Here's a chance to offer your take on why Manning

[G_j]

Last edited Mon Jun 3, 2013, 11:20 AM - Edit history (2)

is on trial, while none of the officials who deliberately deceived the world into war (treason?) and ordered torture etc. (war crimes?) are being held accountable.

Why is it that one lone whistle blower is on trial?


edit to add:


http://sync.democraticunderground.com/10022732718

Report: Post-9/11 Torture “Indisputable” and “Unprecedented”

April 17, 2013 by John Light

A new report from an independent task force finds that the Bush administration committed torture. The decision to do so, made by top officials and the president himself, was unprecedented. “here is no evidence there had ever before been the kind of considered and detailed discussions that occurred after Sept. 11, directly involving a president and his top advisers on the wisdom, propriety and legality of inflicting pain and torment on some detainees in our custody,” writes the U.S. Constitution Project’s Task Force on Detainee Treatment.

The task force, an eleven-person team led by former Congressman Asa Hutchinson, a Republican and an undersecretary at the Department of Homeland Security during the Bush administration, and former Democratic Congressman James R. Jones, sought to piece together “an accurate and authoritative account of how the United States treated people its forces held in custody as the nation mobilized to deal with a global terrorist theat.” The New York Times called the report “the most ambitious independent attempt to date to assess the detention and interrogation programs.”

In the years since 2001, journalists, lawyers and activists have been unable to get the Central Intelligence Agency, Justice Department and Bush administration to state unequivocally that the interrogation tactics used on detainees constituted torture. The Obama administration chose not to commission an official study of interrogation and detention tactics, saying it was unproductive to “look backwards.” But it is “indisputable,” the report’s authors conclude, that torture occurred at Guantánamo, the C.I.A.’s so-called black sites and other war-zone detention centers.

<snip>

[randome]

1. Manning is on trial because he gave national security documents to a foreign national.

Bush, Cheney and Rove are not on trial because there is no law against the things you mention.

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[Arctic Dave]

12. Uh... What?

All those things he mentioned are against the law.


Torture and illegal aggression (war) against a sovereign country is extremely illegal.

[randome]

15. 'Torture' was redefined thanks to a compliant DOJ. So under the law, torture did not occur.

Only 'enhanced interrogation techniques'. It's certainly a farce and an abomination against common sense but what they did was 'legal' as that term is defined.

And lying? If that was against the law, we would have no government.

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[Arctic Dave]

16. Creating euphamisms doesn't make it legal.

It is the act that makes illegal and a war crime.

The fact that the US and the world do not prosecute says volumes about our legal system and how it has been perverted.

[randome]

20. And how much the rest of the world fears us, unfortunately.

I wish things were different.

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[ljm2002]

35. "When I use a word," ...

... Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - - that's all."

So you and Humpty Dumpty seem to be on the same side of this one, although rather than using the same words for a different meaning, as in the above, you advocate using different words for the same action, and you thereby deem the actions "legal".

And that, my friends, is why we love to hate lawyers (I am not saying you're a lawyer, just sounding like one). Splitting semantic hairs to wiggle through some little loophole and come out the other side technically legal.

But truth is truth, regardless of the words we use to describe it: "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet". And torture is torture, no matter what fine words may be used to attempt to legitimize it.

What they did was not legal under any sane interpretation of the laws against torture. If we actually tried our enemies after WWII for engaging in waterboarding (which we did), how can we argue today that waterboarding is not torture? Answer: we can't, at least not and retain any integrity of law.

[randome]

41. I agree that in any group of 100 random people, probably at least 90 would agree with you.

Including me. But politics being what they are, trying to put Bush, Cheney & Rove in prison would be time-consuming, expensive and in the end, a waste of time, IMO, because then even LESS would get done that needs doing.

We're treading water as it is.

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[grahamhgreen]

45. Guess what - it's illegal to do that!

[randome]

51. I'm not aware of there being a law that says a law can't be changed.

What Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove and all the rest did is reprehensible. Few people would argue that.

