Quote :

"Manning will receive 31 / 2 years of credit for time served in pretrial confinement and for the abusive treatment he endured in a Marine brig at Quantico, making him eligible for parole in seven years. He will serve his sentence at the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan."

There it is...

I guess the question is will he actually *be* paroled, from a military court, when he's up for it.

8/22/2013 12:15:36 PM

http://jezebel.com/how-not-to-react-to-the-news-that-bradley-manning-is-tr-1182604480

Quote :

"In her statement, Manning indicated that she wished to be referred to using female pronouns from now on. Using the wrong pronoun for a trans person is considered exceptionally shitty, and a violation of that person's identity."

Usually, I would respect their wishes. In this case, I don't feel compelled to.

[Edited on August 22, 2013 at 3:16 PM. Reason : i guess that makes me inconsiderate or something]

8/22/2013 3:12:37 PM

Welp....looks like any sincere discussion about US foreign policy and war crimes will now be completely drowned out by discussions about gender assignment.

8/22/2013 4:50:50 PM

^ exactly

8/22/2013 7:33:07 PM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/text-of-bradley-mannings-letter-to-president-requesting-pardon/2013/08/21/b6ae28b4-0ab5-11e3-89fe-abb4a5067014_story.html

Quote :

"The decisions that I made in 2010 were made out of a concern for my country and the world that we live in. Since the tragic events of 9/11, our country has been at war. We’ve been at war with an enemy that chooses not to meet us on any traditional battlefield, and due to this fact we’ve had to alter our methods of combating the risks posed to us and our way of life. I initially agreed with these methods and chose to volunteer to help defend my country. It was not until I was in Iraq and reading secret military reports on a daily basis that I started to question the morality of what we were doing. It was at this time I realized that (in) our efforts to meet the risk posed to us by the enemy, we have forgotten our humanity. We consciously elected to devalue human life both in Iraq and Afghanistan. When we engaged those that we perceived were the enemy, we sometimes killed innocent civilians. Whenever we killed innocent civilians, instead of accepting responsibility for our conduct, we elected to hide behind the veil of national security and classified information in order to avoid any public accountability. In our zeal to kill the enemy, we internally debated the definition of torture. We held individuals at Guantanamo for years without due process. We inexplicably turned a blind eye to torture and executions by the Iraqi government. And we stomached countless other acts in the name of our war on terror. Patriotism is often the cry extolled when morally questionable acts are advocated by those in power. When these cries of patriotism drown out any logically based dissension, it is usually the American soldier that is given the order to carry out some ill-conceived mission. Our nation has had similar dark moments for the virtues of democracy — the Trail of Tears, the Dred Scott decision, McCarthyism, and the Japanese-American internment camps — to mention a few. I am confident that many of the actions since 9/11 will one day be viewed in a similar light. As the late Howard Zinn once said, “There is not a flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.” I understand that my actions violated the law; I regret if my actions hurt anyone or harmed the United States. It was never my intent to hurt anyone. I only wanted to help people. When I chose to disclose classified information, I did so out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to others. If you deny my request for a pardon, I will serve my time knowing that sometimes you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society. I will gladly pay that price if it means we could have a country that is truly conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all women and men are created equal."

8/23/2013 10:42:02 AM

It's hard to disagree with any of that. Just the things that have been leaked out about civilian deaths are pretty horrifying, I can only imagine what hasn't been declassified or never reported.

Its hard to justify our continued presence overseas, and impossible to justify some of the actions taken in our names. Manning broke the law, but he did it for the right reasons. Hopefully history will remember him kindly.

8/23/2013 10:50:40 AM

He's a traitor. Exposing our attack on children and people providing medical assistance is directly counter to our mission abroad, and anything less that the death penalty is too good for him. Showing that video to the world is far more damaging than actually killing the children, and there was good reason for the military to censor it. Snowden got off way too easy.

8/23/2013 12:44:31 PM

Documentary

We Steal Secrets, The Story of Wikileaks

http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/we_steal_secrets_the_story_of_wikileaks_2013/

11/13/2013 7:47:33 PM

Lol, Assange is willing to throw trump under the bus

2/19/2020 2:26:12 PM

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-offered-assange-pardon-if-he-covered-up-russian-hack-court-hears

Trump offered a pardon in exchange for helping Russia cover up their crimes. Wow.

2/19/2020 2:32:29 PM

Trump has never met Rohrbacher and doesn’t actually know who he is. This is a DNC planted story laundered through - checks notes - Assanges lawyer.

At least that’s the White House official statement.

2/19/2020 3:00:32 PM

Rohrabacher admitted he offered assange a trump pardon if he said Russia wasnt involved in hacking DNC

2/21/2020 11:52:43 AM

Quote :

"There’s …there’s two people, I think, Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump…swear to God."

2/21/2020 2:48:53 PM

this thread wasn't on my 2024 ntlb bingo card

6/24/2024 11:06:52 PM

Great! That means I still have a chance to win NTLB Bingo!

6/24/2024 11:31:09 PM

Whew, boy did this post age perfectly...

Quote :

"jwb9984: Actually, yeah, it is that simple, and those are the choices. The allegiances there are of course very complex, but the situation as whole is not. Put simply, if we were to pack it up and leave today, the Taliban would begin to seriously destabilize the country (more than it is already). Without our backing the Karzai government has approximately 0% chance of preventing that from happening right now. The ISI would no doubt see the writing on the wall and aid the Taliban further in regaining complete control again with a quickness."

https://www.thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=599298&page=1#14170947

7/3/2024 6:09:44 PM