It's too bad that Bradley Manning didn't torture and kill people instead of telling us about it

[truedelphi]

62. I think that anyone who has any inkling

o f philosophy would be upset with your statements.

First of all, Manning did nothing wrong. Period. So there is really no "two wrongs don't make a right" about it.

And even if there were two wrongs - then morality is being discussed. Correct behavior vs. wrong behavior is indeed a discussion of morality. Not math - morality.
Again, period.

Then let's look at everything about the situation you are ignoring.

Bradley Manning is possibly responsible for the fact that we are no longer in Iraq. On account of how this information which he saw being released to Wikileaks, there was an actual change in popular Iraqi sentiment, as the Iraqi government would no longer allow American service people and contractors to have immunity.

That change in sentiment ended up in the troops being brought home.

Among the consequential bits of information that he transmitted to WL

The Apache helicopter incident showed the US service people killing 12 people. Then rescuers were killed.
This ended up being several separate war crimes.

Section 491 of the Field Manual:
Every violation of the law of war is a war crime

Common article three of the Geneva Convention states that the wounded must be cared for, and
no one showing care or concern for wounded is to be treated with disrespect.

Well, killing rescuers is, after all, a sign of disrespect.

A soldier is not supposed to obey an illegal order. And also, a soldier has a responsibility to see to it that illegalities are brought to light. For a soldier to fail to do so is also illegal. (Just as a civilian who doesn't report a murder would be guilty of an illegal act.l)


Everything you and others keep saying that Manning should do, he did. He went up the chain of command. They refused to do anything.

Let me repeat that: they refused to do anything. If he wanted to be a soldier in legal standing, he had to make sure that he got the information out.

The number one reason that our nation, together with Russia, France and Great Britain, held the trials at Nuremberg was to create this body of law, that states that an individual in uniform cannot simply state that "I was following orders."

The information contained in the documents or data that Manning released to Wikileaks is information that absolutely needed exposure, and that in fact was of such a serious nature that any service person including Manning has the legal obligation to expose. What violations of law are more terrible than war crimes?

It is important when examining all of this to remember the President's own statement that was his response to the Bradley manning and his upcoming trial: "This is a nation of law."

So ask yourself these questions:
1) how is it that President Obama oversees the situation known as Guantanamo? And the US military at Guantanamo was lashed out by the UN as having been the scene of torture, when prisoners there were victims of force feeding. Yes, the UN viewed this situation as torture (force feeding of prisoners is torture. Period.)

2) Since individuals who have military authority are obliged by an actual section of the military code to see to it that those who have created or participated in illegal actions would then be charged with appropriate violations and indicted and taken to trial, when Obama failed as the Chief Executive of the Armed Forces to see to it that his predecessor George W Bush, and also Dick Cheney, who took the nation to war, for a purposes that were outright falsehood and lies, with Cheney also being guilty of the crime of outing a CIA agent, when that agent's husband exposed the "yellow cake" not being in existence in Iraq, and since Obama failed to do any of that, violating the Section 491 of the Field Code, then Obama is derelict for not having brought these people to trial!

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Citation: A Duty to Disobey All Unlawful Orders
The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) 809[890].ART.90 (20), makes it clear that military personnel need to In fact it says, 'Members of the military have an obligation to disobey unlawful orders.' The reasons for war are not supposed to be the purview of soldiers in the field. One should not take this issue lightly, just as one should not take the decision to follow an illegal order lightly.