Posted on 12/21/2011 6:45:37 PM PST by SeekAndFind
This clip has been making the rounds last night and today, but it’s not new — it’s actually from a clip featured by Wikileaks, for obvious reasons, last January. Still, it’s not as if the parameters of the Bradley Manning case have changed significantly in the last eleven months, or at least not in any way that mitigates Manning’s alleged crimes. The enlisted soldier transmitted a vast trove of classified government communications, primarily diplomatic cables but also some internal military information, and sent it to Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks. Jazz Shaw has a good update on the case on the front page today, for those who haven’t followed it closely. Bear in mind that Ron Paul wants to become Commander in Chief, which raises all sorts of questions about how a President Paul would safeguard classified information:
So if we have an American citizen, and he’s willing to take it, uh, take the consequences and practice civil disobedience, say “This is what our government’s doing!” Should he be locked up and in prison? Or should we, you know, see him as a political hero? Maybe he is a true patriot who reveals what’s going on in government.
We’ve heard that a lot from Manning’s apologists, that he’s a true hero and not a criminal, but this is absurd on many levels. First, the disclosures didn’t pertain to some objectionable course of action that Manning couldn’t abide; he released everything he could grab to Assange and Wikileaks regardless of the topic involved. There was no discrimination at all. That’s not the profile of a whistleblower, but it does fit the profile of someone harboring a grudge, and wanting to lash out only to inflict damage.
Next, as anyone who has held a clearance can attest — and I’ve held a few myself — a clearance doesn’t give one the right to declassify information. Anyone who has a clearance knows exactly what consequences will follow from exposing classified material, regardless of the reasons for the disclosure. Furthermore, as anyone who has held a clearance also knows, processes exist to communicate violations of the law or ethics discovered in classified material. Those processes include using your own chain of command, contacting an Inspector General’s office — or even contacting a member of Congress, like Ron Paul himself. The options most certainly do not include passing classified material to journalists, American, Australian, or otherwise. There is no evidence at all that Manning ever tried any other option — because Manning is nothing more than a disgruntled nut, not a whistleblower of any kind.
Besides, if Paul thinks Manning was “willing to take the consequences,” why not just let him? The consequences of deliberately stealing and exposing classified material are a long prison sentence and a pretty miserable life. That’s because exposing classified material isn’t “civil disobedience.” It’s theft and espionage, a difference one would presume that a Congressman and a man who wants to be taken seriously as a presidential candidate would know.
Finally, consider the fact that the responsibility for protecting classified material lies with the executive branch — up to and including the President. Paul’s declaration that we should be celebrating a man who deliberately exposed that material because of the supposed eeevil done by the American government sounds like a man who’s more interested in his own paranoid fantasies than he is in conducting the duties of the Commander in Chief. The clip may be a year old, but there’s no reason to think that Paul has gotten a year wiser.
I think I read there was a thread on this this morning and what ultimately happened is someone noticed that the “link” was to a site that actually fills in the audio based on “lip reading.” So, we are not sure at all what Ron Paul said. That’s probably why the mainstream has not picked this up. ...it may not be true..be very careful
Doesn’t get any clearer than this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soF2uIe8GPk
He starts talking about Wikileaks at the 4:07 mark.
Manning should have been charged with treason, and given the maximum punishment under the law.
In WW2 they charged, tried, and executed Pvt Eddie Slovik for desertion in less time than it took to bring formal charges against manning. Yet this treasonous POS is getting three hots and a cot on the taxpayers dime while he waits in limbo.
No one should call Ron Paul a nut - that’s simultaneously an insult to nuts everywhere and a serious understatement of the extent of Paul’s strangeness. I used to think Obama had plumbed the depths of strange, but Paul is pretty darned close.
I think Kellogg’s named a cereal after Paul, Froot Loops.
Let Paul spew this BS at the next televised debate.... =.=
Oh you mean the Liberal Socialist FDR did that?
Regardless of justification he (Manning) released secret information without authorization he is guilty and must be punished...
How do you know?? Were you there? How can he be guilty without a trial? If you were told by the media then how can you be sure of the veracity of the information? What of someone else were guilty of it and he has been presented to you, what if nobody leaked anything and all of it was hacked without his help, this story seems more about fear of information, fear of corruption and what happens when corruption gets brought to the light, someone has to pay, does not matter if he did or didn’t, people call for an Aztec like sacrifice to the gods, for the crime of information, this story serves more as a fear propaganda piece than anything real. Prometheus for the modern era.
If you know too much you could get burned too, that seems the moral lesson being preached. In other words we have to limit our minds else we will destroy ourselves. I can’t think of anything more liberal than limiting the minds of everyone to some generic baseline reality of Wizard of OZ like fairy tale absurdity.
We go around decieving the world and also decieving the people that fund these operations about the fact we are liying and tricking the world we live, yet the guy who exposed this should be put to death?? So in other words let them lie, let them fool you and me and squander out tax money for lies and foolish global grandstanding? Nothing limited and conservative about a foreign policy like that...let’s see what was the bill for this crap shoot casino intelligence game....huuh $17 trillion, surely that was a great deal then you must concur your $17 trillion in debt was worth being told lies to your face and getting you behind lies so we all could get poorer, this sounds like liberal Detroit Michigan style diplomacy, just throw money at the gerrymandered precinct in the middle east and the gravy train can go n forever like the housing bubble did? I’m clearly frustrated that people cannot be shown they are getting nothing for their money, the threats a $17 trillion black hole con job, get over it.
I agree with that. Though I may not call Manning a hero. I am one of the people who think alot of info should NOT be kept from the public. If we lived in a free society and had true liberty, there would be no government or military secrets.
However, we live in society where millions of people want us dead simply because we are infidels. Therefore, some things have to be kept secret so we don’t tip our hand.
No secrets?
Interesting....
We should share drone technology, nuclear technology, stealth technology, information on troop movements, etc...the list goes on?
Maybe you really think that way, if you do, no offense, but I wholeheartedly disagree.
The Army did that.
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