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Bradley Manning and Julian Assange Both Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

apdst said:
Prove some kind of intent on the part of the American personel. Prove that those men weren't the enemy. Prove they weren't armed--one of them is carrying what appears to be what looks like a squad machine gun. Give us the identification and credible back ground information on every person that was fired upon in that group and prove that they didn't have and never did have any kind of connection to any insurgent group operating in Iraq.

You're all about due process, right? I'm not a lawyer--far from it--but if I was a jury member, those are the questions that I would want answered before I called these men guilty of a crime.
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One of them was a journalist... they know who he was with and what he was doing.
 
Proud South Korean said:
People who reveal valuable information to boost their own standing and reputation to endanger many people's lives are nothing but scum
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Do you feel the same way about whoever leaked Plames CIA work? That put all of her contacts on nonproliferation at risk.
 
apdst said:
Longest war in history? What history book you been reading?

The reason Libbos are responsible, is because they act as a propaganda machine for the enemy, just like during Vietnam.
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He means U.S. history, and he's correct that no other U.S. wars have gone on for this long.
 
apdst said:
Longest war in history? What history book you been reading?
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Afghanistan is often considered the longest war in U.S. history. If you want to argue that Vietnam is technically the longest and Afghanistan the second longest, then I am not going to disagree. Either way, we have been over there too long and will be over there for years to come. Hence, it is a quagmire.

The reason Libbos are responsible, is because they act as a propaganda machine for the enemy, just like during Vietnam.
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This is pure drivel. You are just a partisan hack with no objective thought in your head.
 
What would American spies overseas think of 'no due process for spies just shoot them'. The CIA tends to react in a rather appalled manner when some other agency starts squaking that they found 'spies' just as some people found some 'russian spies' a few years back, when they did not qualify as such.
 
MKULTRABOY said:
One of them was a journalist... they know who he was with and what he was doing.
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Really? So much so they mistook his camera with a telephoto lens for an RPG which actually looked like an RPG on the FLIR display. And actually, two of them were journailsts which was discovered after the fact.

Unless you're claiming this is some super secret eeeviiil conspiracy? Are you?
 
What Im saying whoever he worked for as a journalist knew what he was doing. Maybe I wasnt following this dorkup of a thread closely enough.
 
MKULTRABOY said:
What Im saying whoever he worked for as a journalist knew what he was doing.
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Yet they still expressed outrage at the fact they were killed knowing damn well that not only was it possible but likely. Embedding journalists with armed insurgents roaming around urban parts of Iraq with active engagements occuring regularly is pretty f-ing negligent.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
How has this endangered anyone's life?
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I thought you as one of the more smarter people on this forum, but you obviously has no idea how leaking government secrets do endanger many hundreds, if not thousands of lives, especially in the intelligence community
 
MKULTRABOY said:
One of them was a journalist... they know who he was with and what he was doing.
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Fine. Prove it. Just because he was a journalist, doesn't mean that he wasn't hanging with bad guys.

Who knows, those people may have been set up by the bad guys, to created a messy kill to score propaganda points.

At the end of the day, no crime was committed.
 
I do think Assange's work is crucial in our times. After the high profile wikileaks stories hitting the global media, the loopholes in our international reporting were closed. He has made several good points about how the nature of the press is changing for the worst, and that freedom of speech and press are on the decline due to globalized and powerful influences.

Manning betrayed the army and for that he should be punished, but I do respect that his betrayal was due to moral conflict and not a sincere wish to harm his country. His heart was in the right place even though his loyalty should have already been procured.

As for the Nobel Prize... it lost all credibility when it gave Obama the Peace Prize. Obama has done nothing for peace. He has perpetuated the policies of all administrations before him, and has prolonged wars on multiple fronts that have damaged our economy and reputation. His foreign policy is no better. He's a shill just like any other President.

I think of Wangari Maathai who won the peace prize for her tree planting campaign in Kenya that changed the political landscape of her entire country, and then I look at Obama and just shake my head. I don't even know how most politicians could even qualify for something from the Nobel committee, let alone Obama.
 
Temporal said:
As for the Nobel Prize... it lost all credibility when it gave Obama the Peace Prize. Obama has done nothing for peace. He has perpetuated the policies of all administrations before him, and has prolonged wars on multiple fronts that have damaged our economy and reputation. His foreign policy is no better. He's a shill just like any other President.
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Using this logic, then the NPP lost credibility when Kissinger won it.
 
What if...? said:
Do you feel the same way about whoever leaked Plames CIA work? That put all of her contacts on nonproliferation at risk.
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I feel the same way, except that Plame wasn't an actual covert agent. That aside, I think it's one of the biggest travesties in the history of the country that Richard Armitage walked off, scot free, without being asked a single question about why he exposed Plame's involvement with CIA.
 
Antiderivative said:
Afghanistan is often considered the longest war in U.S. history. If you want to argue that Vietnam is technically the longest and Afghanistan the second longest, then I am not going to disagree. Either way, we have been over there too long and will be over there for years to come. Hence, it is a quagmire.



This is pure drivel. You are just a partisan hack with no objective thought in your head.
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You said, "the longest war in history". You didn't clarify.
 
apdst said:
I feel the same way, except that Plame wasn't an actual covert agent. That aside, I think it's one of the biggest travesties in the history of the country that Richard Armitage walked off, scot free, without being asked a single question about why he exposed Plame's involvement with CIA.
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She wasn't actually a "spy", no. But she did have multiple contacts in her work who were endangered by this revelation. And if not actually in danger of losing their lives, rendered ineffective in one of the most important areas of interest.Nuclear nonproliferation.
 
apdst said:
Fine. Prove it. Just because he was a journalist, doesn't mean that he wasn't hanging with bad guys.

