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- Doctor Fate
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06 Mar 2011, 10:28 pm
Neal Anderth wrote:If you guys want to double down by making him a martyr, knock yourselves out.
The total of all prison sentences combined for the atrocities of
Abu Ghraib don't even add up to 20 years.
Please explain how the sentences for those involved in Abu Ghraib have anything to do with Manning. You can bring up dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of people who did not get punished enough for what they did. That will still not lessen the punishment Manning deserves if found guilty.
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- danivon
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07 Mar 2011, 11:34 am
Rolls wrote:If he is guilty he deserves every inch of the sodomy stick.
Rolls wrote:Until then i hope pfc manning enjoys hes romantic evenings with the broom stick.
Is this the hallmark of some kind of obsession?
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- GMTom
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07 Mar 2011, 12:42 pm
manning is a soldier, if he did not like what was going on he could have gone AWOL and faced those consequences. Instead he CHOSE to betray his (and others) nation, he put peoples lives at risk and he is in no way different than a treasonous spy. He can feel like he made the morally "right" decision in his mind but in so doing, he put himself in the position he now faces ...death.
It was his choice, he knew the penalty of treason, I have no problem with that death sentence being given should he be found guilty (and is their any doubt as to his guilt?)
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- GMTom
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07 Mar 2011, 12:46 pm
Lets use an analogy...
A police officer finds a bad apple in his department, hell use the LA police department that beat up on Rodney King. There you have several bad police officers, they should be prosecuted. But this objector finds this solution not good enough for his moral opinion and he now goes and publishes the identity of all undercover officers resulting in their deaths.
No difference here, would you support this decision and call it free speech? Or call it a moral obligation?
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- danivon
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07 Mar 2011, 1:07 pm
Tom, all very well, if he's guilty (and I think there's this formality called a 'trial' betwixt now and when that is established), then he should be punished accordingly.
However, he is not yet found guilty, he is awaiting trial - he's only just had some charges added - and it seems that in addition to the usual deprivation of freedom that is usual for remand prisoners, he's getting extra punishments, some of which seem designed to humiliate.
NA is going overboard on the hyperbole and the comparisons, but there is a core point here - do we really want to condone punishment before trial?
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- Green Arrow
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07 Mar 2011, 1:38 pm
The "reason" he is being stripped each evening is because of a sarcastic remark he made about being able to commit suicide with the waistband of his underwear. That made him a "risk" to himself, and thus protected from self-harm. Still no reason to do the strip each evening. Hold him until trial and then, if convicted, punished to the fullest extent of the UCMJ.
[url]
http://www.armycourtmartialdefense.info ... on-to.html[/url]
Granted, this is one side of the story, but I cannot fathom much of a reason to continually strip someone.
(And I want the suspected treasonous ba$tard to get the dealth penalty AFTER he is convicted. If he is convicted, of course...)
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- Doctor Fate
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07 Mar 2011, 2:11 pm
danivon wrote:NA is going overboard on the hyperbole and the comparisons, but there is a core point here - do we really want to condone punishment before trial?
This happens in a variety of situations. It could be justified for security. It could be disciplinary based on his breaking of the rules in custody. It could be something he said to a guard or psychologist that made them fear he was suicidal.
Yes, these are guesses. However, they are more informed than anything NA has suggested.
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- Neal Anderth
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12 Mar 2011, 6:24 pm
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley: "I spent 26 years in the air force. What is happening to Manning is ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid, and I don't know why the DoD is doing it."
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- GMTom
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12 Mar 2011, 9:03 pm
O f course he needs to be tried and convicted, but the evidence is pretty damning is it not? I am not a judge, I am free to assume his guilt based on what I know and refer to him in any manner I choose. Should he be found innocent, then of course I would change my tune ...maybe. OJ Simpson was found not guilty and that was a sham in my mind, I can call him guilty as sin if I like, again, I am not a judge, I can do that sort of thing. For now, Manning is guilty in my mind and deserves the death penalty.
As far as the PJ Crowley statement, he may not know all the facts either, seems like a rather broad statement to make, just as broad as mine that he deserves the death penalty, a statement made before the trial. My statement is met with objections about his possible but doubtful innocence yet this guys claim is not? And when (not if) he is found guilty, NA will find some sort of scam no doubt (but hey, he can as well, just like me and the OJ example)
AND, if it is found that he faced unnecessary "punishment" before trial, then those people responsible should also be tried for that crime. It does not affect Mannings guilt or innocence, let's not confuse the things. I certainly understand the guy is certainly going to face unusual and possibly somewhat trumped up "requirements" to handle him, but if they go too far, those who do this most certainly should be prosecuted as well.
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- Neal Anderth
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12 Mar 2011, 10:42 pm
Crowley's complaint about the DoD is that this is causing the government to be put on trial for no real benefit.
Given that Manning is military enlisted there's no hope of him escaping the jaws of the beast. But it's still a political trial none the less.
Manning had been tasked with evaluating the arrest of 15 Iraqis rounded up by the Iraqi Federal Police for printing “anti Iraq” literature. “The Iraqi federal police wouldn’t cooperate with U.S. forces, so I was instructed to investigate the matter, find out who the ‘bad guys’ were, and how significant this was for the FPs,” he wrote.
