Manning may have thought he was doing the right thing, but the way he went about it is inexcusable and unforgivable.
PFC Manning recently testified and described his imprisonment since his arrest. Some, perhaps most, of my fellow left wing liberals in the progressive media are protesting with righteous indignation the imprisonment and treatment of PFC Bradley Manning for his release of over 200,000 classified documents to Wikileaks.…
Article comments
— go to most recent comments76 - troll
...I think Irene misses the point that we need another generation of warped suicidal youth in order to maintain our relatively peaceful world
77 - troll
"this is how we remember our past; this is how we safeguard our future" after all
78 - Glenn Contrarian
Irene #69 -
Do you somehow imagine that I supported the Iraq War, that I'm somehow a mindless military drone who is okay with whatever the military does? I was a whistleblower too, Irene, and it almost cost me my career because I went about it the wrong way. Given what I know now, I would still have blown the whistle, but I would have done it in a more acceptable and more effective way. That's one thing that you and the others here don't seem to get, that there are ways within the system to make things happen, to expose wrongdoing. If it can't be done without going outside that system, then fine, by all means do so - but do it in a way that is responsible and judicious, and not by throwing everything out willy-nilly. That's like swatting a fly with a bottle of nitro, because while you might still get the fly, you probably made things a lot worse in the process.
If Manning had just sent out that video and related info, he would have been a hero just like the guy who exposed LT William Calley back in the Vietnam War. But Manning didn't do that, did he? No, he instead released a quarter million classified State Department documents from one hundred and eighty countries around the world - the vast majority of which has absolutely SQUAT to do with the video you referenced. THAT, Irene, is what he did wrong, and it is inexcusable.
I'm no mindless military drone, Irene. I've stated several times how I don't want my sons to join the military, how its budget is wildly overblown and - if I had my choice - the first military cuts I'd make are to the hideously-expensive aircraft carriers that I loved serving on. Do I really sound like the mindless drone you seem to think I am?
You refer to the suicides and the homicides - but what you don't realize is that it's NOT wholly or even mostly the military's fault - it's the fault of the ones in charge. In peacetime, Irene, the military is a SAFER and MORE LAW-ABIDING place than the civilian world, and the statistics back it up, particularly when one considers the age groups involved.
But something happens to people and to men in particular when we are sent to war. We change, and almost never for the better...and that's where the suicides and homicides come from. If you want to blame someone, Irene, blame the ones who sent us to war...
...especially the idiot who ignored the repeated warnings about bin Laden and thus helped enable 9/11, and then used that attack as an excuse to invade Iraq, which he began planning eight months before 9/11! It is George W. Bush, more than anyone else in the world, who is to blame for our wars in the Middle East, for all the death and destruction to their people and our own, and for how our military and their families and our nation's economy were all adversely affected.
Blame the people at the top, Irene - THEY are the ones who are responsible!
And when it comes to Bradley Manning, if you can't see what's wrong with someone releasing a quarter million classified documents from embassies and consulates in one hundred and eighty different nations, then that's your problem, not mine.
79 - Cindy
Good comments, troll. I wonder if Glenn will pause long enough to comprehend them.
80 - roger nowosielski
see what you mean now, Dreadful. Just a typo.
You should know be better, however. Need no alter ego or "visiting guests" to post anonymously: my ego is big enough. Sorry for over-reacting.
81 - troll
Cindy - despite his years in the military I don't get the impression that Glenn has ever fully tasted the bile of self-revulsion that can attend service to the killer machine
82 - troll
.....he's a lucky man
83 - roger nowosielski
When I contemplated going into CIA after my military tour, it was for the glamour and the excitement of it all, not out of love of country, And I seriously doubt whether most of those who serve in that capacity maintain the level of patriotism they may have started with. Having been exposed to dirty dealings as part of every-day work, I'm certain that most would tend to become very cynical, certainly more cynical than you. Which places an exclamation mark on troll's last comment concerning your true exposure to what's really going on, in spite of the twenty "honorable" years you have put in.
84 - Glenn Contrarian
troll -
Nor would I want to. You have to remember that I was in the Navy, and while we're every bit as part of the military as the Army, in time of war sailors (and the Air Force, for that matter) have never been as likely to have to kill someone up close and personal. I never needed to draw a weapon in anger, and only once was I armed in expectation of hostility...which, thankfully, turned out to be a false alarm.
