Cheney and Manning: A Modest Proposal

But wouldn’t pardoning unprosecuted war crimes itself be a violation of international law?

Obviously, it would also be an unhappy compromise for those who think that he should be exposed to the full rigors of the law.

Nah, it wouldn’t make me any less unhappy than the current situation does. It’s not like a U.S.-issued pardon grants ICC immunity, and a pardon might provide something useful to the ICC. Since we’re going full fantasy regardless, we might as well modestly propose that Obama give a very detailed pardon. There’s some tiny hope for the consolation of being able to Wikipeditorialize; “In his later years, Dick Cheney took refuge in the continental U.S. to avoid incarceration for his crimes against humanity.”

I would love to have a ^[1]^ to put at the end of that sentence.

I don’t consider this proposal to be modest enough. How about: pardons for Manning, Cheney and George W. Bush (or a pony—your pick)?

My Modest Proposal would be to lobotomize all the soldiers, so that nothing like the Manning incident could ever happen again. And to give Mr. Cheney permanent diplomatic status (a new one would have to be invented), so that he could travel everywhere without worrying.

It would be more realistic to court-martial Manning, give him a dishonorable discharge with no benefits and give him the Presidential Citizens Medal for performing “….exemplary deeds or services for his or her country or fellow citizens”. His was a military crime and a civilian service, motivations apart.

Cheney? Perhaps, another hunting gig with his mates, but this time, roles reversed yet apologies maintained?

@Filip – In the US, the President can grant a pardon at any time before or after conviction. http://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/05/opinion/l-constitution-allows-pardons-before-conviction-590688.html

Legal analysis from the man in the pub:

A presidential pardon in these corcs could probably be refused by the prospective pardoned party.

US v. Wilson ( http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a2_2_1s29.html )

A pardon is a deed, to the validity of which delivery is essential, and delivery is not complete without acceptance. It may then be rejected by the person to whom it is tendered; and if it be rejected, we have discovered no power in a court to force it on him.

Burdick v. U S ( http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=236&invol=79 )

Indeed, the grace of a pardon, though good its intention, may be only in pretense or seeming; in pretense, as having purpose not moving from the individual to whom it is offered; in seeming, as involving consequences of even greater disgrace than those from which it purports to relieve. Circumstances may be made to bring innocence under the penalties of the law. If so brought, escape by [236 U.S. 79, 91] confession of guilt implied in the acceptance of a pardon may be rejected,- preferring to be the victim of the law rather than its acknowledged transgressor,-preferring death even to such certain infamy. This, at least theoretically, is a right, and a right is often best tested in its extreme.

BUT:

Biddle v. Perovich ( http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=274&invol=480 )

We cannot doubt that the power extends to this case. By common understanding imprisonment for life is a less penalty than death. It is treated so in the statute under which Perovich was tried, which provides that ‘the jury may qualify their verdict (guilty of murder) by adding thereto ‘without capital punishment;’ and whenever the jury shall return a verdict qualified as aforesaid the person convicted shall be sentenced to imprisonment at hard labor for life.’ Criminal Code of Alaska, Act of March 3, 1899, c. 429, 4; 30 Stat. 1253. See Ex parte Wells, 18 How. 307; Ex parte Grossman, 267 U.S. 87, 109 , 45 S. Ct. 332, 38 A. L. R. 131. The opposite answer would permit the President to decide that justice requires the diminution of a term or a fine without consulting the convict, but would deprive him of the power in the most important cases and require him to permit an execution which he had decided ought not to take place unless the change is agreed to by one who on no sound principle ought to have any voice in what the law should do for the welfare of the whole. We are of opin- [274 U.S. 480, 488] ion that the reasoning of Burdick v. United States, 236 U.S. 79 , 35 S. Ct. 267, is not to be extended to the present case.

HOWEVER:

Biddle v. Perovich is explicitly framed as refusing to extend the reasoning of Burdick. The reasoning is based on the inability of a convict to have a say in sentencing, and illustrated by the desirability of reducing a sentence against the prisoner’s wish. So I wouldn’t have thought it should be seen as overturning the ‘White Elephant’ principle which appears to be asserted in that judgement – particularly in the circumstances envisaged.

