Bradley Manning and Julian Assange.

The military is a curious mixture of cultures. On the one hand it provides stable employment, a regular wage, job security for a set number of years, training in a useful skill and a reliable pension â ideal conditions in which to marry and raise a family; whilst at the same time relentlessly training you to have hair trigger responses to unexpected âdisturbancesâ to your equanimity, to be merciless in your response, to take lives without agonising, and to assume a natural position of control over each and every situation â none of these qualities being exactly conducive to the rough and tumble of family life. Small children waking you at dawn with loud bangs, wives âdisobeyingâ orders, children displaying teenage truculence. It is no wonder that the military have long understood the necessity of employing several psychiatrists to attend to the confusion in some military minds.
I used to know one of the US military psychiatrists extremely well. He and his wife were great friends of mine right up to his (sadly too early) death. Tom, as I shall call him, had been an army man once, but now having completed his medical training, he was stationed on an RAF base far from the US. He had been given an honorary rank way above the relatively humble rank he had earned in the army; with that rank, such is the military focus on hierarchy, went a palatial suite of offices in a prime position on the base â right opposite the Base Commanderâs office. He should have been delighted; such âhonoursâ are the way the military operate after all. He wasnât, Tom had spotted the elemental flaw in the arrangement.
He and his wife had become customers of my little hotel during the early days of their arrival in the UK; those âresettlementâ days before he had to start work and was enjoying discovering the local area. He had struggled with alcoholism himself, and was now determinedly teetotal, so carried copious bottles of carbonated water with him everywhere. One hot day he asked me if I could put them in the âiceboxâ to cool them down. I dutifully complied. An hour later, the door of the freezer blew off, showering a busy lunchtime restaurant with frozen peasâ¦.the âiceboxâ is the âfridgeâ in US-speak, not the place where you make iceâ¦the incident cemented our friendship.
So it was that he asked a favour of me; would I lend him my little cottage in the grounds for one or two afternoons a week? No, not an extra marital relationship! Purely so that military personal who had come to the conclusion that they would benefit from professional help with their mental health could appear to be entering my tea rooms, but discretely walk round the back and consult their psychiatrist in my cottage without marching past the window of the Base Commander and announcing to the entire upper hierarchy that all was not well in their mind. It was an arrangement we continued for several years â I thought no more about it other than being slightly perturbed at the thought that some of the young men who flew over our heads in their lethally equipped flying machines were patently not the âfull shillingâ. One in particular used to come in his military uniform but was quite obviously wearing make up â we naturally christened him âHotlipsâ and would laugh about him, so unsympathetic were we. âHotlipsâ was eventually invalided out of the force after a mind blowing incident during ânuclear war gamesâ which would have been funny had it not been so potentially serious.
I was minded of âHotlipsâ when I first read a few years ago of Bradley Manningâs struggles with his gender identity. The military is an obvious choice for anyone who believes that with just a tad of âpushâ they might become more manly; it must also be the hardest place in the world to escape from once it dawns on you that it hasnât worked. You are still heading inexorably towards your feminine traits. Bradley Manning consulted an army psychologist in Iraq. He has testified:
Capt. Michael Worsley, a clinical psychologist and military reservist who treated Manning between December 2009 and May 2010 and, ultimately, was the one to diagnose him with gender identity disorder, testified today that Manning was placed in a âhyper-masculineâ environment with âlittle support or key coping skillsâ to deal with pressure he faced as well as his gender disorder.
âBeing in the military and having a gender identity issue does not go hand in hand,â
At the time of Manningâs therapy and ultimate diagnosis of gender identity disorder, being homosexual was a UCMJ violation, Worsley said, and placed a soldier at jeopardy of being court martialed.
It is indicative of the military mind that âbeing homosexualâ and having a âgender identity disorderâ are considered one and the same thing. Now both the transgendered community and the Gay community are trying to clasp Bradley to their bosom.
Manning tried other routes to escape his military commitment. He e-mailed his superior officer a picture of him dressed as a woman and wearing a womanâs wig:
The email [PDF] begins:
This is my problem. Iâve had signs of it for a very long time. Itâs caused problems within my family. I thought a career in the military would get rid of it. Itâs not something I seek out for attention, and Iâve been trying very, very hard to get rid of it by placing myself in situations where it would be impossible. But, itâs not going away; itâs haunting me more and more as I get older. Now, the consequences of it are dire, at a time when itâs causing me great pain it itself.