But when Manning had the literature translated, he discovered it was a scholarly critique of Iraq Prime Minister Al-Maliki titled Where Did the Money Go?, he wrote. The document was nothing more than a “benign political critique … following the corruption trail within the PM’s cabinet.
“I immediately took that information and ran to the [U.S. Army] officer to explain what was going on. He didn’t want to hear any of it. He told me to shut up and explain how we could assist the FPs in finding MORE detainees.”
He continued. “Everything started slipping after that. I saw things differently. I had always questioned the [way] things worked, and investigated to find the truth. But that was a point where I was a part of something. I was actively involved in something that I was completely against.”
The Defense Department declined to comment on anything Manning wrote in his chats.
“Any information that was discussed could likely be in the realm of classified information so I wouldn’t be able to go on the record about anything,” said spokesman Major Shawn Turner. “I would be breaking the law myself if I talked about what could potentially be information from classified documents.”
Manning didn’t say when the arrest of the detainees occurred, but at the time he began communicating with Lamo in late May, he said he’d been digging through classified military and government networks for more than a year.
In late 2009 he discovered the video of a 2007 U.S. Apache helicopter strike in Baghdad that killed two Reuters employees and an unarmed man who drove up to the scene afterward in a van and tried to rescue one of the wounded by pulling him into his vehicle. The man’s two children were in the van and suffered serious injuries in the hail of gunfire.
“At first glance it was just a bunch of guys getting shot up by a helicopter,” Manning wrote of the video. “No big deal … about two dozen more where that came from, right? But something struck me as odd with the van thing, and also the fact it was being stored in a JAG officer’s directory. So I looked into it.”
He found more information about the video and the people depicted in it.
“It was unreal,” he wrote Lamo. “I mean, I’ve identified bodies before. It’s rare to do so, but usually it’s just some nobody. It humanized the whole thing, re-sensitized me.”
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- Doctor Fate
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13 Mar 2011, 10:26 pm
Neal Anderth wrote:State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley: "I spent 26 years in the air force. What is happening to Manning is ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid, and I don't know why the DoD is doing it."
I do. The President wants it that way. Now, Crowley knows it too--and he needs a job.
Whine all you want, a liberal President is allegedly violating the alleged traitor's rights. Why? Toward what end?
You propose it is punishment. I believe even the Obama-loving press would not sit still for that.
When the truth is out, you would be embarrassed by your support of Manning--if you had the capacity to be embarrassed.
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- Neal Anderth
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13 Mar 2011, 11:25 pm
Doctor Fate wrote:You propose it is punishment.
I said they were slowly torturing him.
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14 Mar 2011, 12:25 pm
Neal Anderth wrote:Doctor Fate wrote:You propose it is punishment.
I said they were slowly torturing him.
For what purpose? If none, then it is punishment. If for info, what do they need to know that they don't already know?
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- danivon
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14 Mar 2011, 2:37 pm
Doctor Fate wrote:Neal Anderth wrote:State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley: "I spent 26 years in the air force. What is happening to Manning is ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid, and I don't know why the DoD is doing it."
I do. The President wants it that way.
To what extent do you 'know' this? I know that the President is CinC, but is he actually ordering that Manning be treated in this way? Or is he delegating - as most top-level executive management do - to those who run things at the appropriate level, and only able to in practical terms exert indirect control?
Do you hold all Presidents to this level of accountability, or just the Democratic ones?
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- Doctor Fate
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14 Mar 2011, 2:49 pm
danivon wrote:Doctor Fate wrote:Neal Anderth wrote:State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley: "I spent 26 years in the air force. What is happening to Manning is ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid, and I don't know why the DoD is doing it."
I do. The President wants it that way.
To what extent do you 'know' this? I know that the President is CinC, but is he actually ordering that Manning be treated in this way? Or is he delegating - as most top-level executive management do - to those who run things at the appropriate level, and only able to in practical terms exert indirect control?
Do you hold all Presidents to this level of accountability, or just the Democratic ones?
Man, your knee gets tapped and you respond reflexively.
Let's consider what we "know."
1. Manning is in custody.
2. There are allegations of mistreatment.
3. P. J. Crowley criticized his treatment.
4. Crowley was sacked.
Now, let's suppose:
1. Abu Ghraib occurred.
2. A sub-cabinet officer complained of the treatment of the prisoners.
3. Said sub-cabinet level appointee was fired.
4. The prisoners continued to be mistreated.
Would Bush be directly responsible?
You betcha.
So, why is it that Obama is not responsible--given the notoriety of this case and the firing of Crowley?
The only way this could be said to not require Obama's direct approval would be if when it first became public he ordered it to end. The alleged smartest President ever is not in the dark, so how is he not morally culpable?
Which leads to my major conclusion: there is more going on than N/A is aware of. Whatever is being done to Manning is for a reason and I'm willing to give President Obama the benefit of the doubt. If you're not, that's your call. I don't "know" what Obama's reasons are, but I'm fairly confident he's not sadistic nor "torturing" Manning. There are legitimate situations that would justify the reported conditions Manning is being subjected to. Until we know more, I'm going to presume Obama is not evil--in this case. You can choose to believe otherwise if you like--what's it like to be on N/A's side?