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[grahamhgreen]

73. Yes, it violates our treaty conventions against torture! That makes it illegal.

Last edited Tue Jun 4, 2013, 12:20 PM - Edit history (1)

[sabrina 1]

54. It IS illegal, International Law is not influenced by phony laws made in individual countries

to try to cover up their crimes. And when did Congress decide that we no longer abide by our own laws and by the international laws that are now a part of our Constitution? Please provide that information for us as you keep claiming that war crimes are legal when we commit them Spain, eg, still has a case against the Bush Six (the geniuses you claim had the right to rewrite our laws) pending.

Can you show us the statute that nullifies our laws regarding war crimes?

[randome]

56. Any politician has the 'right' to try and rewrite our laws, directly or indirectly.

I wish Bush & Co. would be thrown in jail, if for nothing else than as a deterrent to future politicians. But I don't see how it's going to get done and we have a semblance of a functioning government still standing in the aftermath.

And the rest of the world, unfortunately, is too cowed by us to insist on international norms. I wish that was different, too.

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[sabrina 1]

58. You said they had rewritten the laws making torture, under a different name, 'legal'. Now

you are back tracking on that. The only reason why they are not in jail is because they were never prosecuted. However, if the US does not prosecute them, there are several other nations with jurisdiction that will do so one day. They violated International Law. There are plenty of criminals who have not been prosecuted for one reason or another, but that does not mean that what they did was legal.

I am glad to see you are retracting that claim.

[Generic Other]

60. It isn't the Geneva Convention which we signed

Article 3 -- Geneva Conventions bars torture, cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment, as well as outrages against the human dignity of prisoners of war, or POWs. Until recently it remained unclear whether the article applied to CIA interrogators, located overseas, who were questioning high-ranking members of al-Qaeda and other so-called “unlawful enemy combatants.” In July 2006, the Supreme Court ruled in its Hamdan decision that this article does indeed apply to top terror suspects detained in CIA-run prisons as well as at Guantanamo Bay. "Quoting Article Three is like quoting the Bible for international lawyers," says Peter Danchin, a Columbia University legal expert.

http://www.cfr.org/international-law/united-states-geneva-conventions/p11485

That we broke this long established treaty makes us international war criminals. Ignoring our behavior is hypocrisy.

We are standing below sea level claiming the high ground. Shame on us.

[sabrina 1]

65. Good post, thank you.

'We are standing below sea lefel claiming the high ground. Shame on us'.

I could not agree more, very well said.

[backscatter712]

23. There's that whole Valerie Plame thing...

Oh, except that was leaked to a "respectable" member of the Real Press (TM), and the person outed was a real CIA agent on a real mission against nuclear proliferation, and the leak caused real damage to national security.

But somehow, Manning gets demonized and supermaxed, while Bush, Cheney, Libby, etc. all skate after committing a real act of treason.

Don't you love justice?

[randome]

29. 'Scooter' took the fall for that. Loyalty runs deep in the Bush Gang.

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[el_bryanto]

2. Because leading America into war isn't against the law and ordering torture isn't against the law

Maybe it should be; but it currently isn't. Also proving deliberate deception would be tricky. While it's clear that the Bush administration would only accept one answer, it's not clear that they knew that answer was a lie.

Bryant

[geek tragedy]

5. Ordering torture is certainly against the law. nt

[randome]

11. Yes but it's not 'torture' when you redefine the term as the Bush Gang did.

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[Bluenorthwest]

36. Sorry, but we are party to many treaties which define those terms

Your theory is that it is permissible to enter a contract to pay, then redefine 'pay' as 'not pay' and all is well because you redefined the terms as if the other parties to the contract have agreed to terms defined by improvisation. When we agreed to Yes, we meant it but Yes now means No, so Yes we won't.

[randome]

42. I'm only pointing out that they gave themselves legal cover.

In a more just world, I would want to see Bush, Cheney & Rove in jail. But I don't see how that can happen.

As little progress as we've made the past 5 years, we would have made even less if Congress was even more consumed with politics than it is now.

'Politics' meaning that's how it would be perceived by far too many.

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[grahamhgreen]

46. Legal cover to torture innocent people - nope - if that's not illegal, why have law?

[sabrina 1]

55. Are you serious?? A President can now write laws using different terminology to redefine those

laws? You are aware that we have three branches of government and that the Executive Branch does not write laws??

And when was this 'theory' of yours ever tested in a court of law? I ask again, show us the statute that nullifies our laws against war crimes. I have yet to see it. Torture, like a rose, by any other name is still a crime. Why are you defending this??