His superior officer âburiedâ the e-mail and picture for fear that it would be leaked and Manning would become a laughing stock. No escape there then.
I am not seeking to defend Manning, his leak of secret material inevitably put lives at risk, and was unforgivable if for no other reason that that he HAD made that military commitment; what does concern me is that his cries for help were ultimately ignored, maybe he thought that doing something so utterly reprehensible would see him out of the army for good? What concerns me more is that the publicity seeking Julian Assange â and let us not forget the equally publicity seeking âhacitivstâ Adrian Lemo who identified him, and indeed the Guardian â were prepared to exploit his frail mental health for their own ends, to build their career, massage their ego, increase their circulation.
I cannot see how it profits the military to hang onto people like Bradley â or âHotlipsâ from long ago. They are a danger to everyone, not least their own colleagues. There should be a better way of escaping the military if you discover that you just cannot hack it than a court martial or a firing squad.
More and more we are seeing evidence of a media which is prepared to use anyone in their bid to force their version of the news on us. Karin Ward, Bradley Manning â there is not a lot of difference. Nobody cares about the original whistleblowers â the story becomes larger than them.
Assange, an autistic, now lives in his perfect environment; closeted away with his computer, no need to earn a living, girl friends ferried in for his sexual needs; a hermetically secure environment doing exactly as he pleases. Bradley Manning is further away than ever from being able to sort out his gender issues, possibly facing 90 years in an all male environment – demonstrably tougher and more macho than the military. He is seen as the villain of the piece, whilst Assange is still viewed as a Hero in some quarters, as is Adrian Lemo.
Curiously, the reasons why Bradley became an outsider within the military have received almost no publicity in the UK, although extensively covered in the US â it is only today that the US army have realised a salacious picture of Manning demonstrating his gender distress that the UK media have pricked up their ears. Just shows how shallow they are.
August 17, 2013 at 16:34
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@Ho Hum
You make a good point and one that I had not specifically
considered though I think it may support my thesis â. I think applying what is
probably likely to be a rather threadbare critique (though some lawyers are a
little queasy on jurisdiction when not grounded on territoriality) the answer
to your question on the English sex tourist in Japan might be answered along
these lines on general principles of jurisprudence/ The English sex tourist
would not be amenable to extradition from Japan at the instance of the UK
authorities because the Japanese Courts would reject the notion that it should
abrogate its rights or the rights of someone within its jurisdiction to
another country. The English sex tourist would be amenable to prosecution as
soon as he returned to the UK by virtue of being within the jurisdiction and
having broken its laws. But let me try to illustrate my point in a different
way adopting a variation of your facts. Let us assume Iran passed a law that
homosexual acts committed by an Iranian citizen outside the jurisdiction were
subject to penalty â-would or should a gay Iranian sex tourist in London be
amenable to extradition from London at the request of the Iranian authorities
âits important that you appreciate I make this point without making any
personal value judgement about such a putative Iranian law. The issue is that
English Courts are likely to find such a law repugnant. In fact I suspect as I
believe to be the case there is less distance between Anna Raccoon and myself
on intellectual principles and I pray in aid what I hope will not be seen as
too selective a quote from her last post â the system that you have to respect
when you are in that country â.
August 17, 2013 at 16:09
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@Ho Hum You make a good point and one I hadnât really considered save that
some lawyers have always been a little queasy about jurisdiction on any other
basis than territoriality â-it stems I suspect from the concept of the
independent nation state âwith regard to the specific example you raise I
think it may be something of an extension of my thesis which applied against
the facts you postulate would be answered along these lines âA UK citizen who
engaged in sexual activity that was unlawful in the UK but was lawful in Japan
would not be amenable to extradition to the UK from Japan on the basis that
the Japanese courts would not extend English jurisdiction within its own
country unless and (this is the point in issue I think) it abrogated that
right. A UK citizen in the UK would be amenable to prosecution if he was in
the UK by virtue of his physical presence in the UK and that the law in
England proscribed such activity.
