disorder."

Coombs did not respond to phone and email messages from The Associated Press on Thursday.

Manning's struggle with gender identity disorder -- the sense of being a woman trapped in a man's body -- was key to the defense.

Army Pfc. Bradley Manning poses for a picture wearing a wig and lipstick in this undated picture provided by the U.S. Army. Manning emailed his military therapist the picture with a letter titled, "My problem," in which he described his issues with gender identity and his hope that a military career would "get rid of it." Army Pfc. Bradley Manning poses for a picture wearing a wig and lipstick in this undated picture provided by the U.S. Army. / AP PHOTO/U.S. ARMY
Attorneys had presented evidence of Manning's struggle with gender identity, including a photo of the soldier in a blond wig and lipstick sent to a therapist.

Meanwhile, the fight to free Manning has taken a new turn, with Coombs and supporters saying they will ask the Army for leniency -- and the White House for a pardon.

Even Manning's supporters have pivoted. During the sentencing hearing Wednesday, they wore T-shirts reading, "truth," as they had for the entire court-martial. Hours later, they had changed into shirts saying, "President Obama: Pardon Bradley Manning."

"The time to end Brad's suffering is now," Coombs told a news conference after Manning's sentence was handed down. "The time for our president to focus on protecting whistleblowers instead of punishing them is now."

The sentence was the stiffest punishment ever handed out in the U.S. for leaking information to the media. With good behavior and credit for the more than three years he has been held, Manning could be out in as little as seven years, Coombs said. Still, the lawyer decried the government's pursuit of Manning for what the soldier said was only an effort to expose wrongdoing and prompt debate of government policies among the American public.

The sentencing fired up the long-running debate over whether Manning was a whistleblower or a traitor for giving more than 700,000 classified military and diplomatic documents, plus battlefield footage, to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. By volume alone, it was the biggest leak of classified material in U.S. history, bigger even than the Pentagon Papers a generation ago.

Manning was to return to the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Coombs said, adding that he didn't know precisely when the soldier would leave Maryland. Coombs said he will file a request early next week that Obama pardon Manning or commute his sentence to time served.

Bradley Manning sentenced to 35 years in prison


Play VIDEO
Bradley Manning sentenced to 35 years in prison
Coombs read from a letter Manning will send to the president that read: "I regret if my actions hurt anyone or harmed the United States. It was never my intent to hurt anyone."
Manning said the disclosure was done "out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to others."

The White House said the request would be considered "like any other application." However, a pardon seems unlikely. Manning's case was part of an unprecedented string of prosecutions brought by the U.S. government in a crackdown on security breaches. The Obama administration has charged seven people with leaking to the media; only three people were prosecuted under all previous presidents combined.

Coombs also will work in coming weeks on a separate process in which he can seek leniency from the local area commander, who under military law must review -- and could reduce -- Manning's convictions and sentence.

Manning, an Army intelligence analyst from Crescent, Okla., digitally copied and released Iraq and Afghanistan battlefield reports and State Department cables while working in 2010 in Iraq. Manning also leaked video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad that mistakenly killed at least nine people, including a Reuters photographer.

Manning said the motive was exposing the U.S. military's "bloodlust" and generate debate over the wars and U.S. policy. The government alleged Manning was a traitor who betrayed his oath as a soldier in order to gain notoriety.

He was found guilty last month of 20 crimes, including six violations of the Espionage Act, but was acquitted of the most serious charge, aiding the enemy, which carried a potential sentence of life in prison without parole.

Whistleblower advocates said the punishment was unprecedented in its severity. Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists said "no other leak case comes close."

Daniel Ellsberg, the former defense analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971, on Wednesday called Manning "one more casualty of a horrible, wrongful war that he tried to shorten." Ellsberg also was charged under the Espionage Act, but the case was thrown out because of government misconduct, including a White House-sanctioned break-in at the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist.

Others disagreed.

Gabriel Schoenfeld, a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute think tank and author of the book "Necessary Secrets," welcomed Manning's punishment.

"The sentence is a tragedy for Bradley Manning, but it is one he brought upon himself," he said. "It will certainly serve to bolster deterrence against other potential leakers."

But he also warned that the sentence will ensure that Edward Snowden -- the National Security Agency leaker who was charged with espionage in a potentially more explosive case while Manning's court-martial was underway -- "will do his best never to return to the United States and face a trial and stiff sentence."

Coombs said that he was in tears after the sentencing and that Manning comforted him by saying: "Don't worry about it. It's all right. I know you did your best. ... I'm going to be OK. I'm going to get through this."

[emoji]169[/emoji] 2013 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
 
He'll be Chelsea for the next 35 years, regardless of hormone therapy, once he gets to prison. :lol: :lol:
 
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When you see the intimidation tactics that the UK government is using against Glen Grunwald and the Gaurdian the more and more I side with Wikileaks scorched earth each release all information without redactions, edits or review.

Chelsea Manning is a patriot.
 
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