[sabrina 1]

9. Ordering torture isn't against the law? Since when? Have you ever heard of the Geneva

Conventions? Manning reported torture, a war crime. He was ignored. Another crime by those who knew about it and allowed it to continue.

He then became a whistle blower, which is NOT a crime.

So why is the person who reported a crime on trial while those who commit war crimes are not?

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. Torture is actually illegal under US Law

Ever heard of the pesky Geneva Convention? We are signatories, it's ratified, it has the force of law because of that, U.S. Law, not just because we signed it, it was ratified.

[el_bryanto]

19. While I would like to believe that it is against the law

How many have been brought up on charges of breaking the Geneva Convention? It might be de facto against the law but it is not de jure against the law

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. We tried a second lt for murder during the

Vietnam war. Until the bush abuses troops were indeed brought to task.

For god sakes we hung Japanese general officers who water boarded POWs

What you are witnessing is not law or lack of it, but a crumbling empire in the sort of moral turpitude typical of the fall.

If Obama (good joke he's trying to preserve the empire) wanted to return that the morality implied in those laws, he would order the DOJ to proceed with the investigations.

My hope is that a future president will, likely after the fall is obvious, and there is no empire at stake, just the judgement of history. Or likely, like the Brits who refuse to deal with the Boer War atrocities to this day, it will be the talk of historians and nerds.

But it is against the law, from precedent...a hanging offense...and I am all for life not the DP

[tblue]

38. Mr. Look Forward Not Backward

let them off the hook. It's a horrible nasty blight on our national reputation and conscience.

[el_bryanto]

49. The question in the OP wasn't what should be done

I'm fairly certain that if we asked what should be done we'd all be on the same page - the question is what will be done, or more precisely, why is Manning in trouble and nobody else is? That's the answer. I don't like it, but I don't see what can be done about it.

[Generic Other]

63. International criminal court complaints filed against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Tenet, Rice

"Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their legal advisers Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo were tried in absentia in Malaysia.
The trial held in Kuala Lumpur heard harrowing witness accounts from victims of torture who suffered at the hands of US soldiers and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the end of the week-long hearing, the five-panel tribunal unanimously delivered guilty verdicts against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their key legal advisors who were all convicted as war criminals for torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment."

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2012/05/12/bush-convicted-of-war-crimes-in-absentia/

Since the arrest of the late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in London in 1998, international leaders can no longer be confident of immunity. Israeli politicians have cancelled trips to London and elsewhere for fear of arrest warrants...Bush had been due to deliver a speech at a dinner in Geneva organised by the United Israel Appeal, a US-based organisation that helps Jews move to Israel.

"Bush enjoys no immunity from prosecution. As head of state he authorised and condoned acts of torture, and the law is clear – where a person has been responsible for torture, all states have an obligation under international law to open an investigation and prosecute." He added: "Bush will be pursued wherever he goes as a war criminal and torturer."
Legal proceedings under way in Spain accuse White House legal advisers, known as the Bush Six, of criminal wrongdoing for advising that the techniques were legal.

In 2005, the then US secretary of state, Donald Rumsfeld, was threatened with arrest in Germany for war crimes relating to abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Rumsfeld threatened to pull out of a prestigious defence conference in Munich until German prosecutors assured him that he would not be apprehended.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2011/feb/06/george-bush-trip-to-switzerland

Will George W. Bush set foot in Europe again in his lifetime?

A planned trip by Bush to speak at the Switzerland-based United Israel Appeal later this week has been canceled after several human rights groups called for Swiss authorities to arrest Bush and investigate him for authorizing torture. Bush has traveled widely since leaving office, but not to Europe, where there is a strong tradition of international prosecutions.

http://www.salon.com/2011/02/07/bush_amnesty_arrest/

The UN special rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, says the US is bound under the UN Convention against Torture to prosecute those who engaged in harsh interrogation tactics. Nowak went as far as to say that Obama’s decision not to prosecute the CIA agents allegedly responsible is a violation of international law. “The United States, like all other states that are part of the UN convention against torture, is committed to conducting criminal investigations of torture and to bringing all persons against whom there is sound evidence to court… The fact that you carried out an order doesn’t relieve you of your responsibility,” Nowak told the Austrian daily Der Standard. According to Nowak, the immunity granted by Obama cannot override the obligations of the US under international law, meaning that US Courts can still try those responsible.

