Manning deaths = zero

[SHRED]

USA military/corporate/complex deaths = millions


Bradley Manning Sentencing Testimony Suggests WikiLeaks Not Responsible For Any Deaths
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/03/bradley-manning-sentence_n_3696501.html

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[leveymg]

1. Official State Dept.conclusion, leaks "Embarrassing but not damaging"

all the rest that we've heard is just spin used to justify the severity of the government's overreaction to these disclosures.

But, the truth, as Undersercretary of State Patrick Kennedy concluded, is that secrecy and classification is mostly there to keep embarrassing details out of public sight, and Manning's leaks had mostly a domestic political impact:

If the sentencing testimony from State Undersecretary Kennedy remains hidden Monday in a secure courtroom at Fort Meade, the closest we may come to the facts is an anonymous congressional aide's January 2011 analysis to Reuters. The aide's summation of internal government reviews of the WikiLeaks releases at both the State and Defense departments came just months after Kennedy first briefed Congress on harm from WikiLeaks.

It's an appraisal that has been widely known for years, yet it has not stopped critics from repeating the charge that Assange and Manning have blood on their hands.

As the anonymous aide related to Reuters in 2011: "We were told (the impact of WikiLeaks revelations) was embarrassing but not damaging."

[Igel]

2. "Suggests" = "proves"?

No, no. There's something missing in that equation. It doesn't balance.

Ah. I got it.

"Suggests" + confirmation bias = "proves."

There. Now the equation balances.

Most of the people claimed publicly to be at risk are informants in the boonies, one-off encounters or short-term contacts. To show "zero" deaths you'd have to show they were still alive or, if dead, their deaths were unrelated.

Go with the more accurate "no deaths proven to be attributable to Manning's leaks."

Yes, it's awkward, it's clunky. But "suggests" = "proven" has come to be a trope, an easy claim that requires no proof and is assumed to be true. It's mind rot. Handy rhetorical device for when victory is all and accuracy is nothing (which, sadly, often summarizes the current state of American public "thought.&quot

[backscatter712]

3. ...yet he's the one facing a prison sentence normally given to serial killers.

But do the guys caught actually torturing and murdering people in our name get such sentences?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. Unlike what happens with the drones.