It's not a pardon, but a commuting of the sentence. He's not saying she's not in the wrong or did not betray the country, he's saying the sentence was excessive, which most agree on. With that, if this was indeed a move to appease the LGBT community, that's clearly wrong. Personally, I think the sentence was commuted perhaps a little too much given precedent, but 35 years is clearly excessive. Snowden is a completely different case. He leaked way more harmful information and has never shown any remorse for it and is in political exile in Russia. Ms. Manning has been convicted with due process and admitted to her shortcomings.
Who should be in charge, and what's the solution? Having a soft, "liberal" president currently bomb 7 countries hasn't worked out so well.
Agreed, having a soft liberal president screw things up in the middle east hasn't worked at all. When you are doing nothing but pecking on the outside, you don't get much done other than creating propaganda videos.....especially when you pull out of those countries and allow ISIS to take huge portions of it over. The problem is that we had a soft minded president even when it was Bush and it only got worse. You either do something right, or you don't do it at all and you just live with the fact that you'll be attacked every once in a while.
He should have appointed a surpreme court justice, since the senate abdicated on their responsibility. DD
So send in more ground troops? I see no clear policy position or strategy? Just a condemnation of a soft liberal president.
He legally can't without the advice and consent of the Senate....and the Senate never waived their right to advice and consent nor did they give it. He should have encouraged his party to run a more competent candidate for president or come with a nominee that would entice the Senate to consent. Just add it to the long list of failures during his presidency.
They never should have left in the first place. You build Iraq back up while ensuring their safety then when and if you ever decide to leave, you have already built a success......you know, like Germany or Japan.
Snowden leaked though journalists who vet the release of info with the US gov't and was trapped in Russia due to the timing of the cancellation of his passport. He's been charged under a provision that does not give him the right to a public trial, or the use of public good as a defense. Plus I think his dad is an Astros fan.
Im not surprised we still have those who still think this is a great idea and Obama does no wrong. We do not need further proof that the left has no respect for state secrets, but hey, if you need it, here it is. The issue with Manning is that he simply 'copied and pasted *.*' He took into no consideration what he was releasing. This was not whistle-blowing. That said, 35 years is a bit extreme. Snowden was really no different. He at least let the journalist decide what to release. Snowden actually exposed real programs and real proof. What he did was more in lines with a whistle blower.
35 years is NOT extreme, what he did was punishable by death under the UCMJ, a death sentence would be extreme yet still VERY warranted.
For those thinking what Manning did was no big deal. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/05/bradley-manning-leak-foreign-policy-sentencing Bradley Manning leak has had chilling effect on US foreign policy, court hears The more than 250,000 US diplomatic cables army Pfc Bradley Manning disclosed through WikiLeaks have had a chilling effect on American foreign relations, a high-ranking State Department official testified on Monday. Patrick Kennedy, the US undersecretary for management, said at the soldier's sentencing hearing some foreign government officials, business leaders, educators and journalists remain reluctant to speak freely in private with US diplomats more than two years after the cables were published. https://www.thenation.com/article/did-bradley-manning-actually-harm-national-security/ Did Bradley Manning Actually Harm National Security? “The essence of the #BradleyManning case is, if every soldier gets a vote on national security policy, the military ceases to function.”
that's my beef with wiki and assange. They release info sometimes without even knowing what it is. Plus Assange's asylum claim is also quite different. I don't think wikileaks and snowden are very similar at all.
I don't want to derail this thread, but I'm interested in your thoughts on one point: Japan had the advantage of being a near-total homogenous culture that didn't hate itself. Germany was divided, and the east has been brought back into modernity after the fall of the wall, but was still a largely homogenous culture. Did that help with post war reconstruction in a way that Iraq never could've hoped for? Iraq's clash between Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurd predates the American invasion by a few centuries. Basically, isn't this a bit of an apples/oranges comparison?
I think it's a bit ridiculous to think that those people are incapable of being peaceful or civilized. if you create a peaceful situation for them to live in enforced by the strength of the military then people would act in their own best interest and take advantage of it. There was a time that people thought the Japanese incapable of being peaceful due to their history and that's proven false too. Now, would it be easy? No, but how would Germany have ended up if the allies just left right afterwards? Oh wait, they tried it, and that's why there was a 2nd war. So what they (by "they" I mean Obama and Bush) chose to do instead was to abandon the country prematurely and piss away all of the progress that was being made. It was just a stunningly incompetent foreign policy decision. Doing things right in Iraq would have been expensive and it would have taken a long time, but it would have been the right thing to do and it would have gone a long way towards stabilizing the region.
On the face of it this is very troubling. It's a signal to the next guy that divulging state secrets to foreign powers will be considered whistleblowing. Not a good move here.
Because whistleblowing exactly was the intent. The prisoner abuse and torture was secret for what reasons? It's illegal. Wouldn't know without whistleblowing activity. Same with other leaked material. 35 years is too harsh. 7 years is fine. And the US should think twice about doing illegal and immoral stuff.
