The Belgian journal De Standaard seems rather sympathetic towards private Bradley Manning, who allegedly leaked thousands of classified documents to Assange's Wikileaks:
'THE REVENGE OF THE LONELY SOLDIER BRADLEY MANNING.
....
But why would Menning have done it?
The chat sessions he held with Lamo [a hacker who once broke into the NYT's computers, befriended Manning online, but finally fingerpointed him - MFBB] and which served as material for The Washington Post in June already, give a beginning of the answer. In any case, they sketch a desillusioned soldier who looks down at the army with contempt.
Military intelligence is an oxymoron, he writes on his Facebook page. The diplomatic telexes he sees, 'are for him proof how the First World exploits the Third World'. It is also clear that Manning feels totally isolated. 'I am a wreck' he tells Lamo. 'I look for escape routes to survive. I am smart enough to realize what's going on, but helpless to do something about it.'
I wonder how sensitive, caring and smart nerd Bradley Manning would have reacted if he had been a military intelligence analyst in the army of Sudan. Or in that of Myanmar. Or in that of Iran. "Dispatch three gunships tomorrow to wipe out villages north of Kabkabiya". "Top KNLA commander lifted off his bed in the Myawaddy District, executed the day after". " 'Zahra Kazemi beaten to death in Evin Prison. Good riddance!!!'
Just why is it that all these econutters - woollen sock wearers - leftozoid LBGT aficionados are always prepared to see and believe the worst of the western society that has sheltered them and provided them with a lifestyle to be encountered nowhere else, while they curiously remain deaf and blind to the havoc that so many regimes out there inflict on their own people and their neighbors, while more often than not absolutely and unapologetically ruining their ecology?
Apart from Manning, there is of course Assange. Fellow commenter on LVB had the following link from American Thinker. It's an interesting POV:
Ask yourself this: Who is the greater threat to America? Is it an Australian programmer or Barack Obama? Assange is merely a website operator. He has no backing or powers to inflict harm on this country. Obama, on the other hand, has been using the powers of his office to systematically destroy the American economy, the dollar, our standard of living, and our standing in the world. He has been stoking racial tensions. He has been taking private property of American citizens and giving it to his friends. He and his people have been destroying the values and fabric of American society faster than you can say "bam."
In reality, it is this regime that is a menace to America. What Julian Assange is doing is merely helping to reveal the duplicity and incompetence. And it could not be more ironic that he is doing so with documents which have been forwarded to him by leakers who themselves are part of the Obama administration.
I tend to agree with the author, Vasko Kohlmayer. Assange merely published the information that was made available to him. Since he is in no way involved with the US or its institutions, it seems hard to charge him for what he did. I therefore think that the outburst from Republican lawmakers to designate WikiLeaks a terrorist organization is not one, but two bridges too far. If any lesson should be drawn from it, it is that the information now made public should be made less available, and less visible.
With Manning it's another matter though. Manning was a soldier of the US Army and therefore sworn to loyalty to that institution. When he signed up, he also signed up to oblige to its professional and ethics standards. Assange in all likelihood is just a narcissist, eager to be in the spotlights. He is also a self-hating narcissist, because he is a Westerner, and somewhere in the back of my mind I know with mathematical certainty that we will not hear anything soon from WikiLeaks with regards to human rights violations in Tibet, although you can bet your sweet ass that there are Chinese government cables about that and that he could lay his hands on 'em if he wanted.
But Manning.... Manning leaked info that could endanger, and in all likelihood has endangered, the lives of American and allied soldiers. Not soldiers sitting on their safe warm asses like Manning. But soldiers out there in the field. In AF's Korengal valley, or in a dangerous Bagdad suburb.
I wrote I tended to agree with Mr. Kohlamyer on Assange.
And I found another author I agree with on Manning:
First of all, the soldier as the source should be given to the military to take care of. The Army needs its best prosecution team on him and should punish him as much as possible in a very public way. Make an example of him. He is and will be drenched in blood. No quarter or mercy should be given to him. Whatever the max is; make is so.
CDR Salamander.
De Standaard will shed crocodile tears for their darling when the verdict comes. I couldn't care less.
MFBB.
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