Actually the above is on a bit of a tangent – no-one is suggesting that Cheney might have the option of availing himself or not of the pardon in court. The issuing of the pardon itself is a unilateral thing.

But the ‘offer’ of it (what I rather ambiguously called ‘issuing’) could be made publicly, which would have many of the same effects. It would spoil the gag, which depends on imposing the pardon, a bit though.

@19 I don’t share your opinion that the invasion of Iraq was arguably justified. Otoh, I don’t share purple’s sweeping dismissal of “the entire system.”

It may not be the strongest argument but it was a coherent argument.

Maybe. Although doesn’t it strike you as odd that we can construe an apparent attempt to acquire means of self-defense as a pretext for an offensive invasion & occupation? Add to that the likelihood that Bush & Co really cared one way or another whether or not the allegation was based in fact or not.

An apparent attempt to acquire weapons from a regime that had on two separate occasions invaded a neighbor and had agreed specifically as part of the ceasefire not to acquire that specific weapon. I was merely disputing your claim that there wasn’t an arguable case for war.

Bush was looking for a pretext for war, Saddam really didn’t need to give him one.

I’m fairly sure that the actual reason for the war was rather more personal. More the desire to complete his father’s work, genuine hatred for a seriously noxious regime, a wish to have a friendly regime in Iraq, Saddam’s alleged involvement in a plot to assassinate Bush Sr. But not oil, if we were interested in the oil then we could simply have lifted the embargo and abandoned attempts to enforce all the terms of the ceasefire. Switching the currency used to purchase oil from Iraq to Euros rather than Dollars was a total irrelevance, it just doesn’t matter enough.

Yeah as Barry says, Iraq’s allegedly “irrational” behaviour is a complete invention. Suppose however that Iraq did deny UN inspectors access to certain military installations – that would have been a completely rational decision in light of the undeniable fact that any information the inspectors gathered was bound to end up at SAC within days. So no, there is no doubt that the invasion of Iraq was an illegal war of aggression. However, I do agree this misses the point of the original post, which is that Cheney admitted to the commission of acts that are illegal under US law (as opposed to being ‘merely’ party to violations of international legal standards that apply to states first, and individuals in those states only by derivative).

Oh man remember when Scooter Libby was pardoned wasn’t that awesome you guys

Two points on Cheney: 1) ordering torture is not a war crime under Geneva 1949 or the Rome Statute; 2) Cheney, as VP, had no authority to order anything unless the president expressly delegated authorities to him pursuant to a statute.

Unfortunately, Manning was treated much like many other persons who have been held in coercive pre-trial conditions (like Wen Lee Ho).

@20: I see I was unclear; my apologies! I was in no way attempting to make a statement about the justification or lack of one for the invasion of Iraq. I was merely trying to make the point that the invasion of Iraq was not one of the clear-cut crimes in international law, unlike, say, the laws regarding torture. I plead guilty to being too opaque. purple’s apparent point is that Cheney’s “greatest crime” (using the arguments from the Nuremberg Trials, which eventually gave rise to the Geneva Conventions) was waging a “war of choice”. Presumably, this would also make Cheney guilty of usurping the authority of the President of the US but hey, whatever.
In fact, I would say that if we’re going to wander off into the thickets of moral crimes and other philosophical points, even that would not count as Cheney’s “greatest crime”. After all, if we’re discussing morality, what about bearing false witness, coveting that (oil?) which belongs to your neighbor, and setting lust for personal power and wealth above your fellow men. Surely these are greater crimes, since the war thing is only a crime against man, but these others are crimes against God, right? The whole “Nuremberg/Geneva” thing is a fairly murky point anyway, seeing as how (a) it seems to be applied somewhat arbitrarily (and only to the losing, weak and/or unimportant side at that), and (b) actually, it’s more of a guideline than a rule.

“Ordering torture is not a war crime under Geneva 1949 or the Rome Statute”
I really hope this is not true. Anybody know?

