Pfc Bradley Manning Must Be Pilloried to Maintain the USofA’s Authoritarian Rule

[rhett o rick]

The USofA is the big authoritarian (bully) on the block. Our government invades countries killing tens, even hundreds of thousands of innocents, kills suspected terrorists in other countries without permission of the sovereign nation’s government, spies on everyone including it’s own citizens, and in general acts like the big bully of the world. Why? Because they can.

As the big bully they cant let those that dare to look behind the curtain go free. Whistle-blowers and protestors have to be punished, but not only punished, they have to be crushed, brutalized to set an example (code for terrorize) the 99% into toeing the line.

Sadly there are those among us, the conservatives, that must stand by the authoritarian leadership. They defend the authoritarian leadership to a fault. Some may ask why do people voluntarily follow these authoritarian leaders?
Here is an explanation from Bob Altemeyer’s book, The Authoritarian Specter.

(Follower) Authoritarians believe that proper authorities should be trusted to a great
extent and deserve obedience and respect. They believe that these are important
virtues which children should be taught and that if children stray from
these principles, parents have a duty to get them back in line. Right-wing
authoritarians would ordinarily place narrow limits on people's rights to criticize
authorities. They tend to assume that officials know what is best and that
critics do not know what they are talking about. They view criticism of authority
as divisive and destructive, motivated by sinister goals and a desire to
cause trouble. Authoritarians believe, to a considerable extent, that established
authorities have an inherent right to decide for themselves what they
may do, including breaking the laws they make for the rest of us.

Sadly we see a lot of “Follower Authoritarians” right here in DU City.

The Authoritarian Specter is available for free here: http://patrick-fournier.com/d/cours3-6607.pdf

[sgtbenobo]

1. Imagine the shudder that would go through our military industrial complex.

If doing the right thing went unpunished.

Carry on

[rhett o rick]

2. Whistle-blowers are the enemy of the Ruling Elite Class and their conservative enablers. nm

[byeya]

3. God forbid that a "mere employee" should have the gall to call a corporation or gov't agency

to account when they are caught dong unconstitutional acts.
Manning must be made to pay and he's been set up for all to see what happens to people with both a conscience and gumption.

[rhett o rick]

4. Some here side with the right-wing and want manning given the harshest sentence.

They abhor any attempts at exposing what's behind the curtain.

[byeya]

20. Some here are right-wing and applaud repressive laws and want the spy agencies

to be able to coverup bribes, misuse of government funds, and all manner of abuses and declare "state secret" and thereby avoid accountability.

[rhett o rick]

23. In a true democracy we would value transparency and prosecute those that tried to deny it. nm

[byeya]

30. That would take an educated populace that those who control the political economy want to keep

scared shitless. It's been the plan of action since the end of WW2 to keep a certain segment in power.

[rhett o rick]

31. Keeping the population afraid is a form of terrorism. nm

[byeya]

33. Of course it is and that's why Churchill and Truman followed Harriman's advice to keep

the populations afraid.
I saw an interesting article about a year ago that claimed that within 60 days after the A-bombs were dropped on Japan, maps appeared in several US daily papers showing how the damage would be if the bomb was dropped on Moscow. Moscow was our ally and did most of the fighting in Europe for a couple of years before the USA and the UK were ready to go into NW Europe and the Soviets were said to be quite upset about this government generated map.

Anyway, that's what the article purported but I've not seen corroboration.

[KoKo]

5. Check this out..when you have time:

I found this an interesting read. Considering what is seen around these parts lately.

Eight Traits of the Disinformationalist
http://cameforthetruth.blogspot.com/2013/06/eight-traits-of-disinformationalist.html

[rhett o rick]

7. Thank you for that. nm

[quinnox]

6. good definition of the phenomenon

of the authoritarian. I have to come to think it maybe is a brain trait present at birth, or something that is learned from a very young age, because there are so many who seem to have this way of thinking about "authority".

[struggle4progress]

8. Manning seems to be a bright but confused young person, and his motives really aren't clear

The defense was suggesting, at one time during the pretrial hearings, that Manning's behavior resulted from his sexual confusion

Another plausible explanation might be that he was so lonely and unhappy in the military, that he started to seek ways to get positive attention somewhere, and thus hit on the idea of dumping documents to Wikileaks to impress some of his hacker friends

Unfortunately, portraying him as a whistle-blower requires a long long uphill climb: if Manning spent 12 hrs/da and 7 da/wk selecting documents for download and downloading them the whole time he was in Iraq, he couldn't have devoted on average more than 15 seconds of his attention per document he released. That means he really couldn't have had any clear idea what was in the majority of the documents

[Pelican]

9. Who needs your facts...?

Fight the power... Woooo!

