Bradley Manning: the face of heroism

[struggle4progress]

15. "Hilary Clinton, and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack

when they wake up one morning, and finds an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format to the public"
-- Bradley Manning to Adrian Lamo

That is not principled whistleblowing, motivated by some particular malfeasance, but instead represents a gleeful attempt, by an individual with access to classiified data, to damage the ability of the US to conduct its foreign policy

The notion, that communications between an embassy and its government are entitled to confidentiality, is not peculiar to the US: it is well-established by international law, as shown (for example) by general agreement that diplomatic pouches will cross borders unopened. Diplomats are understood to represent the interests and positions of their own governments: the purpose of diplomacy is not that countries shall expose their inner hearts to each other, but that (so far as possible) they will remain in communication with one another and attempt to find some concord to mutual advantage

That Manning believed he himself should, without any particularly compelling reason, tear away completely the veil surrounding US diplomatic communications -- a veil which every country in the world expects for its own active diplomats -- illustrates his naïveté and his delusion of grandeur

He is a troubled young man. One naturally hopes he gets the psychiatric help he obviously needs and that some mercy tempers the sentence he will receive