Bradley Manning "Should Never Have Been Sent to Iraq"

The caption of this post reads from a headline in The Guardian. The story that follows that headline says as much about Army incompetence as it does about Manning who has been accused of leaking military secrets. Indeed, the story suggest that almost anyone and everyone could have accessed the so-called secret information and opens a whole new perspective to the efforts to vigorously prosecute Manning - perhaps to cover up the Army's own ineptitude. Living in an area with a heavy military presence, it doesn't take much exposure to learn that the the higher ups always prefer to blame problems on underlings and then try to hang them out to dry. While one has to wonder how Manning remained in the military, the bigger questions are why was he sent to Iraq and why was he given access to sensitive information? Here are highlights from the first of two Guardian stories:
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Bradley Manning, the 23-year-old army private from Oklahoma alleged to have been behind the biggest US government leak of all time, is now in Fort Leavenworth military jail, Kansas. He faces 34 charges, and if convicted could face a prison sentence of up to 52 years.
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So why did the US army ignore warnings from officers that Manning was unstable? Why did it send him – a 5ft 2in gay man with a history of being bullied in the military – to one of the most isolated and desolate bases in Iraq? Why was security so lax on the base that passwords for secret military computers were posted on sticky notes nearby?
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A year after his arrest, a Guardian investigation reveals a trail of ignored warnings, beatings and failed personal relationships that led to Manning's arrest on 29 May 2010.
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Despite the concerns of his immediate superiors, Manning was "recycled" instead of being discharged. The war in Iraq was in its fourth year and the army was short of recruits. In August 2008, after training as an intelligence analyst, he was stationed at Fort Drum in upstate New York while he awaited deployment to Iraq. Here he was considered a "liability" by superior officers.
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Manning was deployed to Forward Operating Base Hammer, one of the most isolated US posts in Iraq, in the desert close to the Iranian border. Veterans recalled a desolate place built mainly from freight containers. . . . . Hammer's overriding culture was one of boredom and casual bullying, where bored non-commissioned officers picked on juniors. "They had a saying, 'Shit rolls downhill,' " said Jimmy Rodriguez, 29, an infantry soldier who was stationed at the base with Manning.
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For entertainment, soldiers would download porn to workstations or access footage from Apache attack helicopters showing civilians being shot at, often through SIPRNet, the classified intelligence network used by the state department and department of defense.
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According to Sullivan, security was extremely lax. "If you saw a laptop with a red network wire going into it, you knew it was on SIPRNet. If you had the password you could access SIPRNet. Everybody would write their password on sticky notes and set it by their computer. There is no wonder something like this transpired."
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According to Peter van Buren, a civilian reconstruction team leader on the base, there was a sense of a security free-for-all about SIPRNet. "Soldiers would call it 'war porn' or 'the war channel' or just 'war TV'.
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A second Guardian story continues with more details. Here's a sampling:
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The American soldier at the centre of the WikiLeaks revelations was so mentally fragile before his deployment to Iraq that he wet himself, threw chairs around, shouted at his commanding officers and was regularly brought in for psychiatric evaluations, according to an investigative film produced by the Guardian.
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"I escorted Manning a couple of times to his 'psych' evaluations after his outbursts. They never should have trapped him in and recycled him in [to Iraq]. Never. Not that mess of a child I saw with my own two eyes. No one has mentioned the army's failure here – and the discharge unit who agreed to send him out there," said the officer, who asked not to be identified because of the hostility towards Manning in the military. "I live in an area where I would be persecuted if I said anything against the army or helped Manning," the officer said.
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In Iraq, Manning retained his security clearance to work as an intelligence specialist. Two months after his arrival, the bolt was removed from his rifle because he was thought to be a danger, his lawyer, David Coombs, has confirmed. A Guardian investigation focusing on soldiers who worked with Manning in Iraq has also discovered there was virtually no computer and intelligence security at Manning's station in Iraq, Forward Operating Base Hammer.
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"On the computers that I saw there was a [sticky label] either on the computer or next to the computer with the information to log on. I was never given permission to log on so I never used it but there were a lot of people who did."
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Manning is facing multiple charges of downloading and passing on sensitive information. No one else at the base has been charged. Manning denies all the charges. If convicted he could face up to 55 years in jail.
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Even if one assumes Manning leaked the documents, the bigger story that the Army is seeking to sweep under the rug is that of WTF was going on at that military location? More on this issue needs to come out so that Manning isn't sent up the river as a scape goat for the sins of derelict superiors.

