Iraq war logs in Manning case 'hit us in the face': U.S. officer
What Mr. Manning should have changed was the way our soldiers identify their enemy. Identifying them to be an actual enemy would be nice. Opening fire on everything that moves (like a video game) is not a strategy.
Watching our soldiers murder innocent children was the turning point of my support for our military. It was like watching the Taliban. They weren’t soldiers to me, they were terrorists wearing our uniform.
Our soldiers carry out operations that serve private interests. All they tell us is “We’re defending freedom” and we know it’s a lie. It’s disgusting. Soldiers should be allowed to expose this without being prosecuted.
Calling the volunteer computer geeks in our military who couldn’t make a go of it in the private sector soldiers is ludicrous and an insult to real fighting men everywhere. They hide behind computer screens and fly drones all day instead of putting themselves in harm’s way.
Get rid of our volunteer system, re-institute the draft, and we’d get rid of such foolishness in a heart beat. Manning was justified in blowing the whistle on these geeks in uniform as the cowards they are.
@Obsilutely – Please direct me to where you have witnessed the US military deliberately murdering children. Your interpretation of reality seems a bit skewed, to say the least.
All REAL classified info is always compartmentalized to restrict damage in case of an authorized access..
Even Apple computers follows this rule.
Let’s face it what ever Manning released wasn’t that important. Otherwise a private won’t have an access to it.
@dd606
Robert Bales
Jeremy Morlock
David Bram
dd606,
The video entitled “Collateral Murder”, released by wikileaks, shows an Apache helicopter killing 12, including a child. You didn’t look very far to corroborate what you already thought, did you? Also, see Mr. Bales, who went on a rampage in Afghanistan, killing over a dozen, including children. Those are two examples I know of off the top of my head, how many do you think happened that we didn’t know of yet? Get your head out of the sand!
The US has lost 2 wars since 9-11-2001, and the American people need to know the truth to avoid more defeats. The Bush and Obama regimes, including military leaders, cannot be trusted to reveal their errors, and they commit treason against the US when they cover their backsides. That is why Manning is a hero who put his country first. The US Constitution begins “We, the people of the United States…do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” The government is not the boss; the government is the servant of the people, and the president is the chief servant. When Harry Truman left office, he point out that he was being promoted to citizen. Most of the liars, cowards, and traitors who serve the current regimes don’t accept that truth, and patriots may need to take actions that the regimes won’t like. When we compare the physical power of the regime against the physical power of Manning, the scale of his courage against hopeless odds is clear. We, the people, needed the information to discover what went wrong in Iraq to avoid those mistakes in the future. The efforts of the Bush and Obama regimes to hide that information are acts of treason that have been designed to set up the US for future defeats because the Bush and Obama regimes have decided to cover their backsides instead of serving America.
Obsilutely, you have no idea what you’re talking about
The US Military Industrial Complex is what hits American Citizen in the face every day. They don’t just kill people, they kill America itself.
Idiot! Obviously rank in the US armed forces has little to do with common sense, or a scintilla of basic morality. “Hit in the face” might be applicable to lies, but, if anything, Manning’s effort that such idiocy, as is revealed in the war logs, and the diplomatic logs, is the everyday coin of America’s efforts to rule the world.
The General is correct to be affronted but he should be insulted to work with other idiots who do as they do in the hope that their evil doing will remain secret.
If he resigned he might regain some self-respect.
Real Americans don’t kill children – unless it’s an accident or the work of a madman.
The CONTENT of the material leaked has to count. It isn’t being considered, but when CRIMES are being exposed then the leaker is not a “traitor”.
In fact, as Jerry Seinfeld knows, in some places it is a crime to not report a crime.
Murdering innocent civilians is a crime, Manning had a DUTY to report it, and knowing it would be covered up if he went through “proper channels”, then leaking it to the press was a reasonable option.
The fact that none of this came up in his trial, and in fact the sentencing of Manning, makes the prosecutor and Judge GUILTY OF AIDING AN ABETTING the murderers.
Corruption brings down empires… the USA is teetering…
@WhyMeLord
1) The attacks in question weren’t done by “geeks” hiding behind computer screens but “real fighting men” flying Apache helicopters.