But go back to my previous comment, troll - in time of peace, statistics show the military is as a whole safer and more law-abiding than the civilian world, particularly when one considers the age groups involved. It is in time of war that we can become monsters.
That is why the blame lay not so much on what you called the 'killer machine', but on the one who puts that killer machine into action.
85 - Glenn Contrarian
And troll -
Yes, I'm lucky - I'm the luckiest (or most blessed, depending on your POV) man you'll ever meet. It's said that God looks out for drunks and fools - take your pick.
86 - Glenn Contrarian
Roger -
When I contemplated going into CIA after my military tour, it was for the glamour and the excitement of it all, not out of love of country, And I seriously doubt whether most of those who serve in that capacity maintain the level of patriotism they may have started with. Having been exposed to dirty dealings as part of every-day work, I'm certain that most would tend to become very cynical, certainly more cynical than you. Which places an exclamation mark on troll's last comment concerning your true exposure to what's really going on, in spite of the twenty "honorable" years you have put in.
As with all else, moderation in everything, Roger. Too cynical is every bit as wrong, as misguided, as not being cynical enough. You speak of cynicism as if it's a mark of greater knowledge or of higher development - and it's anything but. If anything, those who too cynical should be every bit as pitied as those who are not cynical enough.
And as for the quotation marks around 'honorable', Roger, I've long felt that most poor single parents raising children in the inner city are at least as deserving of respect as many (perhaps most) of my fellow veterans. But I've also found that people who are unwilling to give respect to someone when they haven't walked a mile in that someone's moccasins, such people are often undeserving of respect themselves.
But I've given you no such disrespect. Remember that.
87 - troll
Glenn - like soylent green the killer machine is people...each responsible for his or her actions from the pres right down to the prole making uniforms
blaming leaders doesn't work for me
just say no boys and girls
88 - roger nowosielski
Don't get too philosophical on me, Glenn. It's not your forte.
Quotation marks were put on purpose, to highlight the fact you wear your years of service like a badge of honor (I wouldn't have), and a whipping stick besides. So no, it wasn't an insult, just an observation.
You may call yourself a lib and a progressive to boot, but as far as I'm concerned, you've never left the Delta.
89 - Dr Dreadful
Why should where a person is from disqualify them from being a progressive, a philosopher or whatever?
Sounds rather snobbish and elitist to me.
90 - roger nowosielski
That wasn't the basis of my assessment of Glenn's philosophical skills, Dreadful -- not his political or other kinds of views, in any case. It's how he defends them.
91 - Igor
IMO what Manning did was bad enough, but then I wonder why the incompetents above Manning allowed so much burden on that skinny kids shoulders when he was so green. Are THEY being prosecuted and hounded. Looks like a Big Management Screwup to me.
And then, to compound the crimes, the custody officers allowed Manning to be severely abused, to no purpose other than personal pleasure (IMO) at persecuting someone.
Maybe Mannings crimes were the least of those.
92 - roger nowosielski
US Military Approves Bombing Children
Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Glenn.
93 - pablo
Roger 88 and 92 spot on brother.
94 - Glenn Contrarian
troll -
Do troops get exposed to the mind-numbing idiocy of combat without being ordered there by someone commanding them? And the question is especially pertinent if there's a draft: John Doe gets drafted, told to go fight, enters into combat, and kills people...
...is he to be told that he's the one who caused those deaths?
It's always the guy in charge who bears the greatest responsibility - the greatest fault - for everything that goes right or wrong on his watch.
While I will agree that there are quite a few kids who join in the hope of replicating what they do on a Playstation 3 playing Call of Duty, the vast majority don't. Most people who join the military do so because they need a job, or they need direction, or their parents pushed them to go somewhere that will help them mature. Most people who join the military do NOT want combat.
95 - Glenn Contrarian
Roger -
Don't get too philosophical on me, Glenn. It's not your forte.
Roger, I've got little patience for philosophy. I care much more about what really did happen and what didn't happen, what made lives better and what made lives worse. Given a choice between philosophy and pragmatism, I'll choose the latter almost every time, because too close an adherence to philosophy for philosophy's sake makes one an ideologue...and when they're in charge, ideologues tend to lead us places where we really don't want to go.
