...then most of your armed forces would of been in jail. And while you at it maybe you also prosecute all war crimes US did during Vietnam ? At least this kid had more balls then all fat generals who bitch how "we winning war in Iraq".
Also freedom of speech in US (just like in any other country) works like this: post whatever unless it makes us look bad. Also one of the things in a story seems very clear: FBI found some compromising facts on hacker and he had to turn in this kid.

the kid should try out the looking forward and not backward defense, it seems to be working in spades for lots of folks.

This kid's behavior doesn't make him seem to be a latter-day Daniel Ellsberg, who knew exactly what he was dealing with and was willing to fall on the sword. I therefore don't see Manning as a martyr, more of a young, foolish braggart and malcontent.

But,if they prosecute this boy (which many folks are salivating at a trial for treason, but Manning wasn't working for a foreign power, unlike Larry Franklin et al) I would hope that at some point in the future serious investigations would be launched into the actions of individuals leaking serious information to an erstwhile friend of ours located in the Levant, who then shared it/sold it with/to their friends. I hope such an investigation would look into the attendant cover-ups.

for reporting of misconduct that can embarrass the command?

Just finished reading "To Kill a Mockingbird". Good perspective upon a society not far from the gulag of dehumanizing prejudices. How was Thomas Robinson to deal with protected injustice other than self sacrifice? How was the exacting of justice against Ewell and the prevention of retribution against the Finch children to occur without going outside the system?

Fifty years...has the system adjusted enough to stop enabling the Ewell-likes in uniform from trash behavior while receiving a government check for services?

3 points:
-Tom, did you ever recieve anything from this kid?
-I would agree, we do tend to overclassify, but there is a reason. Better to overclassify something (throw the SECRET label on the slide/paper), than to underclassify and have to defend yourself and explain your way out of it. Bottom line is when it comes to classification, you don't want to be "that guy."

And he should. He had a TS/SCI clearance and he flagrantly violated it over and over and bragged about it.

I've seen videos almost as bad as the Wikileaks one - they make the email circuit all the time. The only difference was they didn't have the journalists in them. I think the Wikileak video was a bad thing - but somewhat understandable given the circumstances, fog of war, wrong place, blah, blah. In the end it isn't the video that makes me angry about this kid - it's all the other stuff he stole and tried to pass off that we know nothing about.

Kudos to his handoff source who realized "um, I don't want to get involved in this."

Oh, and I am all in favor of sending the torturers to trial - there's plenty of courts, no waiting in line necessary. But since that buck stops with George, Dickie and Rummy I won't be holding my breath.

I'll venture an answer on why not to prosecute "the torturers," and it's not reliant on a defense of what they did. What the leaker did was clearly illegal and ran directly counter to what he knew his responsbilities to be.

The "torturers," on the other hand, were acting in the name of policies promulgated from above, in fact from the very highest levels (unless you're just referring to some rogue elements at Abu Ghraib). If you prosecute them, your prosecute them for carrying out policy. Even if you prosecute the highest decision makers (Bush, whoever else) you are prosecuting leaders for their policies. Sure, they might be illegal, but there is not even a consensus on that point. Even if they are illegal, it is to a marginal degree such that it raises the prospect of routine illegal policy decisions by other past presidents. And then you're in Latin American territory, where past presidents routinely have to fear jail terms and current presidents have no latitude to make policy choices. What about prosecuting Obama for "illegal" assassination and violations of the laws of war due to drone attacks? Or expanding a "secret war" (see your old newspaper) to fight terror throughout the world?

Just saying...deciding to prosecute Wikileaker is easy. Prosecuting "the torturers" has serious implications for governance.

Why is it you feel America must prostrate itself before any provisional assertion of power can be seen as credible? You're surprised to find yourself thinking this soldier did something wrong? Really? You know very well these videos contain tactical information that can compromise military operations - for that reason alone you should not at all be surprised to find fault with what this soldier did. You know very well these videos will be exploited by ideologues who have a vested interest in undermining the beliefs and values that make a strong military possible - and so it was this video was doctored to suit that end - of all the people who have seen this video how many have seen the original, the version that makes it clear the pilots in the Apache acted in accordance with the ROE current at the time, that demonstrated their actions may have been unfortunate but not therefore necessarily unjustified? Very, very few. You know very well these 'freedoms' you speak of are conditional, not absolute - to speak about them as if they're absolute is to engage in a false argument - if you'd been a reporter in England in 1944 that had been leaked plans to Overlord and then sought to publish them on June 5th you would rightly have been stolen away in the dead of night and then probably put up against a wall and shot - the freedoms you laud are conditional.