I don't like the thing that he doesn't like so I can excuse his behavior...

Woooo....

Note: For those, like me, who have lost the ability to distinguish between the two...

[HangOnKids]

16. Woooo

Sorry you have lost the ability to distinguish. The sarcasm thingy is meaningless. Really. It. Is. WOOOOOO to you.

[rhett o rick]

10. Do you feel better with that rationalization? Does that justify him spending the rest of his

life in prison? What you really mean is that he was out of line trying to look behind the authoritarian curtain. The sheep dont want to know the truth. They will feel better when the authoritarian state takes further control and makes all their decisions.

Our founders are ashamed at your rationalizations.

[struggle4progress]

13. You're entitled to your opinions, whatever they are, but we should be able to agree on the facts

Think about it: 750000 documents is (at a crude estimate) a thousand 750 page books

Imagine stacking a thousand such books in your living room and resolving to read them with some comprehension for twelve hours a day, 7 days a week, until you got through the stack

How long do you think that would take you, if you really insisted on having even the most limited understanding of what you were reading?

[rhett o rick]

26. When our government is using laws to hide their crimes, then those doing the hiding

should be prosecuted not those exposing those crimes.

It's common among authoritarians to support the ruler authoritarians and deride those that struggle for freedoms and liberties.

Manning is the enemy of the Big Bro State and those that worship at that alter.

[struggle4progress]

29. We can be reasonably sure that his defense will make every possible effort

to ensure that Manning is NOT regarded as an enemy of the state, for if the court believes his document release was motivated by his opposition to the state, the court is much more likely to hand him a long long sentence

Aiding the defense in its efforts to ensure that Manning is NOT portrayed as an enemy of the state, there will a natural presumption that the enemies of the US do not typically join its military with the aim of releasing documents in an manner contrary to military security protocols. And there is the additional fact that a certain number of young adults, who (like Manning) seem unable to hold a steady job and who (like Manning) have had some difficulty pursuing a college education, then (like Manning) turn to the Army: so it is easy and natural to regard Manning's enlistment as a result of his circumstances, rather than as a consequence of his political or philosophical views

Manning's image, of course, can serve as a sort of screen, upon which various other persons project their own personal world views. But such projections are cartoons: they don't provide a genuine portrait of Manning himself

[rhett o rick]

32. Manning doesnt stand a chance fighting the government. He must be made a scapegoat

to warn the population not to mess with the government.

[treestar]

36. Why are you dismissing all this as an authoritarian curtain?

Bradley took an oath, and was granted a security clearance, he got to look behind it daily.

What seems never to be considered here is what is classified information and do we need it? People seem to make Bradley a hero just because he released classified information, as though classified information is some evil the government is pulling over our eyes, all of itself.

That information is classified is not some evil plot against us. It can be abused, and the whistle blown on that, but that means finding or coming across the specific information. Releasing it willy nilly is not right - other people can be harmed. Not everyone who works for the government is an evil bastard. If that were the case, it would include Bradley too, who chose to go into the military of all things.

[rhett o rick]

37. Ok I am willing to make you a deal. Pfc Bradley Manning should be sentenced 1/1000th of whatever

Cheney gets. Do you recognize the outrageous out of balance we have?

[treestar]

38. Changed the subject

Unrelated subject and non-responsive to the issues I raised.

Quit wallowing and start learning. For the zillions effin' time, can a modern nation survive without some intelligence apparatus, and cannot some of that be covert? Can't some information be classified without it being a plot against us?

[rhett o rick]

41. Those that use the classification system to hide crimes are more guilty than Manning. nm

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

11. How would you know? Did you know him before he was put in solitary?

The honest answer is that you don't know him or his motivations, and are just spouting talking points (per usual) but I will take him at his word...

“ I believe that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information contained within [some of the documents], this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general … as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said, according to a transcript of his testimony earlier this year.

“I also believed the detailed analysis of the data over a long period of time by different sectors of society might cause society to reevaluate the need or even the desire to engage in counter-terrorism and counterinsurgency operations that ignore the complex dynamics of the people living in the affected environment everyday,” he said.

...

“I hoped that the public would be as alarmed as me about the conduct of the aerial weapons team crew members,” he said.

“I wanted the American public to know that not everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan was a target that needed to be engaged and neutralized, but rather people who were struggling to live in the pressure cooker environment of what we call asymmetric warfare. After the release I was encouraged by the response in the media and general public, who observed the aerial weapons team video. As I hoped, others were just as troubled – if not more troubled that me by what they saw.”