Quotation marks were put on purpose, to highlight the fact you wear your years of service like a badge of honor (I wouldn't have), and a whipping stick besides. So no, it wasn't an insult, just an observation.
Riiiight, just like Martin Luther didn't feel his anti-semitic writings weren't insults, they were just observations! Roger, you're a wonderful example of how people find it so easy to judge others without having walked a mile in their moccasins.
You may call yourself a lib and a progressive to boot, but as far as I'm concerned, you've never left the Delta.
The key phrase there being "as far as I'm concerned", because that, sir, is your OPINION, just like the time that you said that people like zing and myself are the greatest threat to civilization.
96 - Glenn Contrarian
Roger -
US Military Approves Bombing Children Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Glenn.
So tell me, Roger - what do you do when the other side has used children to carry out suicide attacks using explosives? That's the other side of the story.
This is the kind of hard question one faces in the field - you see a child doing something that can kill you and your buddies. You can't walk up to the child and tell him to stop, because he's only doing what his village leaders are telling him to do. And you can't just tell your commanders to avoid this area - your operational requirements won't allow it. Can your people drive on the side of the road around where the holes were dug? Maybe, maybe not - and if you leave the children alone, once you leave, will those children go out digging more holes in the road where you'll be unaware of them? It's not like you can assign someone to watch the area 24/7 - can't be done.
So WHAT DO YOU DO, Roger? If you do nothing and walk away, your buddies might get killed. It doesn't matter which choice you make, you're going to be carrying the result of that choice the rest of your life and you know it. So what do you do? (btw, it's choices like this that have led to the high suicide rate)
Here's a clue, Roger - NOBODY this side of a very, very few really sick people WANTS to kill children. The Marines and soldiers in question faced a choice - do they continue to let the kids do what they (the military) thought would lead to something getting them and/or their buddies killed, or do they stop the kids from doing so, and how do they stop the kids? And when it's the enemy that is known to sometimes send children on suicide bombings - in this nation where girls can get disfigured for life or even murdered for simply wanting to learn how to read - it becomes obvious that operating by Western moralities can get one killed. Sometimes the choices one gets aren't really choices at all.
Oh, wait, let me guess - you just pack up and leave. But outside of your personal Wonderland, things aren't so simple. Most people there couldn't care less about Hobbes and Locke and high-falutin' philosophy. They are a tribal society and have been since Alexander marched through. They make their choices based on THEIR traditions, on THEIR laws, on THEIR moralities...and if you are a soldier there, if you don't allow for the fact that their culture allows them to make choices that are unthinkable for you, you'll likely wake up dead someday.
War is hell, Roger. It turns us into monsters. It gives us choices that aren't really choices since even if we live through the experience, it gives us nightmares reminding us of the evil we had no choice but to commit.
So you go on sitting in your ivory tower passing judgement on all who don't do as you think they should...but you don't have a clue as to the kinds of choices that many people throughout this world really face. You're very intelligent - I've never said you were anything but - but intelligence and awareness are two completely different things. You are more ignorant than you imagine of the kinds of choices that people face, and of how all too often they aren't choices at all.
97 - troll
Glenn - no one needs to tell him that he "caused those deaths"...he knows that already
98 - roger nowosielski
Glenn, there is no way to shake you up from your acquired beliefs. Your indoctrination by the military mindset has been so thorough and complete that I'm convinced that no matter what counterarguments, cogent or not, one advances by way of retort, if only to make you stop for a moment in order to reflect and think, they're bound to have just the opposite from the intended effect: they're bound only to confirm you further in your ways.
I kinda suspected that all along, but gave it a shot anyway, which was my mistake. And I would be doing you greater disservice rather than good trying to sway you from the positions you hold, so no longer, friend. I definitely don't want have that kind of impact on anyone.
Meanwhile, please forgive me if my comments to you were on the edgy side. Accept, however, that my intent wasn't to insult, only to make you think. And since I haven't the resources to accomplish that, I respectfully withdraw. Others might have better luck where I have failed, and I wish them and you my best.
99 - Irene Athena
Troll (76) and Cindy (prev. page) and Roger (98) Aye, aye. (sigh.)
