Pfc Bradley Manning - The Forgotten Man

[stonehart]

Your thoughts on this.

 

[Muadib]

Personally, I think the guy is a hero for what he did. War criminals and profiteers should have their shit put in the streets for all to see in my opinion. He didn't give away positions or troop movements, he put a bunch of dirty politicians and war criminals on display for the world to see. Good for him. I also find it very telling that as soon as this all started going down, Assange was hit with bogus charges and several corporations refused to process donations to the Wikileaks site. Just goes to show how deeply US political and corporate interests are entwined.

 

[Decker]

The man held a position of trust, not to mention he took an oath to safeguard his classified material. He broke that trust, he broke his oath and now (in my opinion) he has got nuthin' coming. I hope he does 25 years in a Federal prison.

Decker

 

[stonehart]

The man held a position of trust, not to mention he took an oath to safeguard his classified material. He broke that trust, he broke his oath and now (in my opinion) he has got nuthin' coming. I hope he does 25 years in a Federal prison.

Decker

Yeah Don I see your point and this is where I have a problem .. I am split 50/50 on this so don't get to mad by what I have to say as I come from a family with a strong military background.

Yes he took an oath, but at what point is it that your responsibility is to the citizens of the country you are working for and covering up the abuses by those fighting alongside you or in command of you? At what point do you need to show corruption in a system and let the people see it for what it is or just keep doing your job and hope someone else will do it?

Hard questions to answer for in releasing the information could you not also be putting the very people you are meant to be protecting in harms way as well?

I do not see this as black and white but many colors or grey.

Let us put it another way and one we could all relate to here on this forum: Lets say someone who worked in a top secret military program released undeniable evidence of UFO's. Where would we all stand on this? The man took an oath and held a position of trust so should he get 25 years for showing people the truth?
What say a person working for the Government found information showing corruption at the highest levels should they also be given 25 years for showing the people the truth?

Hard questions.

 

[mike]

Like most people i found that leaked video disturbing, but thats another issue.

To be honest i have some questions on mannings motivation.

As a long standing member at the military times forum, ive been following the gays in military debate for many years, and its not pretty.
Official policy aside, the rank and file do take a dim view of homosexuality, and manning's treatment was typically poor, it wasnt helped by the fact that in addition to being gay, he was also gender confused, that is he felt as though he was female.

Nicks writes that Manning would travel back to Washington, D.C. for visits, where an ex-boyfriend helped him find his way around the city's vibrant gay community, introducing him to lobbyists, activists, and White House aides. Back at Fort Drum, he continued to display emotional problems and by August 2009 had been referred to an Army mental-health counselor, a chaplain. A friend told Nicks that Manning could be emotionally fraught, describing an evening they had watched two movies together – The Last King of Scotland and Dancer in the Dark – which reduced Manning to tears for hours. By September 2009, his relationship with Watkins was in trouble, and although they reconciled for a short time, it was effectively over.[20]
Deployment to Iraq, discussion with counsellor

After several few weeks engaging in simulations at the Joint Readiness Training Center in Fort Polk, Louisiana, he was deployed to Forward Operating Base Hammer, near Baghdad, arriving in October 2009. From his workstation there, he had access to SIPRNet (the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network) and JWICS (the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System). Two of his superiors had discussed not taking him to Iraq – one of them said it was felt he was "a risk to himself and possibly others," according to a statement later issued by the army – but again the shortage of intelligence analysts held sway.[21]

A month later, in November 2009, he was promoted from Private First Class to Specialist. That same month, according to his chats with Lamo, he made his first contact with WikiLeaks, shortly after it posted 570,000 pager messages from the 9/11 attacks, which it released on November 25.[22] Also in November, Manning wrote to a gender counselor in the United States, said he felt female, and discussed having sex reassignment surgery. The counselor told Steve Fishman of New York Magazine that it was clear Manning was in crisis, partly because of his gender confusion, but also because he was opposed to the kind of war he found himself involved in.[23]

