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Perhaps this is not related but, I remember seeing a chatlog where Manning confessed to be transgender. I think some info can be found here
http://www.alternet.org/story/151541...arsh_treatment
Either way, what he did was wrong, sure, but things are always more complicated than we think, especially with topics like these :(
I hope he gets out.
Transparency lags as Bradley Manning case opens
By JOSH GERSTEIN | 12/16/11 12:51 AM EST
After more than 18 months, the veil on the military's case against Private Bradley Manning is set to be pulled back a bit Friday, as a public legal hearing gets underway into the evidence supporting charges that Manning leaked thousands of classified military reports and diplomatic cables to the online document repository WikiLeaks.
The proceedings against Private First Class Manning since his arrest last May have amounted to a legal black hole, at least on the official record. Aside from two charge sheets listing the preliminary allegations against the Army intelligence analyst, the Army has refused to release any of the legal filings exchanged between the defense and the prosecution, as well as any of the orders issued by military judges or investigating officers assigned to the case.
One notable irony: while Manning is now charged with aiding the enemy through his alleged leaks, there would be far more information placed on the official public record about his case if he actually were the enemy. If Manning were a foreigner held at Guantanamo Bay and facing a military commission, numerous filings about his case would be on a public website that the Pentagon set up earlier this year in response to long-running complaints that the controversial military tribunals lacked transparency because while proceedings were open to the press and human rights observers, the legal motions being discussed were unavailable to the public.
Military law experts say numerous legal filings must have been exchanged in Manning's case by now, especially regarding the protracted delays and their implications for speedy trial rules that apply in the military justice system. One reason for the delay in Manning's case is known: he was referred to a board of mental health experts to determine his competence to stand trial. Army officials announced in April 2011 that the Rule 706 board had found Manning competent to stand trial.
In recent weeks, Manning's civilian defense lawyer, David Coombs, has released several of the defense's legal filings on his blog. They include a request for witnesses for the hearing set to begin Friday, including calls for President Barack Obama to discuss a public statement he made that Manning "broke the law." However, one has to assume that the defense is releasing information it considers in Manning's interest to make public rather than the more complete set of facts one might gain from examining the prosecution filings, the defense filings and relevant orders entered by the investigating officer or judge.
POLITICO requested that full set of filings from the Army back in April under the Freedom of Information Act. The Army rejected the request on the grounds that Manning is the subject of an ongoing law enforcement proceeding, notwithstanding the fact that the information requested would be almost always be routinely available in any civilian, state or federal, criminal case in the U.S. Army spokespeople did not respond to follow-up queries about the records this week.
Longtime military law practitioner Eugene Fidell of Yale Law School and the National Institute for Military Justice says obtaining public access to court records is a perennial problem in the military justice system.
"There’s a failure to recognize that transparency in terms of access to the record and public confidence in the administration of justice are inextricably linked…..For a system that struggles to gain respect, this is actually the opposite of the way business should be conducted," Fidell said. "Partly to blame at least is the fact the military does not have standing courts martial. If it did, with proper clerk’s offices with the same dedication to transparency we have in federal [civilian] court, a lot of these issues would go away."
Friday's hearing should produce one milestone of sorts: it will be the first time Manning has been seen in person by reporters since he was arrested last year.
However, ground rules for coverage of Manning's Article 32 session look to be more restrictive than those imposed during a Guantanamo military commission hearing shown to reporters via videolink at the same Maryland base just a few weeks ago. The Army has indicated that reporters attending Manning's session will not be able to post real-time updates or tweets about the proceedings and may only file updates once the court has gone out of session or by being escorted off the base. The wireless internet connection in the filing center will be turned off while the proceedings are underway and restored only after the session breaks, according to the ground rules, which have been protested by the Pentagon Press Association.
In response to a FOIA request earlier this year, the Marine Corps did, after two administrative appeals, provide POLITICO with a sheaf of records on the conditions of Manning's detention at military brig in Quantico, Va. The records showed that, contrary to a public statement from the Pentagon's general counsel, at least one internal inquiry found that Manning's treatment at the brig did not comply with established procedures. The released records also included a single glimpse into the Army's prosecution of Manning: a two-page memo (posted here) listing six witnesses and evidence to be presented at a preliminary court hearing in Iraq on July 14, 2010.
