"I'm sorry that I hurt the United States" Bradley Manning apologizes in court

[struggle4progress]

47. The real Manning disappears behind his symbolic value in certain narratives

It took the military 800+ manhours to examine a 2K document sample of the 750K or so documents Manning released: at that rate, it would a team of 50 analysts --- looking at his release 8 hr/da, 5 da/wk, 50 wk/yr --- something like 3 years to get through it all. None of Manning's supporters have put in the time necessary to understand what he released or what it might mean: they typically point to a handful of stories based on the release, then claim that shows he was whistle-blowing. In fact, almost the whole release seems to comprise documents that require too much specialized knowledge, for most of us to make heads or tails of them, though some might be of great interest to a handful of people --- not all of whom are necessarily good guys. I expect that's why this vast trove produced a limited flash-in-the-pan media response and then dropped from view: The Guardian (for example) certainly isn't publishing daily stories on the 250K diplomatic cables anymore, probably because most of the cables would make most people's eyes glaze over, and even Assange hasn't found the actual release interesting enough to put continued energy into studying it

"Supporting" Manning became a cheap and easy surrogate for opposing the obscene size of the US military, or the tragic and unnecessary Iraq war, or the ridiculous DADT policy, or any number of other matters. Sadly, once he's sentenced, most of this "support" will evaporate as people seek other cheap and easy surrogate causes to support in lieu of actually working for reforms