As for the diplomatic cables, Manning said that the more he read them, the more he came to the conclusion that the cables should be made public. He said he didn’t believe that it would damage the United States, but that it might be embarrassing, “since they represented very honest opinions and statements behind the backs of other nations and organizations.”

more...
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/88402-why-bradley-manning-leaked-classified-documents-to-wikileaks/

also...

He said the incident that had affected him the most was when 15 detainees had been arrested by the Iraqi Federal Police for printing anti-Iraqi literature. He was asked by the army to find out who the "bad guys" were, and discovered that the detainees had followed what Manning said was a corruption trail within the Iraqi cabinet. He reported this to his commanding officer, but said "he didn't want to hear any of it"; he said the officer told him to help the Iraqi police find more detainees. Manning said it made him realize, "i was actively involved in something that i was completely against ..." He explained that "i cant separate myself from others ... i feel connected to everybody ... like they were distant family," and cited Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, and Elie Wiesel. He said he hoped the material would lead to "hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms. if not ... than [sic] we're doomed as a species." He said he had downloaded the material onto music CD-RWs, erased the music and replaced it with a compressed split file. Part of the reason no one noticed, he said, was that staff were working 14 hours a day, seven days a week, and "people stopped caring after 3 weeks.&quot 48)

more...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Manning

sounds like his motivations were that of a traditional whistle-blower, and an American patriot who believed that the public deserved to know the truth about what was really going on with our foreign policy, that is, IF they were more informed, they would not support these crimes, and demand a change in course.

He sounds like a stand up guy to me, as someone who was only looking at this from the outside, came to the very same conclusions as he did.

[struggle4progress]

12. Get out your calculator and your 2009 and 2010 calendars. Count the weeks Manning was in Iraq

(say early October 2009 to late May 2010, minus 2 weeks leave in the US in January 2010). Give him seven days per week, twelve hours per day for those weeks for reviewing documents, choosing some to download, and then downloading them for release to Wikileaks. It's simple arithmetic: he dumped about 750000 documents, so on average he spent at most 15 seconds per document

Do you know anybody who can actually read and comprehend and evaluate the significance of text at that rate, hour after hour, day after day? It's just not credible that he knew what he was releasing. Manning may have paid close attention to a small handul of documents -- but no matter what explanation he gives for his document release, the arithmetic simply doesn't lie: most documents he simply downloaded and dumped without any real knowledge of their actual contents.

His behavior in the late winter and early spring of 2010 was erratic: he was depressed and had several violent outbursts, after which he was demoted and was awaiting separation from the military.

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

14. And factor this into your equation, you do not need to read the entire document to get the gist

shoot all of our lawmakers do that almost EVERYDAY to, get this, MAKE OUR LAWS.

So, there is that, not to mention they worked routinely 14 hour days, and probably often longer.

Be that as it may, he had ample time to get the gist of what was in those documents, and his conscience said that it was better that the citizenry be informed on these important matters of life and death, and did not consider it to be damaging to the U.S. nor that it would put anyone in harms way.

So that was what he was thinking, right or wrong, and what motivated him, and that makes him a whistle blower, in the same spirit of Daniel Ellsberg and his release of the 47 volumes of the "Pentagon Papers" on the U.S. history of involvement in Vietnam since WWII till 1967.

Whistle blowers deserve our respect and protection, not persecution by the same people he blow the whistle on. But, as has been demonstrated time and again by this administration, they have no respect for our patriot whistle-blowers.

and it is also obvious that neither do you, so good day sir.

[loose wheel]

18. Have you ever considered?

"And factor this into your equation, you do not need to read the entire document to get the gist

shoot all of our lawmakers do that almost EVERYDAY to, get this, MAKE OUR LAWS."

Have you ever considered that may be why such shoddy laws keep getting passed? How is a lawmaker making an informed vote on a 5,000 page piece of legislation that closed for amendments less than two days before being voted upon? What is actually being voted on, a favorable table of contents list?

[struggle4progress]

19. Ask yourself how long it would take you to "get the gist" of every page in a thousand 750 page books

and to decide, page by page, whether or not the information on that page was something everybody needed to know and whether or not anybody would be put at risk by publicizing the information on that page

No matter how bright and energetic the reader is, nobody can make informed decisions like that, devoting only fifteen seconds per page twelve hours a day, seven days a week, month after month: it just isn't doable. And, unfortunately for Manning, a more careful assessment of the known timeline will lead to the conclusion that Manning actually spent on average much less than 15 seconds per page: assuming he spent even six or seven seconds per page is probably too generous

You seem to have STARTED with the conclusion you wish to reach ("Manning is a heroic whistle-blower!&quot ; and having chosen your conclusion, you want to adjust the facts to support your conclusion. So (for example) when I exhibit some simple arithmetic -- that calls into question the claim that Manning has merely acted as a principled whistle-blower, exposing 750 000 documents that he found shocking -- and when I point out that it is just a physical impossibility for Manning to have made such assessments in the allotted time, your reaction is to question my motives. But the underlying facts do not depend on my motives!