Where does this liberal arrogance come from, this Obamaphile blind faith that imagines that 'enlightened' progressives, in direct opposition to pretty much everything history has to teach us, can simply remake the dynamics that have governed great and powerful nations for eons so as render them more palatable to their myopic, fanciful, self indulgent sympathies?

Didn't you get the memo from the White House? All past crimes, including war crimes, have been forgiven. Unless, of course, your crime was to expose those committing those crimes. We're definitely not looking forward in that case.

The reason Obama is pursuing such a policy is obvious: he's committing all the same war crimes as Bush co! Exposing them to prosecution could get very uncomfortable for him.

Despite their sanctimonious claim as "The Fourth Estate," journalists are no more than glorified court gossips. Occasionally they perform a useful function, but always in a destructive, sordid way -- like maggots. At best journalists consume the rot -- and often they turn good into rot.

Take Thomas E. Ricks, the forceful beard in the flattering photo. He's a great supporter of the First Amendment. Oh yeah, the most corrupt Amendment in the Constitution, even more corrupt than the Second Amendment, which at least seemed a good idea at the time. Yes, religion, speech, assembly, petition are all fine. And for freedom of information, speech should be sufficient. But a separate press? Of course, by "speech," the framers meant the freedom to write as well as to speak, but the crafty Mr. Franklin ensured that he and his fellow newspapermen got special dispensation. Thus, we have the aphorism that freedom of the press is for those who own one. The First Amendment is the only Amendment which gives immunity to a specified business.

It's like a license to steal! And the monolithic media knows this. It's why mass media has grown to such a monstrous size and how it's been able, deliberately, to co-opt and corrupt everything it touches. Politics, the arts, sports, education -- all have been corrupted by commercial media, hence culture itself. And all because it is a business uniquely protected by the Constitution.

Of course Ricks is a pious supporter of the First Amendment, claiming newspapers should be able to print anything -- not because of honest conviction, but because he knows that the First Amendment is what butters his bread and stokes his ego. (That prized little badge that gets him inside the ropes.)

Of course, as the thought police, the media not only has control of the agenda but control of what can be said, As media will glibly tell you, the freedom to print also means the freedom not to print. This means that media can sanctify those who please it and demonize those who displease it. Media is also blackmailer. "Talk to me, let me distort what you say, or I'll print whatever lies I like, because I have Sulllivan to protect me." This is why only mediocrities go into public life these days. For real talent, the grief from the media isn't worth the effort.

Torturers on our behalf -- despite the effete sanctimony of the virtuous -- deliver far more good than journalists, so if I were to prosecute one or the other for "crimes against humanity," then I'd go for the journalists in a flash. It's not that they are arrogant, preening, cynical, vindictive prima donnas -- no, the primary mens rea of journalists is that they are, by nature, b*stards, and that includes the self-esteemed Thomas E. Ricks.

Just google them to find the actual architects of the torturing.

You need to dig a bit deeper to get at the guys who tortured the Constitution until it told them that whatever the President signed was legal law, whether that mediocre purchaser of a brand-name MBA read it or not.

I wonder what Judge Bork thought about their 'unitiary presidency voodoo', or the idea of putting a go-along guy like Atty Gen. Gonzales on the high court?

Re problematic ROE's: Unarmed ambulances and medics are supposed to be protected. So questioning ROE's that call blasting one OK, as Jack Keane did, isn't liberal or wimpy.

An unmarked van and volunteer medic, the possibility of scavenging arms, make it possible to argue 'good shoot, unfortunate collatoral'. But in doing so, we draw an destructive parallel to the Israeli practice of a delayed second shot into a crowd of rescuers, in the mind of the ME audience.

Also freedom of speech in US (just like in any other country) works like this: post whateverreplica omega unless it makes us look bad. Also one of the things in a story seems very clear: FBI found some compromising facts on hacker and he had to turn in this kid.