He called for an investigation by an independent commission before any trial took place and emphasised the need for victim compensation. “First you need the truth and then you need justice,” Nowak said.

The possible criminal liability of former administration legal officials is also the focus of investigations in Spain. The Spanish investigative judge Baltasar Garzón has referred a case against six former administration lawyers for sanctioning torture to his fellow judges last week, overriding advice from Spain’s prosecutors’ office not to proceed with the investigation. Spanish Attorney General Candido Conde-Pumpido announced on April 16 his refusal to recommend an investigation, saying that “If you investigate the crime of abuse of prisoners, the people probed have to be those who were materially responsible.” He also said that a US Court was the most appropriate legal forum.

The same legal team that filed suit against former Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer for his responsibility in the deaths of 14 civilians during the bombardment of Gaza in July 2002 brought the case against the six legal officials, whom it says were responsible for devising the legal architecture that ‘legalised’ torture at Guantanamo Bay. The accused are John Yoo, a former Justice Department lawyer; Jay Bybee, former head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel; David Addington, chief of staff and former legal counsel to former Vice-President Dick Cheney; Alberto Gonzales, former Attorney General; William Haynes, former counsel at the Defense Department; and Douglas Feith, former undersecretary of defense.

The lawsuit claimed the six former aides “participated actively and decisively in the creation, approval and execution of a judicial framework that allowed for the deprivation of fundamental rights of a large number of prisoners, the implementation of new interrogation techniques including torture, the legal cover for the treatment of those prisoners, the protection of the people who participated in illegal tortures and, above all, the establishment of impunity for all the government workers, military personnel, doctors and others who participated in the detention centre at Guantanamo.”

http://www.crimesofwar.org/commentary/torture-memos-released-as-bush-six-face-spanish-indictment/

FUCK 'EM. THEY ARE CRIMINALS.

[G_j]

24. Report: Post-9/11 Torture “Indisputable” and “Unprecedented”

http://sync.democraticunderground.com/10022732718

just added to the OP,

[treestar]

3. The demand to prosecute Bush and Cheney

usually fails to take into account that they are politicians, that the world stage is not easy to use as a crime scene, fails to enumerate the statutes under which they should be prosecuted, and the risk of starting a tit for tat as we know well that Democrats legislate and Republicans investigate. Let them have the WH in 2017 and they will investigate Obama all day while the country goes to hell.

[sabrina 1]

10. Spain was not having any problem prosecuting the Bush Six until this country intervened

and pressured them to stop.

'The risk for starting a tit for tat'. What 'tit for tat'?? If there are no crimes being committed they can start all the tit for tats they want. We KNOW that the Bush gang lied to the country to get us into war. We know, and so do other countries, that they violated both Domestic and International law.

These excuses for not prosecuting War Crimes are very disturbing. It means we have abandoned the rule of law and what kind of country does that?

If a country abides by the rule of law and prosecutes its own war criminals, other countries won't have to do it, and the people being prosecuted will be way too busy trying to defend themselves to play any 'tit for tat' games.

This excuse says one of two things, the fear is that both parties are guilty of crimes, OR, Democrats are blind to the fact that Republicans will 'investigate' whether the law is applied or not.

Given that Republicans are currently doing just that exactly what benefit is there in not going after them when they commit crimes as damaging to this country as Bush did?

And if you're saying that crimes were committed but it's best to just 'move forward', then why not move forward from the whistle blower who reported them?

[treestar]

67. Move to Spain then

I'm sure they have no sins in their history.

[sabrina 1]

71. There it is again, on DU no less. 'America, love it or leave it'..

I guess you are saying that we don't need the rule of law here and if anyone thinks it would be a good thing if we did have a system of justice, then they need to leave this country as it is not going to happen, and, I assume, you are okay with that.

This is what I get from your 'America love it or leave it' response.

I have no intention of leaving it. I intend to do all that I an to restore the rule of law to this country because I like Democracy. Spain has juridiction over these cases. So do other countries.