He was by all accounts unhappy and isolated. Because of the army's "don't ask, don't tell" policy (known as DADT and repealed in September 2011), he was not allowed to be openly gay, though he apparently made no secret of it – his friends told reporters that he kept a fairy wand on his desk. When he told his roommate he was gay, the roommate responded by suggesting they not speak to each other. The working conditions did not help his mental health. He was doing 14–15 hour night shifts in a secure room, which he described to a friend as "a dimly lit room crowded to the point you cant move an inch without having to quietly say 'excuse me sir,' 'pardon me sergeant major'  ... cables trip you up everywhere, papers stacked everywhere ..."[24]

On December 20, 2009, after being told he would lose his one day off a week for being persistently late, he overturned a table in a conference room in what witnesses described as a fit of rage, damaging a computer that was sitting on it – and in the view of one soldier looked as though he was about to grab a rifle from a gun rack, before his arms were pinned behind his back. Several of those who witnessed the incident believed his access to sensitive material ought to have been withdrawn at that point. The following month, he began posting on Facebook that he felt alone and hopeless.[25]

Army investigators told a pre-trial hearing (see below) that they believed Manning downloaded the Iraq and Afghan war logs around this time, in January 2010. WikiLeaks tweeted on January 8 that they had obtained "encrypted videos of US bomb strikes on civilians," and linked to a story about the May 2009 Granai airstrike in Afghanistan. During the same month, he traveled to the United States via Germany for a two-week holiday, arriving on January 24, and attended a party at Boston University's hacker space. It was during this visit that Manning first lived for a few days as a woman, dressing in women's clothes, wearing a wig and going out. After his arrest, his former partner, Tyler Watkins, told Kevin Poulsen of Wired that Manning had said during the January visit that he had found some sensitive information and was considering leaking it.[26]

I have to ask myself if he did what he did, as an act of revenge against the service.

Keeping a fairy wand on his desk, during DADT was a recipie for disaster, he would have been treated like a POS and ostracised.

What i can say, is the question in regards to his motivation for leaking, would be a lot easier to answer without this aspect to the story.

 

[Wade]

I'll go along with stonehart's observations. I'm sure he didn't enlist just to cough up official secrets, in all likelihood in the course of doing his duty he came across something he felt was against his code and against what he enlisted for and turned whistle blower. where I would side more with don is this, at the time he turned the documents over, he knew he had broken his oath and knew the penalties against it, therefore he would be subject to punishment, pending the military whistle blower act which I believe offers somewhat limited protection (I understand) I guess that it's up to the lawyers to determine whether his actions fall under this act but if he really feels what he did was just, he must be prepared to pay the price.

If I recall, and I could be wrong, wasn't he a known "malcontent" before he was put in a position to be handling such docs ? If so, somebody really dropped the ball on that one unless it was intentional and that would be like giving a man a rope to hang himself with, you don't give matches to a pyromaniac.

 

[mike]

I'll go along with stonehart's observations. I'm sure he didn't enlist just to cough up official secrets, in all likelihood in the course of doing his duty he came across something he felt was against code and against what he enlisted for and turned whistle blower, where I would side more with don is this, at the time he turned the documents over, he knew he had broken his oath and knew the penalties against it, therefore would be subject to punishment, pending the military whistle blower act which I believe offers somewhat limited protection I understand, I guess that it's up to the lawyers to determine whether his actions fall under this act but if he really feels what he did was just, he must be prepared to pay the price.

If I recall, and I could be wrong, wasn't he a known "malcontent" before he was put in a position to be handling such docs ? If so, somebody really dropped the ball on that one unless it was intentional and that would be like giving a man a rope to hang himself with, you don't give matches to a pyromaniac.

