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Manning pleads guilty to minor charges

TheDemSocialist

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The US Army soldier accused of providing diplomatic cables and other secret documents to the whistle-blower WikiLeaks website, has pleaded guilty to misusing classified material, but denied the most serious charge in the case - aiding the enemy. Private First Class Bradley Manning, 25, entered the pleas on Thursday prior to his court martial, which is set to begin on June 3, in a case that centres on the biggest leak of government secrets in US history. Al Jazeera's Rosalind Jordan reports.




Video @: Manning pleads guilty to minor charges - YouTube

He has pleaded guilty to "misusing documents" but is not pleading guilty "to aiding the enemy".
 
I apologize if I'm hijacking your thread but Manning is a perfect example of where corporal punishment would be better than prison.

He did the wrong thing, albeit sort of for the "right reasons". He certainly won't repeat his crime.

He should be given 10 lashes over a period of 6 months and then released.

Just an opinion so don't go postal about this please.
 
I thought this was gonna be about football. Wikileaks was boring. Who cares about the guesses and musings of diplomats?
 
Well, if the report is correct about the prosecution requesting that an "operator" be allowed to testify including evidence gathered during the Bin Laden Raid along with said evidence's chain of custody, the kid is done. If any information he released was found on any of those computers, its pretty much a slam dunk and this kid will go away for life, hopefully making big rocks into little rocks.
 
I apologize if I'm hijacking your thread but Manning is a perfect example of where corporal punishment would be better than prison.

He did the wrong thing, albeit sort of for the "right reasons". He certainly won't repeat his crime.

He should be given 10 lashes over a period of 6 months and then released.

Just an opinion so don't go postal about this please.

He committed treason. He should be stood up and shot.
 
I'm not inclined to give Manning a break on this. He had no idea what was on that drive he copied; he only knew that the information was highly classified. Knowing that, he sent it out to Wikileaks, with the understanding that the contents would be revealed to the world. Could have been troop movements, Air Force One's itinerary, top secret details of the scheduled arrival high-ranking political/military individuals from various countries, including our own. He simply did not care.

To me personally, that's not "misusing documents." That's treason. :shrug:
 
He committed treason.
 
Life in prison is to good for this traitor. The Army should bring back the firing squad for him.
 
I oppose the death penalty, but I'd like for Manning to live the life of the "man without a country."

From Wiki: "The Man Without a Country" is a short story by American writer Edward Everett Hale, first published in The Atlantic in December 1863.[1] It is the story of American Army lieutenant Philip Nolan, who renounces his country during a trial for treason and is consequently sentenced to spend the rest of his days at sea without so much as a word of news about the United States. The Man Without a Country - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
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Video @: Manning pleads guilty to minor charges - YouTube

He has pleaded guilty to "misusing documents" but is not pleading guilty "to aiding the enemy".

They should give him a medal.. There was nothing top secret on the disk. He embarrassed the Military and the Gov't. He is like the CIA guy Kirikao (sp) who is going to jail for whistleblowing on torture and the torturers go free. Manning is going to jail because he revealed the Apache helicopter slaughter in Iraq. Among other things. He did what journalists should have been doing, but don't want to offend the gov't. Asleep at their jobs to our detriment. We need more like him and Julian Assange.
 
He broke the law and has to serve jail time, but his long-term detention without trial is against habeas corpus in the Constitution and it's unfortunate that some people can't see through their hate and look at the situation for what it is. But... we live in degenerate times and people have lost the ability to defend the rights of their political enemies, and thus they too will gradually suffer the same fate.

Manning revealed crimes against humanity that if any other government were committing, the White House would be the first to speak out against. Fact is, he embarrassed us by showing we are not a goody-two-shoes nation that is in the Middle East for higher purposes. Some of our soldiers get off on killing innocent people and there is no oversight to prevent it. It proves that some of the ground level testimony coming out of the region from affected townships and families is true.

As for what he revealed about troop deployments... so what? We have been fighting against guerrillas in Afghanistan and Iraq and they already know where to find us.

As far as I'm concerned Manning did us a service by exposing corruption, something that journalism would have already been doing if our government wasn't actively censuring them in the war zone. But they're not because they don't want another Vietnam on their hands.
 
You're right; Manning did us all a service. It's not so often that we have such a clear example of what a traitor is.
 
Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Covers what he did.

Of course, for a conviction, the Constitution specifically requires either confession in open court or the testimony of two witnesses.
 
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