Are you saying now that Bush's torturers should be protected from prosecution? This, if true, is absolutely stunning coming from our side. Considering our claim to have been so opposed to Bush's policies right up to the day he left office.

Can you be clear please? Did you feel that Bush's war crimes should be ignored during his administration, or is this a change of heart? I don't recall your position on Bush during that time.

[geek tragedy]

4. Because he didn't have help in covering his tracks.

He broke the law, and wasn't well connected enough to get the DOJ to say "sure, it's legal to do whatever the f@ck you want."

And, honestly, anyone in Congress who thought we were invading Iraq because of WMDs and democracy instead of oil is too stupid to breathe and probably requires an instruction manual for their own lungs.

[G_j]

25. pretty well on the money,

nice to agree on something.

[geek tragedy]

27. I think Manning deserves at most 1/10th the jail time

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Addington deserve.

His cell mate should be John Yoo.

[G_j]

28. once again we have those who are "above the law"

and those who are not. It's a very elite club of untouchables.

[geek tragedy]

30. This is why I'm suspicious of the claim that the "rule of law"

is some kind of ideal--the law frequently reflects the interests of the powerful and the connected.

[msanthrope]

47. Well, I think having John Yoo as a cellie is violative of the 8th amendment.....nt

[geek tragedy]

53. Yoo could tell him how to get away with it next time nt

[BainsBane]

6. Because he stole classified documents

Why was Skooter Libby on trial? He only betrayed the name of one operate. Manning released thousands of classified documents. If you are to be ideologically consistent, you must consider Libby, Cheney and Rove heroes as well, since they released classified info to the public.

[Bluenorthwest]

37. Which names of operatives did Manning release? Can you name one? You suggest he

released more names than Cheney did. He did not. To be intellectually honest, you need to compare apples to apples, not all classified information is equal, it is not all names of Plames, you know this. The Pentagon Papers were classified information released to the public, again, not one name of one covert agent in any agency was revealed in those thousands of pages either.
I will await the names of the agents outed by Manning. I'm sure you will provide them, because you are so consistent.

[NaturalHigh]

43. To be fair, BainsBane did not say...

that Manning disclosed the names of operatives. She said that he disclosed thousands of classified documents, which I don't think is in dispute.

You are correct when you say that not all classified material is equal. There are three broad classifications - confidential, secret, and top secret. If I'm not mistaken, Manning released some information that was classified as top secret (the highest classification, said to have the potential of causing "exceptionally grave damage" to national security interests).

[BainsBane]

44. The New York Times covered it

Read the article yourself. It was published months ago. It's your responsibility to keep up with basic news. I'm not a grade school teacher. And no, the times didn't repeat the names in the paper. Unlike Assange, they care about not getting people killed. I wouldn't expect a rapist to care much about human life. He obviously thinks degrading women is his right, and his supporters fill the same role as the Steubenville rape apologists.

[sabrina 1]

59. Gates stated that 'no harm was done' by Manning's leaks. Are you saying he was lying?

Re Assange, Wikileaks contacted the US Military asking for help in redacting any material that might be damaging BEFORE publishing some of the leaks, the rest were edited by major news organizations AT THEIR REQUEST. The US Military did not respond to Wikileaks' request. I would think that if the US military thought there was damaging info in those leaks they would have done all they could to stop them. But they did not, most likely because Gates is correct, there was no harm done.

[Recursion]

66. Because the only thing he released of DoD was the PowerPoints

It was State that took the hit.

[sabrina 1]

70. Took what hit? The emails did not reveal anything people did not already know about US

foreign policies. Some were even good for the image of the US.

If you think that people are not aware of how US foreign policy works, whose side we are generally on, eg, dictators rather than democratically elected leaders in SA and elsewhere, then I suppose you see those cables as a 'hit'.

But there is no secret that the US eg, supports dictators and has for decades, one of the world's worst dictators, being Karamov in Uzbekistan, while lecturing the world about 'dictators' and the need to invade their countries to create 'democracy'. No one believes that except maybe a few deluded people here in this country.

Emails re Uzbekistan merely confirmed what everyone knew already, that the US 'knows he is a bad guy but he lets us keep our bases there'. Where was the hit there? Human Rights advocates have bee pressuring the US for years not to trade bases for torture and genocide in that and other countries, like Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Colombia etc. We have a very bad record which maybe some Americans are not aware of, but certainly our multiple victims around the world know.

