Merry Christmas. Hearts go out to all currently serving in Afghanistan, especially 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines.
edited 24th Dec '10 10:44:32 PM by Scrye
"True story, I came when I read Scrye's story, and so did everyone within five miles." —OOZEMerry Christmas, spoilering what I said before so I can repost it later.
@Tueful: Because it's part of the US government? There ideally should not be a "military law" which is different from normal US law, because almost all military crimes are crimes against the military and like Tomu said, it really is like having the guys you stole from judging your case.
(Of course I realize it's not always practical to force a civilian trial on soldiers who committed a crime while overseas; that's why military law exists. Still not what you should be using if you can avoid it.)
edited 25th Dec '10 12:04:37 AM by BlackHumor
Then maybe the law itself is wrong in this case. The military tribunal is made of humans, and humans have this thing about being bastards to each other.
I only stand for the release of information to the public and so that people can know what our government is doing. Assange and Manning are heroes in that regard to me. Our government does not deserve privacy if they use that privacy to scheme and act in imperialist fashions. The military are compensating for their grandiose notion of one whole composed of many by cracking down on anyone who so much as would speak about their affairs, and talk of physical violence. Yes, I would release information and leak it if given the opportunity, so as to advance free speech, human rights, and the freedom of information. And if that endangers the lives of tropers, then that is a possibility I note, and is a burden I shall bear.
edited 25th Dec '10 12:36:39 AM by NickTheSwing
I for one, am extremely fortunate that you are not in any sort of position of power, then.
"True story, I came when I read Scrye's story, and so did everyone within five miles." —OOZEThe thing is, "Well, you guys just don't understand the military" is just a barrier that is artificially created to not have to justify the system. It's turning the military into some kind of twisted religion.
KNOCK IT OFF!
Personally, I think that some things-tactics for instance-should be classified and kept from the public, but when the military is doing things it's not supposed to be doing, the public really ought to know. I mean, if it was the President of the United States thinking that the public shouldn't know about his wiretapping of his political opponents, you'd think that that shouldn't be protected, right? And that's the commander in chief!
edited 25th Dec '10 5:13:58 AM by TheyCallMeTomu
Yeah really, a bit more tidings of comfort and joy, please. Best of the season to everyone.
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.Pfft. If I know anything, it's that arguments over politics are a staple of Christmas as much as the roast dinner or the tree. (Or the Christ baby thing)
But yes, Merry Christmas. Now get back to arguing! But you may only argue if you are both wearing paper hats and slightly queasy from the dinner you've just had.
Ahh what hell I will break my little rule. I have lots of time at work.
Ok for note not all military law is that different from civilian law including being tried by a jury of your peers. Since he is in the military this would be a group of people who are as close to his station and job as is reasonably possible the same is true with the civilian courts. It is also one of the reasons why military law was separated from civil law.
People who serve in the military are often expected to do things beyond reason or individual desire. You are expected when ordered to, to die or put yourself in a situation that may leave you maimed or worse. You may also be ordered to kill someone as long as it is legal inside the laws of warfare in general. These are among some of the things that civilian can not reasonably cover because doing such things in civilian culture are considered crimes in some way shape or form. On the battlefield in the face of enemy there are a few situations that can result in someone being summarily executed no trial or jury.
Also it was acknowledged a long time ago the expectations of military member in both civil and military service is notably different enough to warrant a seperate judicial system. The military is held responsible for maintaining discpline and lawful behaviour among their numbers. Yet another factor that has led to a seperate legal system.
The final reason is the very nature of warfare and the people who participate in require certain behaviours and manners of conducting yourself in your day to day life. This is in order to maximize the chances of success of the mission and the survival of a unit in combat. There is no easy way to define or explain this other then many many many years of warfare experience and knowledge that has been gathered over time.
In short you can not reasonably hold soldiers to the exact same standard as you would members of the military due some extraordinary factors that are part and parcel of a functioning military body.
It should be noted Mr. Manning was placed into a job that they warn you that you might run into this stuff. That if you have trouble with it you should find another job in the military to perform. I also have to question the genius who was not maintaining tighter security standards and letting that stuff get out in the first place. I have to also question the method of his being caught. It was widely known that Lamo was not to be trusted any longer. Yet he fully revealed everything to him. That and from the other perspective that the majority of the material is next to useless or low value. One has to wonder if this whole mess was partially engineered.