[KoKo]

22. Good post and links....thanks.

[Egalitarian Thug]

15. And there's the main reason for this, another being that this is a perfect distraction to bring

out any time and as often as they need to when they are doing we shouldn't be looking at.

[rhett o rick]

25. Excellent point. nm

[loose wheel]

17. What was Manning, then?

He was granted a position of trust, at least twice. When he went through basic training, his rights and responisbilities if he witnessed and illegal act were explained to him. When he was granted his clearance he was told what it meant if he knowingly divulged any classified information. When he was granted access to the SIPRNET he was warned against going anywhere he didn't have any business, agreed to be monitored at all times, and again agreed not to release any information.

He insisted he was right, and that everyone else around him was wrong. He didn't bother reviewing more than a tiny amount of the total information he gathered. He was not in a position to evaluate much of that data to know what may cause harm and what would not. He did not seek out legal counsel from the IG office. He did not approach a congressman with his information.

Ultimately, he released the information before considering fully the consequences of his actions, but he knew he was violating his agreements. Even if he felt he was doing the right thing he knew he was going to jail for the rest of his life if he followed through on the data dump.

It is said that the last refuge of a scoundrel is patriotism. Here stands a man (PFC Manning) that violated his oath and broke his agreements. Here stands a man (PFC Manning) who has done irrepairable harm to his country, because he was angry at his boss. When he realized just how cooked his goose was, he made several excuses dressed in a patriotic ribbon for his actions that would sound good to some people. He is a man whose words ring hollow, a scoundrel of the first sort.

[byeya]

21. Harm to the USA that cannot be repaired? That's the joke of the day. Most of these

secret documents are either embarrassing or divulge illegal activity or should never have been classified in the first place.

[rhett o rick]

24. When laws are made or used to hide crimes or breaches of trust, then it may be necessary to break

such laws. The most important thing is that we keep our government from crushing our freedoms and liberties. When our government uses laws that they craft to hide their crimes then we need to punish those doing the hiding not those that do the exposing.

One needs to choose between the messy, sometimes chaos of democracy and the comfort of strict authoritarian rule.

[GoneFishin]

27. Gee, if a PFC can cause such harm violating his oath imagine if an official with real

prominence broke his oath to protect and defend the Constitution.

I like this part though
... " the last refuge of a scoundrel is patriotism " ...

How true.

[rhett o rick]

28. We must persecute the scoundrels and let the war criminals off.

How could a pfc do so much damage? Seems to me that someone higher up should also be held accountable.

[GoneFishin]

34. Rule change. Look forward not backward ... for anyone above a PFC.

[treestar]

35. No that's not the issue, the issue is classified information

It's agains the law to reveal it.

Are we supposed to have zero classified documents? Is that really practical? And if you think that, work to change the law.

Unfair name calling. You don't have to be an authoritarian to think maybe there should be some classified documents and covert information and that people like Manning should not just reveal it on their own. You should take that back.

In the modern world, I might have more respect for him if he checked with others, or found some other allies besides Julian. Or had picked out the specific information that showed evil deeds and taken care not to harm other CIA assets.

Same people outraged about Valerie Plame being outed should recognize this is the type of person they are throwing under the bus.

[rhett o rick]

40. I totally agree there should be some information that should be considered "classified".

However, I am very familiar that the classification tag is misused. And I believe when it is misused to hide violations of citizens right, then all bet are off. These government employees work for me.

I am so glad you mentioned Ms. Plame. When she was exposed and all her network were exposed, no one was punished. Why? Because the authoritarians were the ones doing the exposing. But should one of the masses try to expose those in the Ruling Elite for gross violations of our Constitution, bingo-bango you want him to rot in prison.

We, as a democratic peoples, are lost until people realize the inequity here. Cheney can kill tens of thousands and still be welcome on The View, while Pfc Manning exposes our government and he will be put in prison for the rest of his life. Nancy Grace will love it, Sean Hannity will love it, and the conservative community will love it. How is it unfair to call these people authoritarians?

[WillyT]

39. K & R !!!