Reply #31: nowblog tonight focuses on Cpl.Bradley Manning, as the big US guns go for the small man

[Catherina]

jonsnowC4 Jon Snow
Snowblog tonight focuses on Cpl.Bradley Manning, as the big US guns go for the small man in the Wikileaks saga: http://bit.ly/f5Uv8s
8 minutes ago

Wikileaks: Bradley Manning's Hour
Thursday 3 March 2011
2:43 pm

...

It has been most convenient to the US military to have Manning incommunicado. It has meant that they have been able to spin their own accounts of his behaviour and his ‘acts against the state’.

His case has enabled the US authorities to avoid the spotlight falling upon the absurd decisions that led to so much ‘secret’ material being left in computer data systems to which at least 900,000 had access. There is an argument than Manning did them a favour by effectively blowing the whistle on amateur and negligent storage of such ‘secret’ files. No heads have rolled. No heads will roll. No one in authority in any US department has been disciplined as a result of the data they effectively handed Manning for him to treat as he saw fit.

Net result – all attention is focused on the ‘little man’ in all this and not upon the big guys. Manning will probably not be executed, although the military judge can ignore the prosecution’s call for life imprisonment and go for death anyway.

We should be vigilant in watching what our closest ally decides to do to this young man. It has not been easy to track what they have been doing to him thus far.

http://blogs.channel4.com/snowblog/wikileaks-bradley-mannings-hour/14785