The issue in the Assange case as I see it
(possibly incorrectly) is that it is potentially dangerous to give a blanket
abrogation of individual rights over someone in one country to another country
âlet me postulate a different factual scenario âAssume Iran passed a law that
Iranian citizens who committed homosexual acts abroad were subject to the same
sort of penalty as the commission of homosexual acts in Iran. A gay Iranian
sex tourist in London would be committing an offence under Iranian law but
would never be extradited by the UK authorities though could be prosecuted on
his return. I make no value judgement as to that Iranian law âthough I might
have a personal opinion on it âin this respect Anna Raccoon and myself appear
to concur âwe diverge I think on the point that that if English Jurisprudence
finds something repugnant the extent that principles of English jurisprudence
should be abrogated âbut it is for Anna Raccoon (as landlady and many other
reasons besides) not me to adjudicate on whether I have identified differences
in so far as there may be differences. The reasons why I say there may be no
difference is what I hope is a not too a selective quote from Anna Raccoonâs
last post âthe system that you have to respect when you are in that countryâ
âyes the Supreme Court has adjudicated on the validity of the Assange
extradition â-and he has therefore vacated the jurisdiction âI have made a
value judgement on the majority decision of the Supreme Court relying on the
points made in Manceâs minority judgement as to correct interpretation of the
legislation âbut have commented also that whatever the correct interpretation
of the law as a matter of jurisprudence it a potentially dangerous path to
tread to pass legislation whereby someone in this jurisdiction forfeits the
protection afforded by English law and principles of English jurisprudence at
the instance of a relatively minor Swedish civil servant on the grounds inter
alia that notwithstanding she is the Prosecutor she deemed as it appears on my
reading of Swedish law a member of the judiciary.
August 16, 2013 at 20:33
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FWIW, I donât think Snowden was in any way a sissy though
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/16/nsa_internal_audit_privacy_violations/
August 16, 2013 at 20:37
August 16, 2013 at 12:15
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Personally I wish the pox on Assange, Manning and Governments that carry
out acts they shouldnât and try to conceal them but in the democracy I live in
and being the person I am,wishing them the pox is probably the only action I
can or wish to take but Anna you are more literate than I am and have greater
commitment to issues such as law and justice and might I suggest reading the
transcript of the Supreme Court ruling on the Assange extradition proceedings
if you havenât done so â-I did so much as I took the trouble to find your site
to know a bit of what was actually going on in the Savile case â-the question
in the Assange case was why would English law permit the extradition of
someone such as Assange on the factual evidence of the case which was reported
in MSM as ârapeâ and yet in English law would not get laughed out of court
because it would have been laughed out of the police station before getting to
court. Now respect for Swedish law is a fine thing but only if Swedish law is
worthy of respect by the English law because Assange is in this jurisdiction
and as such subject and entitled to protection by it. We donât extradite
individuals to jurisdictions where the law is inadequate do we? Well perhaps
we do and even if Parliament never intended such providing the drafted law
provides for such ââand here you have the relevance of the transcript of the
Supreme Court Judgement and the dissenting judgement of Jonathan Mance who
analysed what was intended by the words judicial process in the relevant
legislation â-yea you and I and most people would reckon that meant a Court in
Sweden deciding there was a case to answer wouldnât we ? Of course no such
thing in the Assange case as you will discover, it is the extradition at the
request/behest/whim/untrammelled discretion of the Prosecutor in the case who
rumour has it has a personal feminist axe to grindâperhaps even that trait
identified as feminist for 15 minutes of fame âbut lets give her the benefit
of any and all doubt on that oneâ-but on basic principles no one is judge of
his or her own cause right? Neither the Defendant nor the Prosecutor right?