100 - Glenn Contrarian
Roger -
Thank you for the courteous reply. I know you won't want to address this, but look again at the choices the Marines faced, particularly given the local mores and traditions.
My point is that Western morality, Western thought, Western philosophy, whatever you want to call it..none of these are not and can never be one-size-fits-all. It was not so in the time of Alexander and it is not so now. By not addressing the hard choices faced by the ones at the scene, all you're doing is Monday-morning quarterbacking at best.
That's why I keep saying that one should not be so quick to judge someone without having some experience concerning the same kind of choices that someone faced.
101 - Clavos
what do you do when the other side has used children to carry out suicide attacks using explosives?
Happened in Vietnam, with some frequency.
If you could (i.e. if circumstances permitted), you captured them and turned them over to higher (Vietnamese) authorities, but sometimes they were armed and extremely aggressive, in which case your only alternative was to take the fight out of them as quickly and humanely as possible. Withal, sometimes they wound up dead.
102 - Irene Athena
Deciding what to do about children who are about to kill is an entirely different matter from Bradley Manning's deciding to expose standing orders to shoot at unarmed civilians, including children, in Iraq. And it wasn't just one incident, as in the My Lai massacre, that could be reported and make Manning an unqualified hero. That was just one of many pieces of galling information, facts not just about atrocities in Iraq but about corruption around the world - too much information to be meted out piecemeal.
You ask, "Did he do it the right way?" Glenn, it seems to me that the guy determined the situation had reached a tipping point. There was less to lose from releasing classified information, and more to lose, not for him, but for civilization, by letting all that data slip by him, a good man doing nothing, keeping the rest of the world unaware of the depth of the corruption around the world, the prevalence of atrocities committed by those in power.
Maybe you're the one who should be putting yourself in Manning's shoes, Glenn, instead of telling the rest of us to walk another's mile.
103 - Cindy
look again at the choices the Marines faced, particularly given the local mores and traditions.
They had the choice not to go.
Did the locals (with their different mores and traditions) have choice not to exist?
104 - Cindy
You may not like this, but your position justifies the state's acting as a killing machine, Glenn.
105 - Glenn Contrarian
Irene -
There was less to lose from releasing classified information
And you base that on what, exactly?
106 - Irene Athena
That's the point Glenn. Neither you nor I were the ones sitting on top of all that information trying to make the call. Manning was.
107 - Glenn Contrarian
Cindy -
They had the choice not to go.
If we take something Chris said to its logical conclusion, most people in the military are effectively mercenaries. I didn't join out of some naive desire to 'serve my country' - I needed a job. The same may apply to Chris. Clavos and Dave may have been drafted - I don't know - but those who join simply out of a desire to serve their country are certainly the exception to the rule.
When we met, my wife had already decided to join the Army - but changed her mind so we wouldn't be apart. She had decided to do so not just for a job, but also so she and her son (our oldest) could have health care.
You see, Cindy, it's not all about "let's go kill us some A-rabs" - it's more about having a stable job with a steady paycheck, access to health care, and a damned good retirement system...and you don't see this kind of combination much anymore, do you? I happily encourage most young jobless people to consider the Navy or the Air Force - but I tell them to not even think about the Army or the Air Force, solely because of the likelihood of being in combat.
Maybe that makes you want to pull your hair out, but I assure you that it's a heck of a lot better than you think. I've known many a man who is eternally grateful to the military for getting them not just off the ranks of the jobless, but off of drugs and out of constant trouble. Speaking for myself, the Navy taught me just how wrong racism is (I was a racist, remember), how to appreciate other nations, other cultures. It opened my eyes to a world that most Americans never see...and I'm a better man for it.
If you must lay blame for what the military does wrong, Cindy, one of the most important lessons I learned was that the fault almost always lay with the guy in charge - for it is he (or she) that sets the tone of the command, who enforces discipline or allows the lack thereof, who keeps a professional command or allows it to run amok. It is always, always, always this way. If one or two low-level people do something wrong, they are rightfully punished and are used as examples to the rest. If twenty or thirty do something wrong, they will all be punished as they should be...but the guy in charge will be fired, too - because he allowed his command's discipline to slip to that point.
Remember, Cindy, the vast majority of people in the military are there because they need a good job, especially if they've got a wife and kids back home. You might disagree with that statement, but that's the reality of it all.
