I don't care if you call him/her Bradley or Chelsea. [View all]

[jazzimov]

I don't care if you refer to this person as "him" or "her".

The charges are not gender specific. Manning performed the same acts whether you or Manning sees Manning as male or female.

Manning was convicted in court. Period. Whether it was a fair ruling or not still does not depend on gender.

That being said, I think that gender-identity may have had a bearing on Manning's decisions. Please allow me to clarify - not Manning's gender identity, but societies REACTION to his gender identity. He may well have been a woman born with a man's body. No one can know that except Manning. BUT the reaction from everyone else was trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. At least, that is my opinion. But my opinion doesn't really count.

The facts are that Manning released documents that Manning had sworn an oath not to release. If we want that oath to mean something in the future, there must be consequences for breaking it.

What did Manning release? The most controversial was a video of innocent civilians and reporters being mistaken for combatants and being killed. In theory, the real crime here was the cover-up to try and sweep this incident under the rug. But the real lesson here is WAR IS HELL. In war, innocents get killed. That is a fact of life. We can try to sterilize it as much as we like in Hollywood and in press reports, but the fact is that WAR IS HELL.

Which is why we should be very, very careful before we go to war. OR before we allow Congress to allow Military Actions, which is the New War Footing. When Congress allows military action, that means that innocents are going to get killed.

PERIOD.

EDIT TO ADD: This is why WAR or MILITARY ACTION should be so rare. Sometimes it is necessary. SOMETIMES.