Differing Interpretations of the Merits of the Length of Bradley Manning’s 35 Year Sentence —Illustrate the Societal Conundrum of How to Deal with Lawbreakers, Who Expose Significant Government Wrong Doing — a Comment on America’s Institutionalized Lack of Self-Reflection

22 August 2013

State 1, Truth and Justice 0

Army Colonel Denise Lind, judge and sentencer in Bradley Manning’s trial, politically astutely selected a 35 year sentence that split the difference between rabid prosecution and sensible defense.

Her action undoubtedly was intended to deescalate the trial’s ability to arouse action-oriented social rage on either side. By striking a presumed balance between opposing camps, she virtually guaranteed that the Government’s business as usual will continue, much to the Military Industrial Complex’s delight.

Published reactions to her decision implicitly demonstrate how easy it is to mislead people into thinking that justice exists, where it does not.

First — an Establishment-oriented reaction from Jason Mick at Daily Tech

Jason Mick, whom I immensely respect, took a curiously illogical position, but one which probably represents the conflicted feelings that thoughtful and patriotic Americans brought to the case:

(Former) U.S. Private First Class Bradley Manning was sentenced on Wednesday to 35 years in prison and dishonorably discharged after being found guilty of charges relating to the leaking of numerous classified government documents to the site Wikileaks and its founder, Julian Assange.

At the sentencing hearing prosecutors wanted at least 60 years, while his defense wanted twenty years . . . .

[Colonel Lind] ruled that the 3 and 1/2 effective "years" Mr. Manning had already served since his 2010 arrest . . . would count towards the 35-year sentence. That leaves Mr. Manning with only 31 and 1/2 years left in the sentence.

Mr. Manning's lawyer said that with military court parole rules, if Mr. Manning continues his good behavior as a prisoner, he could be eligible for parole in 6 and 1/2 years. In that circumstance he could see freedom by the age of 32.

[A]lthough the sentence is unlikely to satisfy his passionate support nor his passionate critics, the sentence may well be the very embodiment of justice -- compromise.

Mick’s favorable reaction to the 35 year sentence ducks rational analysis of the Manning situation

Mr. Mick appears to presume that splitting the difference between prosecution and defense represents justice. Where ethics are concerned, that is hardly ever the case.

The real issue in Bradley Manning’s trial was how society should deal with lawbreakers, who expose massive governmental wrongdoing via their law-violating revelations.

In instances in which the law is overtly or implicitly crafted to conceal Freedom’s destruction — and the chain of command is eagerly complicit in that wrecking — who is the actual criminal?

Second — a more reasoned perspective on Manning’s sentence from Birgitta Jónsdóttir at The Guardian

Ms. Jónsdóttir wrote:

As of today, Wednesday 21 August 2013, Bradley Manning has served 1,182 days in prison. He should be released with a sentence of time served. Instead, the judge in his court martial at Fort Meade, Maryland has handed down a sentence of 35 years.

Of course, a humane, reasonable sentence of time served was never going to happen. This trial has, since day one, been held in a kangaroo court. That is not angry rhetoric . . . .

President Obama made the following statements on record, before the trial even started:

President Obama: We're a nation of laws. We don't individually make our own decisions about how the laws operate … He broke the law.

Logan Price: Well, you can make the law harder to break, but what he did was tell us the truth.

President Obama: Well, what he did was he dumped …

Logan Price: But Nixon tried to prosecute Daniel Ellsberg for the same thing and he is a … [hero]

President Obama: No, it isn't the same thing … What Ellsberg released wasn't classified in the same way.

When the president says that the Ellsberg's material was classified in a different way, he seems to be unaware that there was a higher classification on the documents Ellsberg leaked.

Commander in Chief Obama intentionally slanted the trial

As a supposedly constitutional lawyer, President Obama should have known better than to prejudge Private Manning. Instead, the President’s easily pricked narcissism got the best of him, and he lashed out.

You can guess what went on behind the scenes. Who in the high-ranking military is going to ignore the obvious wishes of their Commander in Chief?

As Jónsdóttir alleges, Manning’s trial was a kangaroo court — with exactly the same one-sided thrust, as those that regularly take place in autocratic states.

Third — an angry, but prophetically accurate view of the Manning outcome from humanitarian Chris Hedges

Chris Hedges, whom I admire for his consistent ethical perspective, is given to hyperbolic statements that tend to negatively camouflage the accuracy of his perceptions.

Reading the following, if you are able, ignore Mr. Hedges’ obvious outrage — and concentrate instead on his message:

The swift and brutal verdict read out by Army Col. Judge Denise Lind in sentencing Pfc. Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison means we have become a nation run by gangsters.

It signals the inversion of our moral and legal order, the death of an independent media, and the open and flagrant misuse of the law to prevent any oversight or investigation of official abuses of power, including war crimes.

The passivity of most of the nation’s citizens—the most spied upon, monitored and controlled population in human history—to the judicial lynching of Manning means they will be next.

There are no institutional mechanisms left to halt the shredding of our most fundamental civil liberties, including habeas corpus and due process, or to prevent pre-emptive war, the assassination of U.S. citizens by the government and the complete obliteration of privacy.

Excessive language?

Not really.

Recall that one of the “war crimes” that Manning exposed was the American Baghdad helicopter attack that killed 7 innocents and 2 Reuters reporters.

American show trials — parallel Soviet and Chinese models

Here, Hedges agrees with Birgitta Jónsdóttir:

Manning from the start was subjected to a kangaroo trial. His lawyers were never permitted to mount a credible defense.

Under the military code of conduct and international law, the soldier had a moral and legal obligation to report the war crimes he witnessed. But this argument was ruled off-limits.

The troves of documents that Manning transmitted to WikiLeaks in February 2010—known as the Iraq and Afghanistan “War Logs”—which exposed numerous war crimes and instances of government dishonesty, were barred from being presented.

And it was accepted in the courtroom, without any evidence, that Manning’s release of the documents had harmed U.S. security and endangered U.S. citizens.

A realistic defense was not possible. It never is in any state show trial.

Speaking as an attorney — and someone also accustomed to being subject to chains of strict command — I agree.

What will happen now? — Nothing

Fear and complacence inoculate us against self-reflection.

And Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden have both been cleverly tarred with accusations of abnormal character, which is enough for most of us to distance ourselves from their doings.

The moral? — In preserving freedom and living ethically, one cannot split the difference

In the Manning matter, Birgitta Jónsdóttir and Chris Hedges are more perceptive than Jason Mick:

We will pay for our criminality. We will pay for our callousness and brutality.

The world, especially the Muslim world, knows who we are, even if we remain oblivious.

“Under a government which imprisons any unjustly,” Henry David Thoreau wrote, “the true place for a just man is also a prison.”

And that is the real reason Bradley Manning is being locked away. He is a just man.

I like Hedges’ ending. The allegedly pitiful creature that Government and Media have tried to paint of Manning comes out on ethical top.

If you are American and Christian, ask yourself, “What would Jesus have made of this?”

The obvious answer should cause us to question our unreflective course into tyranny.

PeteFree.com

Differing Interpretations of the Merits of the Length of Bradley Manning’s 35 Year Sentence —Illustrate the Societal Conundrum of How to Deal with Lawbreakers, Who Expose Significant Government Wrong Doing — a Comment on America’s Institutionalized Lack of Self-Reflection