Henry’s point only makes sense if one assumes that the crimes of the Bush/Cheney era are not being committed under Obama – that is unfortunately not the case. Even worse, Obama has worked hard to enshrine many of the things that Bush/Cheney thought they could just get away with for a while into law.

As for military secrecy: if it is used as a fig leaf for crimes and power grabs, it should damn well be breached, citizens have a right to know what is going on, not least because they are funding the whole thing.

actually, it’s more of a guideline than a rule

Isn’t the point of this thread that so are they all? The “rule” of law has never been more than a polite fiction, anywhere, anytime. The crimes of politicians are prosecuted when it’s politically convenient, not when the crimes themselves are important or worthy of prosecution.

“Manning’s actions were undertaken in deliberate disregard of his duty and the law, placed a larger number of persons at risk of harm and certainly damaged the interests of the United States”

And so were Cheney’s. Why is one prosecuted and not the other? Where’s the favourable contrast there?

“apparent good fortune that there have been no confirmed deaths should not be a factor”

No deaths. It’s a factor.

Also a factor: Manning had the apparent bad fortune to be tortured by the United States Government. While incarcerated on Marine Corps Base Quantico, which is, as you can undertake to thoroughly review with any map, in my home Commonwealth of Virginia–not Syria, or Argentina, or an ironic corner of Commie Cuba. This should have been difficult not merely because of the state law, and the military law, and the Federal law, and the international law, and the moral law, but because it is every bit as inexcusable as it seems. Contrast it all you want but it is law that Manning deserves–by virtue of his citizenship and the fact that he is governed and protected by the UCMJ–to be treated fairly and not to be quibbled to death by the slobbery duck-nips of equivocators who would mitigate the rule of law.

His bad fortune to have been tortured does not mitigate his crimes; he has not argued thus. It is in fact a separate crime, and though no statute would hold Andrew responsible for any part of it, there is an ugly aroma to this cavilling deflection of Manning’s treatment.

We now have a useful analogy. What say you, multisyllable Andrew of the recondite proofs, to the case of the unnamed noncom who has confessed to murdering at least 13 innocent Afghans, 9 of them children, with a rifle, in their homes? I’ll stipulate one death resulting from Manning’s espionage, just so we can get the arithmetic on the page. I’ll wait to hear from you.

ice9

#28 – Libby wasn’t pardoned. Bush commuted his sentence so that he served no time, but paid a fine and did community service and probation. One theory is that Bush refused to pardon Libby because he was pissed at Cheney.

#43 – “Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that he was directly involved in approving severe interrogation methods used by the CIA… Cheney’s comments also mark the first time that he has acknowledged playing a central role in clearing the CIA’s use of an array of controversial interrogation tactics, including a simulated drowning method known as waterboarding. .. ‘I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared,’ Cheney said in an interview with ABC News.”

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/dec/16/nation/na-cheney16

Cheney went to Vancouver? Why didn’t the Canadians arrest him and ship him to The Hague?!

Cheney went to Vancouver? Why didn’t the Canadians arrest him and ship him to The Hague?!

Bush too.

Tory government.

geo, what war crimes were revealed by the War Logs or the Cables? If he exposed something on the order of Abu Gharib that would probably lead to a pardon and a promotion. All he did was exposed a great deal of mundane information that he wasn’t supposed to.

Possibly falling into the exact minesweeper trap I just flagged, but whatever — I’m not familiar with anyone who was involved in leaking information about Abu Gharib getting a pardon or a promotion, or any such thing. If there’s anything to that comment other than more bullshit obfuscation, I confess to some curiosity and would welcome further information about it. Did anyone (especially anyone affiliated with the military) get promoted or pardoned or explicitly praised or rewarded or whatever, for work related to exposing the scandal at Abu Gharib?

I guess I wouldn’t be too surprised to hear that some folks in the press got promoted for their contribution to that (presumably ‘pardoned’ doesn’t really apply in those cases), but seriously, I’d be pleasantly surprised to hear anyone in the military was rewarded for their role in that incident of whistleblowing.

Tedra Osell @ 29.