The session, known as an Article 32 hearing, never took place. Instead, Manning was flown back to the U.S. and placed in the Quantico brig. Following widespread complaints about his treatment there, the Army moved Manning to Fort Leavenworth, Ks. in April 2011. The session set to get underway Friday at Fort Meade is procedurally the same as the one cancelled in Iraq a year and a half ago. It is to determine whether the evidence warrants the charges being referred to a full, formal court martial.
The two-page memo deletes on privacy grounds various names, including that of the Army Lieutenant Colonel and JAG corps lawyer who was to conduct the July 2010 session.
Fidell says such deletions are a perplexing product of the intersection between FOIA rules and the records of military justice proceedings. (FOIA rules don't apply to civilian courts, whose records are normally directly available to the public.)
When Siobhan Esposito, the wife of an Army Captain who was apparently murdered in his office in Iraq in 2005 asked for the official record of the public court martial where her husband's alleged killer was acquitted, the Army eventually released a partial transcript of the proceedings, but deleted the names, grades, duty positions and other identifying information of Army personnel "below the office director level" including the name of the military judge, the attorneys in the case and witnesses. The deletions were made even though the court martial, held at Fort Bragg, N.C., was open to the public and anyone in the room could have heard and written down the allegedly private details.
“It was crazy…..It was like something right out of the Marx Brothers," Fidell recalled.
Fidell filed suit in January of this year on Esposito's behalf. A couple of months later, the Army agreed to provide the widow with a full transcript of the open sessions of the court martial, with only the street address of one witness deleted. The Army also agreed to pay $2500 for the legal fees incurred in filing the case.
Interesting. (He also gives mention to how TGs can't enter/join the military.)
Iraq Combat Vet Dan Choi Forcibly Ousted, Barred From Bradley Manning Hearing at Ft. Meade - YouTube
He may use that as his defense.... The idea of wanting to change genders.Quote:
Originally Posted by KarinaGiselle
Santa Claus talks about Bradley Manning... ha ha! It's actually Ray McGovern.... Ray McGovern - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ray McGovern Manning Rally - YouTube
Bradley Manning: Hero, or Traitor?
http://www.zcommunications.org/bradl...-marjorie-cohn
The intellectual cowardice of Bradley Manning’s critics:
http://www.salon.com/2011/12/24/the_...ics/singleton/
Boohoo. Thanks to Bradley, he released info about Operation Eagle Guardian and the Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative. Two things that the general public don't need to know. Fuck him..not literally.
I think you exaggerate -in the first place, Manning had easy access to the material he sent to Wikileaks, exposing the sloppy administration of confidential information, an embarrassment that the US Military can't get over. In the second place, I agree that Manning violated his contract with the military but his treatment by 'the West's' standards has been excessive. In the third place, it is hard to believe that the Russians did not know about Operation Eagle Guardian anyway, even if they no longer pose a Military threat to 'the west' -if indeed they ever did; and finally, the Critical foreign Dependencies Intiative is a secret list of many locations that can be found on Google. But even with the knowledge Israel and the US claims to have of Iran's nuclear power sites there seems to be no way of attacking them and guaranteeing a successful mission.Quote:
Originally Posted by notdrunk
If you want to cause havoc with the movement of crucial products, blockade the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal and the Straits of Hormuz. If you want to disrupt global communications, knock out ISP's, telephone exchanges, power plants. Blow up the railrway connections that take commuters into large cities like London, Paris, Berlin, New York, Chicago,Moscow, Tokyo, Sydney etc.
I mean, what is it that is being kept secret that should be a secret? That, ultimately is the question that is bigger than either Manning or Assange -and why are these secrets being kept from you?
Whatever anyone thinks of the subject matter that was released, Manning violated his oath & contract with the US Department of Defense. He knew the consequences of the actions he took & did it anyway. I don't see where he's owed any sympathy.