Who knows, those people may have been set up by the bad guys, to created a messy kill to score propaganda points.

At the end of the day, no crime was committed.
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I disagree. An unjust war was initiated with lies. We abrogated the Geneva Conventions. Torture, rendition, sadism, etc. was practiced in our name. These are the guideposts of the war. We reap what we sow. Thank you Manning and Assange. If it is not very public, it will be hard to initiate change.
 
What if...? said:
She wasn't actually a "spy", no. But she did have multiple contacts in her work who were endangered by this revelation. And if not actually in danger of losing their lives, rendered ineffective in one of the most important areas of interest.Nuclear nonproliferation.
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Actually, she started degrading any covert connections, or status when she married Joe Wilson.
 
DaveFagan said:
I disagree. An unjust war was initiated with lies.
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Who lied?



We abrogated the Geneva Conventions.
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No we didn't. We went to Congress and the UN.


Torture, rendition, sadism, etc. was practiced in our name. These are the guideposts of the war. We reap what we sow. Thank you Manning and Assange. If it is not very public, it will be hard to initiate change.
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The only guidepost in war, is to win and bring back as many of our people intact, as possible. There are no points for good sportsmanship.
 
apdst said:
Who lied?





No we didn't. We went to Congress and the UN.




The only guidepost in war, is to win and bring back as many of our people intact, as possible. There are no points for good sportsmanship.
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Who lied? Bush, Cheney, Powell, etc.
Geneva Conventions. Show me where torture is OK.
Good sportmanship. The Geneva Conventions are to give some sanity to an insane endeavor (war).
 
DaveFagan said:
Who lied? Bush, Cheney, Powell, etc.
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Oh? What did they lie about? They acted on faulty intel, sure, but I've yet to see anyone prove they actually lied

Geneva Conventions. Show me where torture is OK.
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Show me where in the United States code where we have to lose a war, just so we can play by the rules.


Good sportmanship. The Geneva Conventions are to give some sanity to an insane endeavor (war).
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Give sanity to war? :lamo Might as well stop fooling yourself with that silly notion. The only way to inject sanity into war, is to win it as quickly as possible. Trying to reform war is what's insane.
 
Antiderivative said:
Using this logic, then the NPP lost credibility when Kissinger won it.
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that's about the time I lost respect for the prize... and it's gone downhill ever since ( with a few exceptions, of course)

using Nobel;s standards
"the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses"

neither Assange nor Bradley deserve the prize... they have done no work to meet those standards.
 
Originally Posted by Temporal

As for the Nobel Prize... it lost all credibility when it gave Obama the Peace Prize. Obama has done nothing for peace. He has perpetuated the policies of all administrations before him, and has prolonged wars on multiple fronts that have damaged our economy and reputation. His foreign policy is no better. He's a shill just like any other President.
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Very good point it was bad enough when Kissinger received it but when they gave to Obama for doing nothing but conducting an apology and blame America first tour that pretty much killed it's credibility for all time in my eyes.
 
apdst said:
Prove some kind of intent on the part of the American personel. Prove that those men weren't the enemy. Prove they weren't armed--one of them is carrying what appears to be what looks like a squad machine gun. Give us the identification and credible back ground information on every person that was fired upon in that group and prove that they didn't have and never did have any kind of connection to any insurgent group operating in Iraq.

You're all about due process, right? I'm not a lawyer--far from it--but if I was a jury member, those are the questions that I would want answered before I called these men guilty of a crime.
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The point is there are obviously unarmed people in the cross fire. (hence every single adult was killed) And the decission to fire was made even though the people never fired one shot. (never to their death) If you stand by what you say then you are saying militairy law makes it ok to kill unarmed people standing around people with guns when a shot was never fired.

Militairy law makes it ok for a gunship to light up an unamred man trying to help out another wounded unarmed man? If so those sound like some ****ed up evil laws that need to be dealt with before stupid people do too much harm with it.
 
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apdst said:
On a battlefield, you don't wait to get shot at. It's totally ignorant to suggest that we should force our soldiers to follow such rules of engagement.
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But the occupational wars are wars against armed civileans. And civs that didnt volenteer for war that happen to be in the way. These guys were never offered a chance to surrender oven though they were opposed by clearly overwhelming firepower. Killroy vs fish in a barrel. We aren't there to wage war. Our government has our troops being police men with massive kill weapons.
 
dirtpoorchris said:
But the occupational wars are wars against armed civileans. And civs that didnt volenteer for war that happen to be in the way. These guys were never offered a chance to surrender oven though they were opposed by clearly overwhelming firepower. Killroy vs fish in a barrel. We aren't there to wage war. Our government has our troops being police men with massive kill weapons.
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If you want to be pissed off at someone, you need to be pissed off at the insurgents, because they are the ones that created the combat environment that is the modern day battlefield. They, are the ones that are doing the most to cause non-combatant casualties.

Or, you need to do one of two things:

1) Accept the fact that civilians casualties are a by-product of war ahd have been since the beginning of time, or 2) Take your butt to the recruiting station, first thing tomorrow, enlist, branch infantry and go effect a change.
 
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