Two of his superiors had discussed not taking him to Iraq – one of them said it was felt he was "a risk to himself and possibly others,"

he overturned a table in a conference room in what witnesses described as a fit of rage, damaging a computer that was sitting on it – and in the view of one soldier looked as though he was about to grab a rifle from a gun rack, before his arms were pinned behind his back. Several of those who witnessed the incident believed his access to sensitive material ought to have been withdrawn at that point. The following month, he began posting on Facebook that he felt alone and hopeless

I agree SM, the signs were there, and the ball was well and truly dropped.
He should have been given a section 8, the moment it was felt he was a risk to others

Its why i dont think he should do any hard time, If you give a toddler a loaded pistol to play with , whos fault is it when TSHTF ?.

There are no winners in this mess, but neither is the military a total victim.
They ignored all the warning signs and got their arse bit

 

[Wade]

Sorry mike, I didn't notice your post before I weighed In

 

[mike]

No worries Mate

Manning

"im very isolated atm ... lost all of my emotional support channels ... family, boyfriend, trusting colleagues ... im a mess."

A Washington Post editorial asked instead why an apparently unstable Army private had been able to access and transfer sensitive material in the first place. According to Nicks, Manning's sexuality came into play too. "Don't ask, don't tell" was repealed not long after his arrest, with Manning illustrating for a right-wing fringe that gays were not fit for military service, while the mainstream media presented him as a gay soldier driven mad by bullying

I think there is a valuable lesson here too, if you are going to let homosexuals serve (and i think they should), then you have to make sure they dont get subjected to systemic bullying.
Its like letting black people serve, then segregating them and treating them like shit, thats going to generate resentment and problems.

They "recycled" him despite the fact he would curl up on his bunk and piss his pants.........
They took the bolt out of his gun........
But gave him access to top secret info ?

And they are surprised he behaved in an undisciplined and unpredictable manner ?

There is something wrong with a scenario where an unstable Army private had been able to access and transfer sensitive material.

I once worked for a private computer company where the security went through your bags and patted you down,as you entered and left the building the penalty for having any sort of writable media, disks flash drives etc, was instant dismisal.
The systems logged all file transfers, getting data past the inhouse DMZ was impossible
He should never have been able to transfer the data.

 

[stonehart]

Thanks for your thought on this all. I support wikileaks in more than just words but the Manning case has left a sour taste in my mouth hence why I am 50/50 on the whole subject.

 

[Wade]

O.K. Stoney, now start one on gary mckinnon !!!

 

[mike]

The other question i ask myself is was he Anon or an Idiot ? (or something else entirely)

Manning e-mailed one of his superiors after the video aired and tried to persuade her that it was the same version as the video of the attack that was stored on SIPRnet; Nicks writes that it seemed as though Manning wanted to be caught

On May 19, according to army investigators, he e-mailed Eric Schmiedl, a mathematician he had met in Boston, and told him he had been the source of the "Collateral Murder" video

Manning told Lamo he was also responsible for the leak, known as "Cablegate", of 251,287 State Department cables

Thats a little strange, he blew the whistle on himself too, was he after attention ? fame ? or revenge on the US military who had treated him shabbily ?

He could have done his bit for humanity without exposing himself on purpose.

Which makes me question his motives

But as per my posts above the military has to take some blame here.

On April 30, he posted on Facebook that he was utterly lost, and over the next few days that "Bradley Manning is not a piece of equipment," that he was "beyond frustrated," and "livid" after being "lectured by ex-boyfriend despite months of relationship ambiguity ..." On May 7, he seemed to spiral out of control. According to army witnesses, he was found curled into a fetal position in a storage cupboard, with a knife at his feet, and had cut the words "I want" into a vinyl chair. A few hours later, he had an altercation with a female intelligence analyst, Specialist Jihrleah Showman, during which he punched her in the face. The brigade psychiatrist referred to an "occupational problem and adjustment disorder," and recommended a discharge. His master sergeant removed the bolt from his weapon, and he was sent to work in the supply office, though at this point his security clearance remained in place.

They removed the bolt from his gun, but left his security clearance in place ?