Nick: I question the morality of sacrificing some one just so you can know something. It is not just your burden you are burdening their comrades and families with their death as well and for all you know creating more death and burdens in a manner you could not know about because its very likely you do not have all the information. I find that view to be naive of the greater picture as a whole.
edited 25th Dec '10 12:46:04 PM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?KNOCK IT OFF!
Actually, we don't tell you that to justify a barrier, we tell you that because you don't understand the military. I mean, Christ, up until last night, you didn't even know that we collected our own dead. You probably don't know that an average grunt NCO is the guy who meets with village key leaders, not some smarmy US Senator. And I'd wager you don't even know the breakdown of an infantry line company, either. You probably don't have any clue what "combined arms concept" is nor the intricate tactics that go along with it. And everything I just mentioned, sans the intricate tactics, is publicly available information. There is a massive wealth of information on the military that is actually available to you, and yet you're still as clueless as the next guy holding a picket sign to the left of you.
And yet, as someone who doesn't know jack shit about the military, you feel entitled to know and control everything about it. And it makes total sense that someone with your.... extensive understanding of the military would be able to make to best calls as to what information would harm your mission and personnel, right? I'm sure the guys that work around this information and situation, are trained to act accordingly to these scenarios, and have actual responsibilities regarding that information would have no idea what to do with it. That's just silly.
Vote Tomu.
edited 25th Dec '10 1:22:25 PM by Scrye
"True story, I came when I read Scrye's story, and so did everyone within five miles." —OOZEScyre, my position is as folds:
Some things are wrong. If the military is gunning down citizens because some guy decided that they get to gun down citizens, the guy who made that decision needs to be able to be held accountable for it. If that guy is also in control of the flow of information, then we cannot reasonably expect that he will be held accountable.
So we have three possible situations: 1.) Let the bastards get away with it 2.) Let the population know about it or 3.) Have an independent third party that does research into keeping the military in line.
Option 3 sounds the most reasonable, but then it creates the issue of, what determines who's in charge of keeping people in line? You have to make decisions to make decisions to make decisions. Somewhere down the line, people have to have the information to know whether or not things are being taken care of or not. Otherwise, option 3 is essentially indistinct from option 1. And option 1 is considered unacceptable.
Does that mean idiots like me who don't know the minutia of people picking up greymatter have to have a voice in things? Yes. But I know that those with power use and abuse it, and that there are some ways in which that power should most definitely not be abused. So it's a cost/benefits scenario where we pick the least offensive solution.
You may disagree with me on what said solution is. I think more transparency is the direction we need to move in-I think there needs to protections for whistle blowers, and I think that, yes, the liberal whiney pinkos need to be able to know when the military is being a bunch of douchebags. You don't. Let's work from that.
Followup: There's a distinction between "Military is going to bomb Baghdad on X day at coordinates Y" and "Military is going to bomb Baghdad; this place is full of civilians." When the citizenry even pays attention to leaked information, it's not to make tactical decisions despite not having the skill to do so-it's to comment and say "Hey: this crap is unacceptable." The military can then say "You don't understand war, it must be done" of course, but the same can be said of torture, which is really the elephant in the room here: the reason people want to know about this stuff is because there IS a threshold that's unacceptable, and someone needs to be able to know when it's crossed.
That all being said, if Manning doesn't face anything more than a dishonorable discharge and a brief imprisonment, I probably shouldn't be too offended. This isn't a situation where we're somehow violating core human rights of a soldier because he "did the right thing" it's "We're disbarring a soldier for breaking protocall." The only problem occurs when the latter seems to be the former. Which it doesn't here (from what I can tell), but it sounds like you wish it did.
edited 25th Dec '10 1:43:08 PM by TheyCallMeTomu
And therein of itself, you have furthered demonstrated that you don't even know how we're even going about this war. You think we're going around shooting civilians, and I've bet you've never even considered that we've (mistakenly) turned Afghanistan in a COIN mission.
"True story, I came when I read Scrye's story, and so did everyone within five miles." —OOZECorrect me if I'm wrong, but isn't the released video-ala, the reason Manning is in trouble-that of the US military basically killing citizens? That's why he released it in the first place-because he thought it was fundamentally wrong.