Well sorry not in the Assange case if the Prosecutor (whether feminist or
otherwise) can compel the Courts of England that Assange is to be taken from
England to Sweden as the legislation appears to be interpreted provides he or
she can. Unless I am mistaken evidence is irrelevant pretty much and the
opinion of the Prosecutor is subject to no review by any third party âoh and
consequences of returning Assange to Sweden are equally irrelevant ââwhat is
the only issue is????? Yes the wish of the Prosecutor ânice one eh? The
careers mistress at our old Alma Mater of Duncroft might have pointed a few of
your peers in the direction of the Swedish Criminal prosecution Service â-all
that is needed is a law degree I imagine though I imagine a certain political
correctness is more important
Your blog frequently draws attention to the
creeping influence of certain interest groups âon occasion the Feministas, the
Eurocrats and the Politically Correct âbut I will wager that if you read the
transcript you will stand me my next pint for drawing your attention to the
most perfect example of the erosion of what is understood by liberty in the
traditional Anglo Saxon World. But there again to be blunt from my perspective
I genuinely would find most afternoon tele more interesting than reading most
court transcript â-I only picked up on it and persevered with it because much
like the Savile case it was somehow obvious that Assange as vile sexual
predator didnât quite fit âmy own worthless opinion? Assange is and Savile was
motivated by a wish to be accepted by the public and adulated by them as good
and clever â-good works less for the sake of the work itself but its
reflection upon themselves âI donât condemn them for that just that by doing
that they become volenti to the Court of public opinion
August 16, 2013 at 12:25
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A typo âYour old Alma mater ânot our
August 16, 2013 at 12:27
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Iâm just trying to recall if Maggie sought the extradition of Peter
Wright so she could lock him up for 90 years for being nasty about MI5.
I
seem to have the memory that she just settled for giving his book massive
worldwide publicity insteadâ¦â¦â¦..
According
to Adam Curtis Maggie long despaired of our oh-so-clever secret agencyâ¦.
August 16, 2013 at 12:50
August 16, 2013 at 06:12
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Anna, you assert âI am not seeking to defend Manning, his leak of secret
material inevitably put lives at riskâ.
There doesnât seem to be any evidence of this. Manning embarrassed powerful
people. Stella Rimington has said that the âsecretsâ were not secret at all.
Real secrets are kept secret and not given to thousands of low ranking data
wranglers.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/22/wikileaks_secrets_werent_stella_rimington_says/
August 15, 2013 at 16:23
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Re Assange: Iâm confused â does anyone here really not believe that the
charges against him are trumped up and that the UK and/or Sweden would not
hand him over on a plate in order to curry favour with the Americans and avoid
their displeasure? I think I can be naive but I am under no illusions as to
what the intelligence services get up to here, in the States and , I suppose,
in Sweden.
August 15, 2013 at 16:29
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@Den
What is utterly confusing is that the UK would not extradite
Assange on the premise he may have have caused the death of untold numbers
of Secret Agents, but will extradite him because of some vague notions about
offending Swedish Blue laws. The legalities are laughably contemptible.
August 15, 2013 at 16:34
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@Moor
Please cite credible sources re: deaths of agents and, if
convincing, I will change my tune.
August 15, 2013 at 16:40
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Theyâre probably more credible than the rape charges. There were
several billion pieces of wiki-info. I doubt anyone can ever know what
may or may not have resulted from the wiki-release. The chances of the
media reporting on any are less than zero anyhow, even if they had the
wit to find out.
There are some who claim the Arab Spring was a pretty direct result.
The jury is still out on the streets in Egypt.
August 15, 2013 at 16:50
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âI doubt anyone can ever know what may or may not have resulted
from the wiki-release.â This does not cause me to change my tune.
We shouldnât give anyone up to the intelligence community without
very good reason, they are not of our kind. They even sacrifice their
own when expedient. God alone knows what they do to their perceived
enemies.
August 15, 2013 at 16:53
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@Den
The solution is so painfully obvious. Put Julian on a
non-stop Jumbo to bloody Sydney and let the Aussies sort it outâ¦â¦â¦â¦.
August 15, 2013 at 17:01
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No-one is going to tell you that. But if you can track down named
individuals from anonymised release of ISP customer data,â¦
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/21/netflix_privacy_flap/
â¦then the sort of people who make up the security services in most
countries are probably going to have little trouble tracking down who
was providing tittle tattle and information of the type that I
understand was supposed to be contained in the Wikileaks info.
August 15, 2013 at 16:54
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The accounts I read at the time did seem to indicate that the matter was
initially going to be dropped/not followed through on, until it was
resurrected (you could parallel that to the original problem, couldnât you?
