How Bradley Manning was Upholding, not Breaking, the Law; The Nuremberg Principals:

[grahamhgreen]

In a nutshell, exposing war crimes is not a crime, it is a duty:

Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nüremberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Tribunal, 1950.

Principle I

Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment.


Principle II

The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law.


Principle III

The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible Government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.


Principle IV

The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.


Principle V

Any person charged with a crime under international law has the right to a fair trial on the facts and law.


Principle VI

The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:

(a) Crimes against peace:
(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).

(b) War crimes:
Violations of the laws or customs of war include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave-labour or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war, of persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.

(c) Crimes against humanity:
Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connexion with any crime against peace or any war crime.


Principle VII

Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law.

LINK: http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/full/390

The documents Manning released (if true) simply show a pattern and practice of criminal behavior. It was and is every soldiers duty to expose these crimes, IMHO.

[xchrom]

1. Du rec. Nt

[MichaelMcGuire]

2. K&R

[libtodeath]

3. K&R for this hero

[Loudmxr]

4. Let me play you this.. and reflect on how our country turned its back on decency

&feature=related

[grahamhgreen]

5. "This is what we stand for - Justice, Truth and the value of a SINGLE human being..."

[surfdog]

6. Not even close to being accurate

Manning committed a crime , to say he didn't would be absurd

The information that he stole was released and he had no idea what was in it

Get it ? he did not know what he was releasing

I'll say it again since many ignore this point Manning did not know what he was stealing or releasing

[stevenleser]

7. I agree. If Manning had confined his release of documents to the 5-7 that are whistleblowing, there

might be a point. The release of tens of thousands of documents, the vast majority mundane communications between the diplomatic arms of various countries, points to a personal vendetta, not an act of conscience.

[AtomicKitten]

8. The indiscriminate data dump was reckless.

Sifting through the data to try to justify in retrospect his actions has no bearing on the charges he faces under military law.

[girl gone mad]

9. It's never been the job of a whistleblower to censor or interpret information.

Ellsberg didn't scour every one of the thousands of pages he released to ensure there was no piece of information which could damage national security.

[sabrina 1]

10. He did know what was in it. He was an analyst and the web logs

show that he knew, as he said himself, before his arrest. First, we don't know how much of what was released came from him. He was looking at all this for months and months, partly because of his job. The War Logs I believe, is what he was referring to in the chat logs.

[morningfog]

11. He may not have known ALL of what was in the release, but he did

know evidence of war crimes were contained in the data he passed on.

[grahamhgreen]

12. First of all his actions are alleged, not proven, second

The documents, in total, show a pattern and practice of criminal behavior.

It is the soldiers duty, under law, to expose such crimes.

[snot]

13. K&R'd & Bookmarked -- thanks.

[midnight]

14. Exposing war crimes is a duty.