The Consequences of Sexual Abuse - And Why I'm Not a Catholic

I have taken a lot of denigration at times for leaving the Catholic Church and continuing to focus on this blog on the moral rot and hypocrisy that is rampant throughout the Church's clerical ranks - including denigration from one family member in particular. Sexual abuse of children and youths has real and lasting consequences on the victims, yet it's often easy to miss the magnitude of human tragedy for the victims as one sees fleeting reports on damage awards to victims, dioceses filing bankruptcy to avoid the full consequences of the moral bankruptcy of past and present bishops and priests (Milwaukee is the latest to file), and the Vatican claiming sovereign immunity as a "state" to dodge the consequences of papal directed cover ups and secrecy. As ABC News and other outlets are reporting, Bill Zeller (pictured at right), a promising Princeton graduate student who had been haunted by childhood rapes killed himself this week, leaving a 4,000-word suicide note disclosing the "darkness" that stalked him. The Daily Princetonian has an article on Zeller's brilliance. Zeller does not identify his abuser, but the damage that Zeller experienced is similar to what many of the of the tens of thousands of victims of predator priests have voiced. For those who denigrate me, they need to read Zeller's suicide note, highlights of which are below, and accept the responsibility that as "practicing Catholics" they support the institution that knowingly and uncaringly allowed so much damage of this nature. My question remains: how can a truly moral person continue to attend and financially support such an church? Here are portions of Zeller's suicide note:
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I have the urge to declare my sanity and justify my actions, but I
assume I'll never be able to convince anyone that this was the right decision. Maybe it's true that anyone who does this is insane by definition, but I can at least explain my reasoning. I considered not writing any of this because of how personal it is, but I like tying up loose ends and don't want people to wonder why I did this. Since I've never spoken to anyone about what happened to me, people would likely draw the wrong conclusions.
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My first memories as a child are of being raped, repeatedly. This has affected every aspect of my life. This darkness, which is the only way I can describe it, has followed me like a fog, but at times intensified and overwhelmed me, usually triggered by a distinct situation. In kindergarten I couldn't use the bathroom and would stand petrified whenever I needed to, which started a trend of awkward and unexplained social behavior. The damage that was done to my body still prevents me from using the bathroom normally, but now it's less of a physical impediment than a daily reminder of what was done to me.
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This darkness followed me as I grew up. I remember spending hours
playing with legos, having my world consist of me and a box of cold, plastic blocks. Just waiting for everything to end. It's the same thing I do now, but instead of legos it's surfing the web or reading or listening to a baseball game. Most of my life has been spent feeling dead inside, waiting for my body to catch up.
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The darkness is with me nearly every time I wake up. I feel like a grime is covering me. I feel like I'm trapped in a contimated body that no amount of washing will clean. Whenever I think about what happened I feel manic and itchy and can't concentrate on anything else. It manifests itself in hours of eating or staying up for days at a time or sleeping for sixteen hours straight or week long programming binges or constantly going to the gym. I'm exhausted from feeling like this every hour of every day.
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Three to four nights a week I have nightmares about what happened. It makes me avoid sleep and constantly tired, because sleeping with what feels like hours of nightmares is not restful. I wake up sweaty and furious. I'm reminded every morning of what was done to me and the control it has over my life.
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I didn't realize how deep a hold he had on me and my life until my
first relationship. I stupidly assumed that no matter how the darkness affected me personally, my romantic relationships would somehow be separated and protected. . . . . Instead of being an escape, relationships and romantic contact with other people only intensified everything about him that I couldn't stand. I will never be able to have a relationship in which he is not the focus, affecting every aspect of my romantic interactions.
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Last spring I met someone who was unlike anyone else I'd ever met.
Someone who showed me just how well two people could get along and how much I could care about another human being. Someone I know I could be with and love for the rest of my life, if I weren't so fucked up. Amazingly, she liked me. She liked the shell of the man the darkness had left behind. But it didn't matter because I couldn't be alone with her. It was never just the two of us, it was always the three of us: her, me and the darkness. The closer we got, the more intensely I'd feel the darkness, like some evil mirror of my emotions.
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I don't blame anyone in particular, I guess it's just how people are. Even if I felt like this is something I could have shared, I have no interest in being part of a friendship or relationship where the other person views me as the damaged and contaminated person that I am. So even if I were able to trust someone, I probably would not have told them about what happened to me. At this point I simply don't care who knows.
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I'm just a broken, miserable shell of a human being. Being molested has defined me as a person and shaped me as a human being and it has made me the monster I am and there's nothing I can do to escape it. I don't know any other existence. I don't know what life feels like where I'm apart from any of this. I actively despise the person I am. I just feel fundamentally broken, almost non-human.
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I have accepted that the darkness will never allow me to be in a
relationship. I will never go to sleep with someone in my arms, feeling the comfort of their hands around me. I will never know what uncontimated intimacy is like. I will never have an exclusive bond with someone, someone who can be the recipient of all the love I have to give.
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There's no point in identifying who molested me, so I'm just going to leave it at that. I doubt the word of a dead guy with no evidence about something that happened over twenty years ago would have much sway.
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I often wonder what life must be like for other people. People who
can feel the love from others and give it back unadulterated, people who can experience sex as an intimate and joyous experience, people who can experience the colors and happenings of this world without constant misery. I wonder who I'd be if things had been different or if I were a stronger person. It sounds pretty great.
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I'd also like to address my family, if you can call them that. I despise everything they stand for and I truly hate them, in a non-emotional, dispassionate and what I believe is a healthy way. The world will be a better place when they're dead--one with less hatred and intolerance.
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If you're unfamiliar with the situation, my parents are fundamentalist Christians who kicked me out of their house and cut me off financially when I was 19 because I refused to attend seven hours of church a week. They live in a black and white reality they've constructed for themselves.
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If you choose to follow a religion where, for example, devout Catholics who are trying to be good people are all going to Hell but child molestors go to Heaven (as long as they were "saved" at some point), that's your choice, but it's fucked up. Maybe a God who operates by those rules does exist. If so, fuck Him.