But war crimes were revealed. The most obvious was the incident that prompted Manning to become a Whistle Blower in the first place. The refusal to do anything about it violates international law. But Manning is not the first soldier to find out that what we preach is not what we practice.

The truth is often embarrassing, but for the most part no one in the world was shocked anymore by any of the revelations, either in the War Logs or the Cables.

The 'hit' to the US, the Statement etc came long ago when Congress went along with Bush's illegal invasions and refused to prosecute the torturers.

The real reason for Manning's treatment has much more to do with trying to silence Wikileaks on the Big Banks, which they had promised to do, than anything else.

[sabrina 1]

57. You won't get an answer to that question. I have asked it multiple times but have yet to receive

a response. So I will take Gates' word that Mannings leaked 'caused no harm' and were at most, an embarrassment'.

I too am awaiting the proof of that claim, and a refutation of Gates' own words.

[Recursion]

68. I can think of three off the top of my head

And that's just because I'm somewhat familiar with the Indian Ocean rim situation. Several US contacts in the Maldives got burned by this.

[BainsBane]

7. Also if you've followed the news at all in the past few weeks

You would know that Manning is far from the only "whistleblower" being investigated.

[sabrina 1]

61. Oh we know that. That is what is so sad about this country, the way Whistle Blowers are being

pursued. Surely you are not condoning the persecution of Whistle Blowers? We do have protections here for people who blow the whistle on crime and corruption. We are a democracy. Did you know that or are you of the opinion that whistle blowers should be silenced?

[NaturalHigh]

8. I won't speculate about Bradley Manning's motives...

but I also won't defend someone who willfully disclosed classified information. Anybody who makes it through basic training knows the consequences of doing so. When I was in the Air Force, I gave quarterly refresher courses on dealing with such information. The importance of proper handling of classified information and the penalties for improperly disclosing such is constantly reinforced. Manning knew that he was breaking the law, and no matter what his motivations were, he should face the consequences for his actions.

Should a lot of other people be on trial for war crimes? Of course. No doubt about it. Bradley Manning, though, does not deserve a pass for his crime (and yes, what he did was a crime).

[Marrah_G]

14. ^this

[stevenleser]

18. Correct. And there is one other part to that, there are approved whistleblowing channels.

The IG for one. Of course using the IG doesnt make you a superstar, it just gets the wrongdoing addressed.

[Bluenorthwest]

40. Perhaps is those seeking stardom as media chatter mongers instead sought real accalim

via excellent journalism and reporting those who are not claiming to be all about informing the public would not feel the pressing need to take great risk to inform that public. If you happen to know anyone seeking to become a media chatter star, you should ask then to do more reporting and less repeating.

[stevenleser]

72. If you have a real defense of the accurate criticism of Manning, I'd like to hear it. Ad hominem

attacks against me do not make your point.

[tammywammy]

13. He gave away classified material.

Period. Added to it, that he gave away classified material to a foreign national.

He is not a whistle blower. He should have followed the correct procedure to be considered a whistle blower, which would have been to contact anyone in Congress. You do not give out classified material willy nilly. Period.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

21. Why? Because the bosses fear the people knowing what they do.

[backscatter712]

26. Meanwhile, the traitors who outed a real intelligence agent (Valerie Plame) are free...

Don't you love justice?

[NCTraveler]

31. Manning is right where he should be.

Manning and Bush are linked in no way. Bush is not where he should be. Presidents do not ask the Attorney General to go after former Presidents/Vice Presidents. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Powers that have been deemed acceptable by former Presidents are assumed to be granted to the current President. Presidents will not give up power. That is also the reason it should have been a top priority for Pelosi to have used her power in the house to go after Bush with everything at her disposal.

[graham4anything]

32. Ralph Nader 2000.NH 4 electoral votes. Gore over 270 w/NH 2000.

Actions of Nader led to consequences

best way to penalize the Bush family is to vote straight democratic 100% of the time, and insure Jeb Bush does NOT
win the presidency in 2016.

[Pragdem]

33. He had a job to do with laws to abide by.

Just because other people have committed atrocities doesn't make his crimes any less punishable.