And they wonder why some people crack jokes about MI being an oxymoron.......

And lets not dodge the inevitable, this whole thing could read as the storyline from a plot to nail Assange.

It wouldnt be the first "honeypot" attempt to nail Assange

In computer terminology, a honeypot is a trap set to detect, deflect, or in some manner counteract attempts at unauthorized use of information systems. Generally it consists of a computer, data, or a network site that appears to be part of a network, but is actually isolated and monitored, and which seems to contain information or a resource of value to attackers.

Johnson said he found SSH logs on the MacBook that showed an SFTP connection, from an IP address that resolved to Manning's aunt's home, to a Swedish IP address with links to WikiLeaks.[66] There was also a text file named "Readme" attached to the logs, a note apparently written by Manning to Assange, which called the Iraq and Afghan War logs "possibly one of the most significant documents of our time, removing the fog of war and revealing the true nature of 21st century assymmetric warfare."[67] The investigators testified they had also recovered an exchange from May 2010 between Manning and Eric Schmiedl, a Boston mathematician, in which Manning said he was the source of the Baghdad helicopter attack ("Collateral Murder") video. Johnson said there had been two attempts to delete material from the MacBook. The operating system was re-installed in January 2010, and on or around January 31 an attempt was made to erase the hard drive by doing a "zero-fill," which involves overwriting material with zeroes. The material was overwritten only once, which meant it could be retrieved.[66]
Manning's lawyers argued that the government had overstated the harm the release of the documents had caused, and had overcharged Manning to force him to give evidence against Assange.

honeypot

A sting operation that involves one going undercover to seduce an (usually high profile) individual into a compromising position for future extortion purposes.
Well there's false flags, dead drops, drop outs, cut outs, active doubles, passive doubles, dangled moles. The often under appreciated honeypot. One of my favorites.

The two Swedish women behind the charges have been accused by his supporters of making malicious complaints or being "honeytraps" in a wider conspiracy to discredit him.
Assange's UK lawyer, Mark Stephens, attributed the allegations to "dark forces", saying: "The honeytrap has been sprung ... After what we've seen so far you can reasonably conclude this is part of a greater plan." The journalist John Pilger dismissed the case as a "political stunt" and in an interview with ABC news, Assange said Swedish prosecutors were withholding evidence which suggested he had been "set up."

 

[nameless]

poor ol' gary mac.

 

[stonehart]

If he was anon the he was an idiot one for he broke the first rule and that is he gave away who his real identity was.
Personally I have always felt he was a set up to take down Wikileaks...

As for a Honeypot it could very well be and has always been the favorite tool of the more onto it FBI out there.

 

[trainedobserver]

Unless he is mentally deficient in some way, I think he had to have entered into the whole affair knowing full well he would be caught and what the consequences would be. Certainly, he would have known he would be caught, charged, found guilty, and imprisoned. That said, what should have someone in his position have done if they thought they were witness to systemic violations of U.S. Military Code of Conduct? The online conversations that got him caught show he wasn't what anyone would call a spy-master and the description of the work environment sounds anything but professional. Is there any aspect to this story that isn't infuriating, disappointing, and ultimately depressing?

 

[pixelsmith]

The man held a position of trust, not to mention he took an oath to safeguard his classified material. He broke that trust, he broke his oath and now (in my opinion) he has got nuthin' coming. I hope he does 25 years in a Federal prison.

Decker

but Don, he also trusted his superiors to conduct themselves and their war games according to the geneva convention. they broke that trust so his "contract" with them was null and void. i applaud him for exposing the war crimes committed and he should be given a medal, full benefits and a pat on the back. his superiors should be the ones doing 25 years in federal prison.

 

[Wade]

It may be a moot point, but I find it telling that there was no money involved or any apparent reward to him so whether you agree with his actions or not his motivations seem pure unless he thought if he got caught he would end up with a less than honorable discharge or something on that level which is either naive or emotionally unstable, like mike and stonehart alluded to