Did the locals (with their different mores and traditions) have choice not to exist?
The children weren't given a choice as to whether to go out there and plant IED's - they were doing what they were told. So what other choices did the Marines have, Cindy?
You may not like this, but your position justifies the state's acting as a killing machine, Glenn.
Cindy, while it is true that any military's goal is to BE a killing machine, the American military is meant to be a TOOL, an instrument to be utilized by the nation's civilian leadership to do what that leadership says needs to be done. You would not use a hammer to fasten nuts and bolts, right? Of course not - it's the wrong tool for the job. Likewise, what a military should NOT be used for, is for "nation-building" or long-term occupation.
All your protestations to the contrary, if human history is any guide whatsoever, every nation needs a military. The need for it now is less than before (thank God!), but the need is still there...and a military that is not trained to be a 'killing machine' is not much of a military, but rather lambs for the slaughter.
108 - Clavos
It has long been said that you cannot really know what it's like to fight in a war until you've done it, and those who have, know beyond the shadow of a doubt, the truth of that. I would venture that a similar kind of unique knowledge is obtained from military service short of combat, but to a different degree, of course. I say this because, at the risk of belaboring the obvious, to those who enter the military, whether voluntarily or by being drafted, the experience of all the training, the molding and yes, "brainwashing" in which recruits and trainees are immersed for several weeks at the beginning of their service, not only teaches them how to, as we used to say, "break things," and survive horrendous situations that would overwhelm those lacking that experience, but it also serves as a life-changing experience (and not necessarily for the worse) which never leaves them. I was released from active duty in August of 1966; forty six years ago, and it still seems as if it all took place just a few years ago. At this point, I believe it always will, which to me is the essence of "life changing."
109 - troll
Clavos while it is truish that one cannot really know a cult and its life changing sacrements short of participating what's your point here?
and commenting that many people in the US military are 'mercenaries looking for work' as if this explains something strikes me as a sophistic response to questions of personal responsibility and choice
110 - roger nowosielski
You have a knack for getting to the point, troll, although I trust Clavos has better sense than to argue that exposure to live-changing experiences, aside from broadening one's horizons, abrogates their personal responsibility to act first and foremost as a human.
111 - Glenn Contrarian
troll -
and commenting that many people in the US military are 'mercenaries looking for work' as if this explains something strikes me as a sophistic response to questions of personal responsibility and choice
Picture this: you're a single parent. You can't find more than slightly-above-minimum-wage work, much less any that will provide health care for you and your child, not to mention there's almost nothing left over to set aside for a rainy day. You really, really don't like the thought of going on food stamps and Welfare and Medicaid.
Then you see what the military is offering: a stable job with a good paycheck, health care for you and your child, the opportunity to buy a home. You see the opportunity to provide for your child as you believe you should be able to as a parent.
That was the choice facing my wife just before we met. Can you really, truly gainsay her for the choice she was about to make? Can you?
112 - Christopher Rose
Glenn, yes...
Your argument just boils down to the ends justifies the means and that is often a way to justify abuse or other bad behaviour.
113 - troll
of course he does...:>)
the second part of 109 was for 107
114 - troll
113 was for Roger
Glenn - yes...what Chris said
115 - Glenn Contrarian
Irene -
That's the point Glenn. Neither you nor I were the ones sitting on top of all that information trying to make the call. Manning was.
But did Manning have the wherewithal to decide if the information he was about to release might cause more harm than good? No, he didn't - he couldn't have, because it was a quarter million documents covering events in one hundred eighty nations.
Here, I'll give you an example that hasn't be brought up before. It's been pointed out that there's no proof that what he did caused any harm to innocents...but it's very, very unlikely that it didn't. Why? Most of those messages were probably mundane - or at least mundane-sounding - boilerplate communications, like requests for clarification and transfer notifications. But you know what? Back in the military, every single transfer notification included the social security number of the one(s) being transferred.
Now let's just pretend that that's the ONLY bad thing that happened when he released the documents, that their social security numbers got sent out to the internet for public consumption. All of a sudden the Russians or the Chinese have access to the SSN of this or that admiral or general or DOD representative - you really don't think they'd take a great interest in that? Their interest wouldn't be for anything as petty as identity theft - they would be thinking about something more like blackmail or access to personal or professional files. Do you think that this, too, is no big deal?