Alas! It is not a one-off. Saddened too. Ain’t I clever? ;-) Started off as one though, but got stuck with it. Don’t want to change. Citations matter. After all. this is an academic blog!

No doubt Bradley Manning is “confused” but I seriously doubt that he directly witnessed, in Iraq, “major abuses of authority by the US.” Didn’t he work in an intelligence center and do little or no time in the field?

#56 – “I seriously doubt that he directly witnessed, in Iraq, “major abuses of authority by the US.””

Manning initially became dissolutioned when he was assigned to review translations of supposedly subversive writings by imprisoned “insurgents.” They turned out to be journalistic investigations of corruption in the Iraqi cabinet. Manning went to his commanding officer and said, in effect, we’re imprisoning the good guys, and the officer told him to shut up and get back to work looking for names of more people they could lock up.

Manning’s first alleged leak was the Apache helicopter “collateral murder” video, taken from a gunship and showing the intentional killing of a Reuters reporter, his driver, and other unarmed civilians, including children, in a public square in broad daylight.

There IS NO substitute for justice.

And there isn’t going to be any justice.
So I guess we’d better just suck it up.

Thanks Henry anyway for a laugh, after all it *does* say “Modest Proposal” right there in the title…

Hats off to Anderson @61. Wish I’d said that.

If their courts issue a warrant then it will be acted upon whether their State Department likes it or not – fiat justitia ruat caelum.

Then why hasn’t any country done that?

@44
We know Cheney approved the use of controversial interrogation tactics. Where did he admit to the crime of ordering torture?

Even were the political will to be there (and I’m sure it would as things stand become a political matter almost instantly even if some earnest official, unaware that the principle of equality before the law has some notably rare exceptions, were to begin some criminal process) I wouldn’t expect that very much could be pinned on Cheney ‘beyond reasonable doubt’.

…Man-size Mosler safes, used elsewhere in government for classified secrets, store the workaday business of the office of the vice president. Even talking points for reporters are sometimes stamped “Treated As: Top Secret/SCI.” Experts in and out of government said Cheney’s office appears to have invented that designation, which alludes to “sensitive compartmented information,” the most closely guarded category of government secrets. By adding the words “treated as,” they said, Cheney seeks to protect unclassified work as though its disclosure would cause “exceptionally grave damage to national security.”

Across the board, the vice president’s office goes to unusual lengths to avoid transparency. Cheney declines to disclose the names or even the size of his staff, generally releases no public calendar and ordered the Secret Service to destroy his visitor logs. His general counsel has asserted that “the vice presidency is a unique office that is neither a part of the executive branch nor a part of the legislative branch,” and is therefore exempt from rules governing either. Cheney is refusing to observe an executive order on the handling of national security secrets, and he proposed to abolish a federal office that insisted on auditing his compliance.

In the usual business of interagency consultation, proposals and information flow into the vice president’s office from around the government, but high-ranking White House officials said in interviews that almost nothing flows out. Close aides to Cheney describe a similar one-way valve inside the office, with information flowing up to the vice president but little or no reaction flowing down.

(from http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/chapters/chapter_1/ )

In general, destruction of evidence (and failure to keep minutes, etc) needs to be treated much more seriously than it is at present, either on the basis of omnia praesumuntur contra spoliatorem (adverse inference to be drawn from destruction of evidence), or (and I suppose in principle this makes more sense) via severe penalties for destroying (or failing in a duty to create or preserve) evidence.

As an amateur student of corruption and conspiracy, it is very clear to me that those in ‘authority’ roles tend (for many reasons, mostly fairly obvious) to receive a far, far greater benefit of the doubt than the general population, as well as (indeed, despite) being better able to cover their tracks.

If their courts issue a warrant then it will be acted upon whether their State Department likes it or not – fiat justitia ruat caelum.

Then why hasn’t any country done that?

Reasonable question. Even assuming you can find a way to solve the jurisdiction problem, for example by tricking Cheney into visiting the country, the problem is the lack of subpoena power.

