Well, I figured to give Manning the benefit of the doubt and not accuse him of treason. Manning betrayed the cause of those who trusted him. That's a traitor I'd say. What makes a traitor to you?Quote by: mbc85
Do you come down on the "Manning is a hero" side?
If the terrain and the map do not agree, follow the terrain.
When motherhood becomes the fruit of a deep yearning, not the result of ignorance or accident, its children will become a new race.
I think that wiki leaks is wrong to show people dirty secrets. If they could show the dirty secrets of thiers rather it would be good for all. Secrets are kept to keep the people calm, and making them uncalm is against the responsibilities of the state, so they are an enemy of the state, and the state is there for the people, so wii leaks is against the people!
Like a lot of people have said, what is so noble about revealing the secrets of another. Picture someone being hammered out of the lobby screaming that the people have the right to know. What will happen if they don't? Anything bad? What will learning the truth make for the people? Well it will inform them of what thier president has been doing with thier power vested in him, so that point is not so bad. Moreover they will learn what people do when they are in power.
Does the state confirm these things? When they do they might need to redirect thier strategy to hide what they have been doing. I can guarantee you that they would not kill people out of turn, that they would not turn down trade partners for no good reason, and that they would not harm anyone politically unless it serves them looking good. In fact...
The reason it looks so bad is because it them doing things that they know they cannot hide nor undo. This whole war thing is out of proportion, but it could all fade away if they were to pull out at the wrong time. The result must be that they care about what they are doing and that they do it, looking bad, because they know it is the right thing to do. It is not easy playing with people's lives
!! Going to my destruction !!
I find it sickening that people are berating WikiLeaks now. They are proof that the US isn't an authoritarian, 1984-like state. I do hope that that does not change.
Top 10 revelations from WikiLeaks cables - Yahoo! News
"The place of the worst barbarism is that modern forest that makes use of us, this forest of chimneys and bayonets, machines and weapons, of strange inanimate beasts that feed on human flesh"
To them he is a traitor. To the populace tjat want to know the truth he ia a hero, to me, as I said in another thread, he is neither.
I've not seen anything revelatory. Yet. Certainly makes for some awkward state department meetings with other countries I bet. The Army doesn't seem to be doing all it should as far as vetting those who have access to classified docs. Still new at cyber warfare apparently.
“I wouldn’t mind going to prison for the rest of my life, or being executed so much,” he wrote, “if it wasn’t for the possibility of having pictures of me plastered all over the world press.” ~ Pfc Manninghttp://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/09/us...dley_e_manning
If the terrain and the map do not agree, follow the terrain.
When motherhood becomes the fruit of a deep yearning, not the result of ignorance or accident, its children will become a new race.
Couldn't have said it better myself; there's no heroism in Manning's actions save to expose US communciations to the public - and really, given the potential repercussions, I can't really construe that as heroism. Certainly, members of the public wishing that the government was entirely transparent with them all the time might be in favour of it, but that's not something by which a nation (especially one with such a sensitive military situation as the US has currently) can safely function.
As someone with evident access to sensitive material, assumedly Manning was well aware of the repercussions which might arise from doing what he did. And if realising that he could be potentially putting his nation in a worst case scenario at risk didn't dissuade the man, I can only see him being a traitor.
Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.....As someone with evident access to sensitive material, assumedly Manning was well aware of the repercussions which might arise from doing what he did. And if realising that he could be potentially putting his nation in a worst case scenario at risk didn't dissuade the man, I can only see him being a traitor.
If he felt it was the right thing to do, so be it.
"The place of the worst barbarism is that modern forest that makes use of us, this forest of chimneys and bayonets, machines and weapons, of strange inanimate beasts that feed on human flesh"
I think you're giving Manning more credit in the awareness department than he's demonstrated.
If the terrain and the map do not agree, follow the terrain.
When motherhood becomes the fruit of a deep yearning, not the result of ignorance or accident, its children will become a new race.
Granted, he probably acted with some sort of moral justification in mind, but in the larger view of things that hardly makes him a hero if he's put his country at risk. That's the same sort of thinking people employ to justify going on mass shooting sprees: "I'm justified in what I do because it feels right, regardless of the effect is has on the majority."
Perhaps so, but most would think that a whole bunch of classified cables being leaked to the public isn't exactly going to result in a medal, either.
It's not just the military and the government that trusted Manning not to leak, it is the public that trusted Manning not to stay silent. The public has a right to know what its government is up to, how the wars are really going, what our foreign policy is like towards countries that aren't North Korea or Iran, and everything else. The only thing that has a reasonable claim on secrecy are troop movements, troop locations, and future battle plans. Everything else, no matter how tiny, should be public knowledge.
A man said to the universe:
"Sir, I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."
-- Stephen Crane
Tell me exactly how any of the leaks so far have 'put the country at risk'.
A man said to the universe:
"Sir, I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."
-- Stephen Crane
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