) in a rather peculiar manner, by the Swedish legal authorities. That could
be read as implying that dark forces were at work behind the scenes. A more
prosaic option, of course, is that some tool in the Swedish prosecuterâs
office (not sure if thatâs exactly right in terms of the Swedish legal
process, but it will do as far as getting the gist across) took the chance
for some self-aggrandizement by grabbing it and grandstanding. Not that
thatâs an uncommon trait in the UK either, it seems
As for his finding his way from Sweden to the USA, I think you could
probably count on the Swedes very quickly looking up the directions on
Google Maps
Moor hinted that he knew a lot more of the detail, so maybe we can get
the benefit of his knowledge later
August 15, 2013 at 16:55
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@ Moor hinted that he knew a lot more of the detail, so maybe we can
get the benefit of his knowledge later @
Iâm only an expert on one
thing, as it âappensâ¦â¦â¦â¦.
August 16, 2013 at 10:18
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Wasnât it the hand of Karl Rove that was said to be extended to help
the Swedeâs in their persecution of Assange?
August 16, 2013 at 10:31
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âIn a radio interview last Friday, a Swedish professor emeritus of
international law, Ove Bring, confirmed that there are no legal
obstacles whatsoever preventing Ms. Ny from questioning Assange in
London. When asked why the prosecutor would not do so, Professor Bring
responded that âitâs a matter of prestige not only for prosecutors, but
for the Swedish legal systemâ. Professor Bring also stated that the
charges against Assange would probably have to be dropped following an
interview, since âthe evidence is not enough to charge him with a
crimeâ.
Last Saturday, Fria Tider sent a message to the Ministryâs official
Twitter channel, asking if Professor Bring was right in saying that the
reason why the prosecutor would not interrogate Assange in London was
âprestigeâ. After a short exchange of messages, the Ministry provided
the following response:
âYou do not dictate the terms if you are a suspect. Get it?â â
http://www.friatider.se/swedish-ministry-of-foreign-affairs-explains-why-assange-is-not-questioned-in-london-you-do-not-dictate-the-terms-if-you-are-a-suspect-get-it
August 15, 2013 at 16:13
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Iâve read somewhere that gender is not so much an either/or definition,
more a point on a spectrum between very male and very female. So if 1 is very
male, and 10 is very female, most people are 2,3,4 or 7,8,9, a few are 1 or
10, and some are 5 or 6. (Roughly â you get the gist.) You start to see this
all around you if do a bit of amateur analysis of people you know.
How much this has to do with Bradley Manningâs decision to leak the secrets
he had access to Iâm not sure. I can understand his being under considerable
mental strain as he wrestled with his personal identity, but Iâm not sure this
would cause him to betray his professional responsibilities. Perhaps Iâm wrong
â Iâm no psychologist â but I suspect there are others in the military with
similar personal problems who still manage to discharge their duties
conscientiously.
August 15, 2013 at 20:08
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I assume you are saying that gender is not the same thing as sex. Either
you carry a Y chromosome, or you donât, unless you have one of those rare
anomalies like Klinefelter syndrome, which is a XXY chromosome instead of
the usual XY in the male, so being a man or a woman for reproductive
purposes is a binary thing in almost all cases.
If we are saying that a man with a squeaky voice is more feminine, and a
woman with a hairy arse is more masculine, then, yes, it is all along a
continuum, though again it mostly comes down to the biological factor of
whether the person has a lot of testosterone or oestrogen compared to other
people. If we are saying that gender only applies to socially determined
behaviors, then yes, it is on a continuum. There may well be some societies,
for example, where men cannot read maps and have vast collections of shoes,
or at least read maps less well than men in some other societies, and have
more shoes!
In The Descent of Man, Darwin has some pretty interesting comments on
those biological features that are peculiar to one sex only, or shared, but
in rather different forms, like, for example the nipples on the chest of
male humans which are not used to breastfeed, a constant source of confusion
to my ten-month old daughter, who has discovered this anomaly, but still has
the matter under investigation.
August 15, 2013 at 14:45
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When youâre alive â you are âlabeled, and enabled to be found, libeled.
Once youâre dead, youâre labeled and dis abled period !
August 15, 2013 at 14:15
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Somehow it seems we get ever more labels to stick on men and women. Now we
have gender identity disorder. In other words a woman feels like she wants to
live as a man and tother way round, perhaps more common. A long time ago there
was a military sitcom that explored the issue and no one turned a hair. A
person also âblacked upâ and assumed a âgoodness gracious me accentâ in the
same show. This was accepted too. Now we get into such a flap over these
issues. That includes the person who gets the label stuck on them. So much so,
that instead of acceptance of this human variation in gender assignment,
someone joins an army to divest themselves of these inner thoughts. Then he
gets annoyed when things go wrong and lets out a load of info to all and
sundry. Crazy world we live in now. He looks OK as a woman, better than many
do. Why did he have to join the army? Thinking it would shock him out of his
state of being assigned to him at birth? I think we go backwards in some ways.