Suppose a prosecutor (or judge, grand jury, …) wished to pursue this. Most of the evidence they’d need to obtain from U.S. records would be categorically protected as ‘state secrets vital to national security’ or whatever, so they stand no chance of accumulating enough concrete evidence that is veritably authentic. (Absence of access does not imply absence of evidence, mind you, but lack of access certainly does make prosecution difficult. Can you imagine attempting to try, say, Hermann Göring, without access to the relevant internal documents of Germany bearing his signature? I don’t mean for this to be a provocative comparison; hopefully we can all agree that Göring’s crimes were far more vast, more severe, and more well-documented than Cheney’s. Maybe this whole parenthetical aside was unnecessary; my only goal here is to defend the mild proposition that a lack of access to state documents makes effectively prosecuting a high-level state agent nearly impossible.)

Now of course, we do have Cheney’s confession. But would it hold up in trial? Admittedly, I hope not, in this case. The confession was vague and unclear enough that I think it sucks as courtroom evidence for trial purposes, even though it is pretty straightforward evidence of his guilt for non-trial purposes.

I’m fairly sure that the actual reason for the war was rather more personal. More the desire to complete his father’s work [or perhaps go “one up” on his father] … But not oil,

I agree as far as “more personal” motives for war, which to me leaves no room for the wars legitimacy. I wouldn’t be too quick to dismiss the oil motive though. We know that Cheney hosted oil executives in a secret meeting during which maps of Iraqi oil fields were reviewed.

See here.

Salient, Manning could have limited the scope of his disclosure to just the video. It wasn’t a package deal where he had to reveal everything. I’m asking you to back up your argument that Manning revealed evidence of war crimes by handing over a massive trove of diplomatic cables to the world, and that this was an appropriate action by pointing out where the evidence is and explaining why it couldn’t be separated from the rest of the cables before disclosure.

Watson @72: Manning didn’t hand over a massive trove of diplomatic cables to the world. He apparently handed them to Wikileaks, who handed them to several large and established journalistic organizations to screen and publish at their discretion. If you can’t appreciate the difference …

Besides the copter video and the evidence of US lying about the Yemeni civilian massacre, there was evidence of US espionage against UN diplomats, US support for the Tunisian and Egyptian regimes against their own peoples, and considerably more.

Sad to say, I’m beginning to agree with Salient that the rewards of engaging with you are diminishing lately. I hope you’re just having a bad thread. We all do.

I’m asking you to back up your argument

Indeed, you’re doing this something like, what, 72 hours after I dissected this as the standard troll tactic on that Phaser thread? –a troll attempts to maintain control (when put on the explicit defensive by an accusation of trolling) by inappropriately representing the other person’s perspective and then demanding they provide evidence for it, leaving them to either defensively contest the characterization (in which case the troll has recovered the control they cherish) or leave it alone (implicitly letting it stand as accurate — it’s the threat of this that motivates a person to give in and defend themselves).

…I guess there’s no need to point out that I didn’t even put forward anything that conceivably resembles an “argument that Manning revealed evidence of war crimes by handing over a massive trove of diplomatic cables to the world” … which makes that response all the more bizarre. but of course, like most troll tactics, the outlandishness of the statement just further empowers it.

Salient, so what is your position on what justified the leaks? If it’s only that they may have contained something useful, that’s not a terribly good argument because it undermines all rationals for secrecy. geo’s argument has the advantage of being valid: revealing evidence of war crimes is good reason to reveal information that you are required to keep secret. It has the distinct disadvantage of not applying to much of the material released.

@65,
The JAG do not get to decide whether Cheney’s action was a crime, let alone whether he admitted to committing a crime. That is the responsibility of the Administration and congress, neither of which has shown the slightest interest in pursuing criminal charges against Cheney.

Nor has any other country. Meaning that among people whose opinions actually matter, either no one really believes Cheney actually broke the law, or that even if he did it’s not serious enough to warrant any kind of prosecution.

On the contrary, the fact that the Obama Adminstration, and congress, and every other country, haven’t shown the slightest interest in prosecuting Cheney for torture or war crimes, and that there is no significant public pressure to do so, is an excellent reason not to take your accusations seriously. Same as the “war crime” accusations made against Bill Clinton for the bombing of Yugoslavia. Even if it was technically a crime, no one cares. It’s just far-left political theater.