Now, it's entirely possible that he's mistaken-that actions that he thought were attacks on civilians were not indeed on civilians, and in that case, you may have a point. But I'm only arguing in favor of the distribution of information that is actually damning of the military in the first place. The trouble is that it's rather hard to release only the information that's truly damning.
Basically, my understanding is that, the military made certain mistakes that resulted in unacceptable amounts of civilian casualties, and that people should know about that so that the people in charge of those mistakes can be rebuffed. Efforts to prevent knowledge of those mistakes from being available rather worries me-though, I'll concede that the specifics of the nature of the mistakes may not be necessary. Once again: If we had a magical reliable 3rd party source that could keep the military in line while simultaneously NOT leaking information that was truly detrimental to the mission (other than in the minds of the people who, by virtue of being rebuffed, will be less effective at pursuing said mission), that'd be great. But we're really not there.
edited 25th Dec '10 2:04:13 PM by TheyCallMeTomu
According to this timeline, he released a video of an Army attack helicopter firing on insurgents.
Tomu: Please remember the U.S. Military takes deliberate attacks on civilians very seriously and often brings the hammer and the book down on them for doing it. Also do note that once he is out of the military legal system the civilian system gets a crack at them. I am not entirely sure if double jeopardy applies if you were charged in military court then in civilian court. I know the civilian courts can go after you after you have served your term. Barkey would likely know more about it but I imagine he is a bit busy for the next couple days with duty.
Yeah and I gurantee you Tomu someone got into some seriously deep shit over that too.
edited 25th Dec '10 2:13:50 PM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?That.... doesn't add up.
According to Lamo, Manning gave Wikileaks the video of the 2007 Army helicoper attack on Iraqi insurgents.
The Granai Airstrike took place in Afghanistan, on May 4th, 2009.
Sooo, care to explain to me how a video from 2007 of an event that took place in Iraq turns into a video from 2009 of an even that took place in Afghanistan?
"True story, I came when I read Scrye's story, and so did everyone within five miles." —OOZEYeah, I confess, when I first started, I didn't realize that the video was not of a deliberate attack on civilians, but on a mistaken attack on civilians. So, still reprehensible-but reprehensible from incompetence, not malice.
I think the point is, as a civilian, I do not automatically trust the military to regulate itself in issues like this, in the same way I don't trust corporations to regulate themselves.
^It took them two years to decrypt it? <Shrugs> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granai_airstrike
.
I suppose that it's possible that while he's allegedly responsible for the leaking of the Granai Airstrike video, that doesn't mean that he hasn't released OTHER videos.
edited 25th Dec '10 2:17:24 PM by TheyCallMeTomu
And it apparently switch countries, too. Now that's some decryption!
He has released several documents, including both the videos. Excuse my return to my first few posts, but if he's found guilty, then fuck this guy.
edited 25th Dec '10 2:19:07 PM by Scrye
"True story, I came when I read Scrye's story, and so did everyone within five miles." —OOZEI'll concede that I'm mostly arguing only in regards to the Granai Airstrike video. Without knowing the specifics of the other videos, I can't really comment as to whether or not they should have been leaked.
Further research: Okay, actually reading the link this time (silly me <3), it seems that there were at least two videos and that, though the Granai Airstrike wasn't the only one, the other was also "likewise damning" or some such.
Generally, I think damning videos should be spread. Not sure about the other information-but being able to distinguish what is damning from what isn't is essentially impossible if you don't have access to the information to begin with.
edited 25th Dec '10 2:24:43 PM by TheyCallMeTomu

Law is the law regardless of your opinion. The sooner you accept that the sooner you will understand.
Military law has been separate from civilian law for a very very long time before there was even the colonies. He committed a crime while service to the military he will have to face trial at the hands of the military for breaking its rules and mores which is common in all societies. Then he will face civil charges if they deem he has violated civil laws and mores.
Many of you seem fail to acknowledge the military as a separate culture that exists along side other cultures. Due to the nature of the culture and its purpose it has always had separate rules and regulations to govern members of the culture. Just like any society you are expected to pay the price if you violate those rules.
Really what is so hard to grasp about this?
(OK It is Technically Christmas lets pick this up sunday or continue as you see fit. I will check the thread again Sunday.)
edited 24th Dec '10 9:19:44 PM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?