2) The last thing the military needs to do is re-institute the draft. I’m sorry, but the US Army isn’t going to be fighting a tank war in Central Europe anytime soon.
3) The future of warfare is a battle over computer systems. Cyber-defense should be our military’s biggest focus. You can utterly destroy a country by destroying its computer infrastructure. So, whether you like it or not, these “geeks” are a big part of the future of warfare
@Benny27 – Yeah, I figured somebody would bring up that one. Funny how most people that call the military murderers, always bring up the same exact story. You would think that people could cite a little bit more than one incident, before they accuse millions of their own countrymen of being murderers.
The incident you mentioned involved a guy who was obviously dumber than a box of rocks… who put his kid in a van that was completely unmarked as being ‘press’, which they later claimed he was (which is debatable at best). He then drove that unmarked van with his kid inside, into what is basically a combat zone. He proceeded to get out of the van, leaving his kid inside, while he went over to hang out with insurgents that were walking around in the streets, clearly holding AK47s and RPGs. Anybody with eyes can clearly see that on the FLIR footage. Anybody who had half a brain over there, knew that at that time, anybody who was walking around wielding weapons like that, who was not authorized to do so (like the official Iraqi Army)… would be considered a combatant, and would most likely be targeted. So that’s what they did… They shot at insurgents clearly holding weapons, and the one guy who turned out to be holding a camera. When somebody tried to drag him back to the van, they thought they were trying to get away and they shot the van, not knowing a kid was inside. Obviously they would not have shot at it if they knew that.
So how it is that a nut bringing his kid into a combat zone to hang out with armed men, and a US air crew accidentally shooting them… somehow makes all US soldiers murderers in your mind… I have no idea. But that’s something you’ll have to live with, not me.
Between WikiLeaks, Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden it is becoming clearer and clearer every day why no investigations were ever allowed of the Bush/Cheney administration, especially in relation to the war in Iraq. Remember Nancy Pelosi stating, “Impeachment is off the table.” Remember also that Obama did not allow the Justice Department to investigate the crimes of the Bush/Cheney administration after he was elected. Who knows what would have crawled out from under that rock. It’s becoming clearer and clearer every day that the United States intelligence organizations are controlling the President and Congress rather than the other way around. We have one stunningly out of control situation here and this is most likely just the tip of the iceberg.
@dd606 & SuziS – Watch the video Manning released. There were two children in that van and you could see them clear as day. Their father was trying to save a wounded victim while our soldiers opened fire on them (laughing hysterically with racial slurs).
It was disgusting. So go on ahead and inform yourself, cupcake(s). Watch the video. Then check your denial.
obsilutely is this incident a common policy in the army? you never serve in military it is very obvious… there are so many different types of people in the army so sometimes these things happen and you punish them but labeling the whole army as baby killers is very immature, childish and unfair… you never know when couple iraqi citizens kidnap you for beheading… you may reason with them or maybe pray for couple baby killers to come and rescue your liberal communist self…
The release of records by Mr. Manning should have started a discussion about or political leadership, and the “collateral damages” they inflicted with their pursuit of Texaco’s and Halliburton’s agenda. Mr. Manning did use poor judgement in his mode of record release, but administration and congressional officials practiced judgement of a criminal nature.
Regrettably, this nation does not punish criminals. We seem to celebrate criminal acts by Wall Streeters, politicians, illegal immigrants, and so on. And regrettably, we now have a Supreme Court that only seems to reinforce bad behavior.
The release of records by Mr. Manning should have started a discussion about or political leadership, and the “collateral damages” they inflicted with their pursuit of Texaco’s and Halliburton’s agenda. Mr. Manning did use poor judgement in his mode of record release, but administration and congressional officials practiced judgement of a criminal nature.
Regrettably, this nation does not punish criminals. We seem to celebrate criminal acts by Wall Streeters, politicians, illegal immigrants, and so on. And regrettably, we now have a Supreme Court that only seems to reinforce bad behavior.
It stands to reason that Manning should receive the harshest sentence possible. Otherwise if he gets a light sentence, there could very likely copycats in emulating Manning.