Salient, so what is your position on what justified the leaks?

{Some days on the Internet it feels like I’m talking with a robot autogenerating messages. You call out someone’s behavior as pathological and disgusting, twice, their response is… so what is your position? No awareness, no acknowledgement of context. It’s not that I was expecting an apology, which would be awfully prissy of me; it’s just weird–and at least a little unhuman–to go on as if nothing happened. Offline, the entirety of this exchange is inconceivable. Anyway…}

I don’t think passing along documents you were authorized to obtain needs a justification, in general. My basic position is that sharing is acceptable as a rule, not only in exceptional cases. Of course, I’ve phrased this in a way so that ‘leaking’ ‘sensitive’ documents is just part of a much broader category, sharing documents that your employer provided to you. That’s the context in which I think about cases like this, in part because words like ‘leak’ and ‘sensitive’ carry a lot of baggage with them.

In this particular case, I do think it would have been reasonable for the military to promptly fire Manning (i.e., issue Manning a dishonorable discharge). Now, saying that someone can get fired for sharing a document is already pretty exceptional. (I wouldn’t say that firing is reasonable if Manning had forwarded email dispatches containing broadly similar information.) Manning wasn’t whistle-blowing, in the way I would use that phrase, since I consider whistle-blowing to be extricating oneself from conspiracy, subject to various protections the same way someone providing eyewitness testimony to a crime is subject to various protections more generally.

Salient, I don’t see why separating the video from the cables is “disgusting” and I do not like metaconversations. Anyway, your position is incredible as I understand it. It means the following scenarios are all okay:
1) An employee forwards a bid to a competitor.
2) Details of a coming highway are passed to developers, increasing the costs to the state for gaining control of the land.
3) An informant from the Mob comes forwards, and is promptly outed in a newspaper account relying on trial depositions forwarded to them by a clerk in the office of the Judge.
4) An Iranian citizen comes forward to the US warning of a terrorist attack. Their name appears in the paper before arrangements are made for them to leave Iran.
5) A reporter keeps a source confidential. A secretary reports the name to a rival paper, ruining the life of the source.
6) A school’s disciplinary files on a student are leaked.
7) A doctor’s secretary copies files and sends them to tabloid reporters. These files describe the treatment of a celebrity for a STD.
8) A diplomat, speaking frankly to his superiors, makes disparaging comments about his counterpart. They are reported in the press, forcing him to leave the country he works in.

8 actually happend as a result of the cables, as did some scenarios similar to 4. Do you have something to hide? Then you depend on the ability of employers to trust that their employees will handle confidential communications with appropriate care.

Watson: Do you have something to hide? Then you depend on the ability of employers to trust that their employees will handle confidential communications with appropriate care.

One thing you don’t seem to understand is that soldiers/bureaucrats etc are government employees, they are also citizens, and that citizens are, collectively, the employers of the government. The government, and all its information, belongs to us collectively. We are sovereign over it. We can call the government to account; indeed we have a duty to our fellow citizens to do just that if we have special knowledge of abuses that the government is trying to conceal. This is Democracy 101 and is the moral and legal basis of Manning’s actions. Of course, his is a minority position, and he will lose in court. But that’s only because the government, and a majority of his fellow citizens, apparently including you, have an understanding of the obligations of democratic citizenship far inferior to Manning’s.

I haven’t been around these parts that long, so maybe it’s out of line for me to issue what is basically a virtual PSA; nevertheless, if you’re inclined to respond to this DelRey character, it may be worth skimming through Holbo’s recent Occam’s Phaser post first.

“Manning’s first alleged leak was the Apache helicopter “collateral murder” video, taken from a gunship and showing the intentional killing of a Reuters reporter, his driver, and other unarmed civilians, including children, in a public square in broad daylight.”

For this disclosure, which should have prompted a major reevaluation of the Army’s ROE, he deserves a pardon. But my point was that he directly witnessed nothing; all or most of his information was gleaned by second-hand observation of intelligence files on SIPRNet, which may or may not tell the whole story or offer much in the way of context. What further amazed me was the fact that SIPRNet sysops had the software security tools to monitor downloads to removable media, but never bothered to use them. They should be in the dock alongside Manning.

