If this was someone on the Right instead of Left the Cuckcallers would be going apeshit.

I didn't know leaking secrets and aiding the enemy made someone a left-winger.

Not helping cover up crimes didnt aid the enemy. After Collateral Murder was released the public should have acted. Dancing with the stars was on though.

This post was edited by Skinned on Sep 15 2017 11:23am

In what way? More stringent rules of engagement which make it harder to win the fight? Pulling out of Iraq so that Al Qaeda continue to expand their territory?

Shining a light on the horrors of war only damages our mission. The other side doesn't care about civilian deaths. Not to mention the leak wasn't just instances of collateral damage, it was hundreds of thousands of documents which hurt us from a diplomatic and national security perspective.

Prosecute people who electively shoot children on video?

You really are a radical.

I have investigated child abuse here in the US as well. We do much worse to people for doing a lot less.

I was kidding... that's a fair position.

Manning didnt expose any systemic and malicious wrongdoing like snowden did with the domestic spy program. All he exposed was tragic friendly fire incidents that were hushed up. Thats not so damning, it didnt serve the public interest. But the diplomatic cables? That was a huge fiasco and incredibly harmful- pulling our pants down on the world stage and exposing our spying on merkel, a whole bunch of 'meh' since the people affected already had assumed it. But the arab world diplomacy being outed was the proximate cause of the arab spring, it served as a catalyst for fomenting revolutions. The release of those cables set off the chain of events of wars and terrorism that killed hundreds of thousands, displaced millions, destabilized the arab world, instigated terrorist jihad, the popular support for ISIS, the refugee crisis and brexit

Now manning hardly owns all that, it was a chain of events, not a singular cause- US intervention or lack thereof did more to aggravate the arab spring. But what public service did he serve? He exposed diplomatic spying and coverups of friendly fire. Big whoop.

This post was edited by Goomshill on Sep 15 2017 12:09pm