It is always a bad sign for one's case when it is necessary to rely on cases from more than one hundred fifty years ago as declarative binding precedent. Yet that is exactly what the prosecutors in the case against gay army service member Bradley Manning are resorting to. I have long believed that the government's real vendetta against Manning is fueled by the fact that he allegedly exposed atrocities if not out right war crimes that the military leadership wanted to remain secret and unknown. Much more concern has been shown by the military brass - and sadly the Obama administration as well - over the fact that the murder of unarmed civilians and reporters was made public rather than has ever been shown over prosecuting those who committed the atrocities/war crimes purportedly exposed by Manning and Wilileaks. A piece in The New Yorker looks at this questionable prosecution. Here are highlights:
But as a linchpin in Manning’s prosecution—he is accused of giving classified cables and other materials to WikiLeaks—it is a troubling theme. According to the AP, prosecutors singled out an 1863 case in which a soldier named Henry Vanderwater was convicted of giving a command roster to a Virginia newspaper, which printed the information. “Publishing information in a newspaper [can] indirectly convey information to the enemy,” a prosecutor quoted by Politico argued. Can anyone aid the enemy by giving information to a reporter? Are reporters aiding the enemy if they publish it—and who, by the way, is “the enemy”?
There are other charges against Manning—twenty-two in all—and he has indicated that he would be willing to plead guilty to seven of them. (His trial, which was supposed to start in March, has now been delayed until June.) But aiding the enemy is a charge of a different degree than simply exposing classified information. It involves intent and carries heavier penalties. It is also the sort of charge that, in wartime, or anytime, almost invites overreach. Would it aid the enemy, for example, to expose war crimes committed by American forces or lies told by the American government? In that case, who is aiding the enemy—the whistle-blower or the perpetrators themselves?
In addition to the political and legal issues, the hearings have dealt with what is both a moral and a math problem. The judge, Colonel Denise Lind, agreed that the conditions of Manning’s detention had, at times, become illegal—“excessive in relation to legitimate government interests” —but not illegal enough to have any charge against him dismissed . Instead, as Charlie Savage reports, she did some calculations: whatever sentence Manning might get would be reduced by seven days for times he shouldn’t have been on suicide watch; ten for days when his exercise was restricted; twenty for days when he had his clothes taken away; and seventy-five days for a stretch when, despite the advice of psychiatrists, he was put on restrictive “prevention of injury” status. That is a hundred and twelve days in all—or about the same as the three-month sentence that Henry Vanderwater got, back in 1863, along with a dishonorable discharge.
Every day that the Obama administration fails to intervene and put an end to this travesty of a trial, the less I think of Obama himself. Manning, if he released the information, exposed horrors that should have been quickly investigated and those who committed these atrocities should have been vigorously prosecuted and punished. Instead it has been the individual who exposed the war crimes who has been aggressively prosecuted. Something is very, very rotten in this whole saga.
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