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Their church was always more important than the members of their family and they happily sacrificed whatever necessary in order to satisfy their contrived beliefs about who they should be.
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I'm sorry for the pain this causes. I really do wish I had another
option. I hope this letter explains why I needed to do this. If you
can't understand this decision, I hope you can at least forgive me. Bill Zeller
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Multiply this tragedy thousands and thousands of times over and that's what "practicing Catholic" are accessories to because those who allowed it to happen and go unpunished remain unpunished themselves - one even currently sits on the throne of St. Peter. I simply cannot be a part of something so horrible and monstrous.

End of the Line?

If this post is published, it will mean that I have either checked myself into a mental institution or had a fortuitous "accident." The last three and one half years have been a nightmare financial not to mention the divorce disaster. I have pretty much reached the point where I am to emotionally and mentally exhausted to keep swimming against the current and want to just stop struggling and let it carry me over the falls. In the event I resort to the latter course of action, I know that I will be failing my family, my children, the boyfriend and my readers - and for that, I am very sorry to let people down. I can only hope that someday they will understand what drove me to this point - and it is NOT being gay that was the cause - and hopefully the day will come when all citizens are treated equally and religious based bigotry doesn't cause some lives to be damaged and destroyed. As for the ex-wife, she will receive what she deserves - no money whatsoever.
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I cannot say how much blogging has meant to me since I seriously started this blog in April, 2007, and how much I have valued the friendships I have developed around the world. As for the boyfriend, my children and my family, I have left them all letters expressing my love and regret for things I might have done differently. If I cause them pain, I apologize and hope that one day they will understand. I especially apologize to my daughter Victoria, who has been so loyal and supportive of me, and the boyfriend without whom I would likely taken my life long before now.
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I hope that LGBT activist will keep up the good fight and that future generations will not be burdened with the hate, discrimination and abuse that some of us have known. I will leave the boyfriend the log-in information for this blog if I decide on the "permanent solution" so that he can continue the blog if he is so inclined. He is a sweetheart and I love him so much.