If you can't handle this kind of thing, go with the flow and don't try to be a hero. That kind of fantasy thriller bullshit is for the books and movies.

[Octafish]

34. He leaked proof government insiders and their cronies on Wall Street make beaucoup bucks off war.

Genocide. Treason. War Crimes. Mass Murder. Torture.



They and it are nothing to Them.

How often have we been told in world-weary tones that Wikileaks has revealed nothing new - especially by those who want to appear to be in the know? Here is an aide-mémoire of a few of the highest profile revelations.

by Ryan Gallagher
17 February 2011
OpenDemocracy.net

Since 2006, whistleblower website WikiLeaks ? has published a mass of information we would otherwise not have known. The leaks have exposed dubious procedures at Guantanamo Bay ? and detailed meticulously the Iraq War's unprecedented civilian death-toll ? . They have highlighted the dumping of toxic waste in Africa ? as well as revealed America's clandestine military actions in Yemen and Pakistan ? .

The sheer scope and significance of the revelations is shocking. Among them are great abuses of power, corruption, lies and war crimes. Yet there are still some who insist WikiLeaks has "told us nothing new". This collection, sourced from a range of publications across the web, illustrates nothing could be further from the truth. Here, if there is still a grain of doubt in your mind, is just some of what WikiLeaks has told us:

SNIP...

•The Obama administration worked with Republicans to protect Bush administration officials facing a criminal investigation into torture (see Mother Jones ? )

SNIP...

•More than 66,000 civilians suffered “violent deaths” in Iraq between 2004 and the end of 2009 (see the Telegraph ? )

CONTINUED with LINKS...

http://www.opendemocracy.net/ryan-gallagher/what-has-wikileaks-ever-taught-us-read-on

Gee. No wonder they want to shut up Assange and the Internet he rode in on.

PS: The picture above is of Jose Padilla in his sensory deprivation goggles.

[G_j]

39. a cardinal sin

as Ellsberg will attest to. Exposing crimes is a crime.

[William769]

48. He did what no other politician can do.

He showed he had balls.

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

50. That's easy, and as old as civilization: the golden rule

He who has the most gold, makes the rules.

However, his case makes for an excellent, ongoing opportunity to expose the unjust and their massive ongoing crimes.

Thanks for sharing

[whatchamacallit]

52. And to the authoritarians I said 'Have you no shame?'

They just stared at me, uncomprehendingly, like cows at a passing train.

[Pelican]

62. Fails on its face as Manning does not meet the criteria of whistleblower...

That would imply a use of proper channels or that at the barest minimum he had even read the the information that he released which is of course a physical impossibility.

Imagine you work for a large organization or business and you find something that while not technically illegal, you find distasteful.
In turn, you then then release that organizations internal communications, private documents of their transactions and their proprietary data in the hopes that there might be something in there that can be used to hurt the organization to the world at large.

Your goal is to hurt the company because you disagree with them and their practices. That doesn't make you a whistle blower. It just makes you a disgruntled employee who doesn't like the methods of your organization and they are a target of opportunity based on the position of trust that they have, mistakenly, awarded to you.

[Recursion]

64. Once again, the torture and Gitmo memos *WERE NOT RELEASED BY MANNING*

Or if they were, then Manning, Lamo, Assange, and the US Government are all keeping quiet about it (they weren't released to Assange, but to CBS, anyways).

Manning is charged with:

1. Releasing the State Department cables
2. Releasing the gunship video
3. Releasing the Iraq/Afghanistan powerpoints
4. Leaving a backdoor in SIPRnet

Nobody else did those things, so nobody else is being charged with them.

[MineralMan]

69. Knowing the potential penalties, Manning

took a short-cut, bypassed the existing reporting system, and send mass quantities of classified material to a non-US entity. Having served in military intelligence, I know for a fact that Manning knew the potential punishment for his actions. Now, he's facing a trial on the charges.

What he did might be considered civil disobedience. Civil disobedience can result in criminal charges. Indeed, without such charges, civil disobedience has no impact. Manning is facing such charges.

He knew the dangers, took his chances, and is now facing the consequences. I hope the results of his actions live up to his expectations. He knew the risks and went ahead, anyhow.

My conclusion is that he is either very brave or very stupid. I don't know which.