Again, is there absolute published proof that this happened? Not to my knowledge. But it's like deciding whether or not to put your child in a child safety seat - you know in your gut that a wreck probably won't happen, but you have a very good idea of what can happen if there is a wreck.
So it goes with keeping classified material out of the public eye - you don't absolutely know that something bad will happen, but you have a very, very good idea of how bad it can get.
116 - Glenn Contrarian
Chris and troll -
Chris said:
Your argument just boils down to the ends justifies the means and that is often a way to justify abuse or other bad behaviour.
troll said:
Glenn - yes...what Chris said
Then we've nothing to discuss. You've both seem to have decided that there's no good reason why anyone would ever choose to go into the military. We veterans are all just stupid, evil people willing to go maim and kill others just to make a few bucks.
And you both have my pity, though I doubt you'll ever grasp why that is so.
117 - Dr Dreadful
From a purely biological standpoint, then end does justify the means. For example, accepting a dangerous, possibly unethical and potentially fatal job in order to ensure your family has enough to eat; or exterminating a rival tribe to ensure your own tribe's unmolested access to land and the resources contained therein.
It's where we draw the moral line that determines whether we use those means or not. Most of us would probably draw it somewhere in between my two examples, but until we're actually put in that sort of situation, we can't really say for sure. The biological imperative is powerful.
118 - roger nowosielski
@ 116
Nice turning of tables, Glenn. So now we're deserving of your pity for not going along with your program.
119 - roger nowosielski
Accepting a possibly unethical job ...
Is that like the case of Jean Valjean stealing a loaf of bread?
120 - troll
...its your argument that is a weak misdirection Glenn
that there are 'good' reasons to enlist is not pertinent as I see it
and if you wish to shut down our meager attempts to communicate that's ok - as Irene might say I've tarried too long at the fountains of Damascus and long for my desert hermitage
what is a 'purely biological standpoint'?
121 - Dr Dreadful
Roger: Could be. Like I said, everyone draws the line in a different place. That's what's so tricky about morals - which change over time too. Today most of us would accept that Valjean was justified in stealing the bread; at the time of the French Revolution, clearly enough people didn't think so that Victor Hugo was able to construct an entire plausible plot from it.
troll: The survival instinct. It's not infallible of course: it's probable that many Hutus genuinely believed, on no good evidence, that the Tutsis were going to murder them in their beds.
122 - Doug Hunter
Our morality seems focused on physical comfort, fear of violence and death as the ultimate in individual evils with everything else a far distant concern. Obviously I can't live it, but evidence is that's not true in all, or even most cultures. The state is granted a monopoly on physical controls and is therefore responsible for food and healthcare (as well as prisons, police, and military).
The Matrix struck a chord for me, we don't need sentient machines we have ourselves and the state, we're voting ourselves into the pods... comfortable productive pods... everyone equal and safely encapsulated... floating... freedom only inside your own mind... yippee!
(What an exciting vision, no wonder first worlders are offing themselves at a grand pace and can't even muster the virility to reproduce... a future as a number in a pod)
123 - Christopher Rose
Glenn, I don't really know why you can't avoid re-interpreting people's words to mean something that they never said, but suspect your belief system and its associated magic thinking may be the cause.
You are setting new lows even by your standards when you translate what I or troll said as meaning "there's no good reason why anyone would ever choose to go into the military", when that is clearly not what was said. Please get a grip of yourself and stop doing that.
As to pity, as someone who has been institutionalised all their life, perhaps you are more deserving of it...
Doc, your examples of situations when the ends might justify the means are highly theoretical. There are lots of alternatives to "dangerous, possibly unethical and potentially fatal" work and I can't think of any examples when it was actually necessary to exterminate a "rival tribe to ensure your own tribe's unmolested access to land and the resources contained therein". I can think of many occasions when it wasn't necessary but happened anyway, not least to the pre-European inhabitants of the USA for example, but actually necessary? No...
124 - Dr Dreadful
Chris, I never said it was necessary: it just has to be perceived to be necessary.
125 - roger nowosielski
@121, second paragraph
I think troll's emphasis was on the word "purely." Is that a valid perspective at all?
If it isn't, then what's the point? And if it is, what does it say of us?