.

geo, Henri: Our status as citizens who are collectively sovereign doesn’t individually give us powers over the government. For one thing, the collective sovereignty of the people doesn’t mean they all agree with the actions of a few.

It also isn’t clear that we can wave away the moral issues by simply saying “oh, it’s in protest of US policy”. Pentagon Papers is easily distinguished by the way that that was evidence that the Pentagon was knowingly pursuing the wrong policy. A boycott of a discriminatory bus company, even if illegal, is directly standing against policies hurting people. But releasing classified information, much of it unrelated to the Iraq and Afghan wars, doesn’t seem to interfere in the Afghan and Iraq wars.

Furthermore, even if you disagree with the Iraq war or the Afghan war, taking direct action against them is supporting the Taliban and the genocidal militias. The War Logs were a godsend for the Taliban: now they know how much of what we have, and where. They revealed the existence of units aiming at removing high value commanders from the battlefield, which means the Taliban now focuses on protecting them more. The Guardian wisely decided not to publish everything they had as well as redacting names.
Informants are not going to come forward without assurances that they will not be identified, and what Manning did made that assurance a lot harder to give.

Ralph, security has costs. If you make secret information accessible only by asking for a commander and filling out forms in triplicate, that adds a lot of time but might reduce espionage somewhat. Now the government has apparently implemented better analysis of access to classified materials. Maybe they should have earlier, but bad judgement is not a crime.

People block roads with burning tiressmart bombs on bridges, and so someone may not get in time to the hospital and die. But that’s exactly what the game is: you block the road to paralyze, to create chaos, to cause troubles – because this is the most effective weapon you have at this point. Presumably, you already tried a letter-writing campaign diplomatic action, and demonstrating in a ‘free speech zone’imposing sanctions, but, alas, no one had paid any attention. So, you radicalize, and you escalate. This is all rather trivial.

Smart bombs is a different story, those are deliberate, calculated actions by a few powerful people. But this actually is the same process that logically ends with terrorism. The hope is that the feedback mechanism called ‘liberal democracy’ would somehow prevent radicalization and escalation, would somehow accommodate the strong minority views. Sometimes it works, but sometimes it fails. This time it’s failed to accommodate the anti-war view; in the early 90s it was the anti-government view, and it took the Oklahoma city bombing to produce a correction.

I’m not justifying anything, just explaining. You can dejustify anything you want, but when the system fails, people do get radicalized and things happen. Famine strikes – some mothers will eventually eat their babies. Is that justified or unjustified?

P.s. There is not some neat hydraulic mechanism whirring away, giving us: system dysfunction -> radicalization -> protest -> civil disobedience -> violence/terrorism. This is just bad sociology, imo.

He was ‘radicalized’ by, inter alia, reading some far-right conspiratorial novel

This is a favoured but deeply unconvincing mode of explanation for such events.

Well, either this “modest proposal” is a political stunt designed to at least embarrass Cheney, or an argument from fairness that if we are to let Cheney go, we should let Manning go as well, or some mixture of both.

What bothers me is the notion that because a powerful figure can get away with a crime (assumed for the sake of argument), we should therefore let a less-powerful figure get away with a crime as well. This doesn’t strike me as an argument well founded on fairness. Indeed, it’s an argument that relies implicitly on concepts of distributive justice that do not fit well here.

So, to be blunt, it is wholly irrelevant whether Cheney is guilty of torture, of building an energy-guzzling death star, or of serving forbidden fruit at a now closed resort. Manning broke the faith. He betrayed the country he swore to serve and those who served with him. Leaving aside whether he qualifies as a whistleblower at all, most of what he released had nothing to do with any war crimes.

While others have sacrificed far more than he ever will and did their duty anyway, psychological duress does not necessarily correlate with the magnitude of the most observable forms of suffering; and I hope the duress he was under – and appears to have been under for some time – is taken into full account when he is sentenced.