It is politicians who make laws forbidding certain states of being, many of
the public were much more accepting, in the past, than seems possible these
days.
August 15, 2013 at 17:06
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The War on Drugs was such a success â after all everybody stopped taking
them, didnât they? â that the very notion that The War on Unconventional
Sexualities might be doomed to failure is risible
August 15, 2013 at 18:41
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I find it extremely difficult to understand how any interviewing officer
when Manning applied to join the Army failed to see the possible problems in
his personality- what sort of records did he present from his educational
and work history? -and even if the interviewer didnât, it must have become
obvious to his training staff and fellow trainees quite soon. Have we heard
from his parents about his life goals etc?
My National Service in the
early 50s taught me a great deal about personalities, I might say.
August 15, 2013 at 19:13
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The US army is desperate for volunteers and will take almost anyone. If
they take women, they will certainly take wannabe women. A recruit who can
already read and write is an added bonus.
August 16, 2013 at 04:41
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As a sidelight to what our hostess was saying about Army shrinks, and
your comment about how the US Army will basically take anyone who can
fog up a mirror held near their nostrils:
It was mentioned, in an American newsmagazine report on 60 Minutes on
CBS, in a story about dealing with the psychological problems of wounded
vets recovering and rehabilitating at the Army Medical Hospital in
Killeen TX (i.e., at Fort Hood), that retention of Army psychiatrists
was difficult, because many might be somewhat disenchanted and
disaffected by what amounts to giving those patients a pep talk and some
psych meds, and shipping them back to active duty, only to repeat
process if the soldier is wounded again.
In passing, the reporter mentioned that the dearth of Army
psychiatrists at Fort Hood would appear to indicate that someone like
Major Hasan, Army shrink (himself wrapped none too tight), would be
cashiered only as some sort of last resort, a statement in which the
interviewee concurred. And there, the matter was droppedâ since the
story was about the wounded soldiers, not Hasan.
And I have never heard this aspect of that case discussed anywhere
else.
August 15, 2013 at 12:27
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I cannot fault your analysis Anna, I think youâre bang on the money.
However, I would be more forgiving here:
âI am not seeking to defend Manning, his leak of secret material
inevitably put lives at risk, and was unforgivableâ¦â
Iâm not naive, I know war is a terrible thing which even on its best day
isnât nice, not nice at all. But when you have Apache pilots shooting-up the
place and jeering like bad actors from a Western, then Iâm going to applaud
anyone that reveals it to the world. Similarly, the âsecret cablesâ which
amounted to little more than diplomatic tattle-tale and gossip about which
dictator is hot or not. Embarrassing? Yes. Lives at risk? Iâm not sure that is
the case⦠although the US Government and military would like us to believe it
is. Okay, the bad guys might not meet of street corners any more and that
invite to drinks at the embassy might not be what it seems now but lives at
risk? Seriously?
On the whole, I think Manning has done us all a great service. The US State
Dept, and our own equivalent, have for too long strutted around the world
meddling in the affairs that donât necessarily concern them. They do this in
our name and bury the exercise is layers of deep secrecy. It can only be for
the good that the curtain has been lifted, if only a little.
I have no problem with diplomats using a mixture of confidence and candour.
Itâs only proper that they are able to put a finger on the pulse of world
affairs but surely itâs the type of material that should end up in someoneâs
black notebook? To place it on vast computer networks and made freely
available to 250,000 military personnel? Now that, I have a problem with. Same
too the cavalier use of serious aerial weapons of war against civilians.
Whether these weapons are used in the way shown in Manningâs leaked Apache
video or the continued use of drone attacks on the Pakistan border, itâs
obscene. As I said above, Iâm not naive, I know what the objective is but the
cost in innocent lives is massive and by any measure plain wrong.
That Manning might be flawed is a personal tragedy. That it may have led to
his leaking of this material is a blessing of sorts.
August 15, 2013 at 12:38
August 15, 2013 at 12:59
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Had he lifted the curtain a little and been selective, that would have
been one thing; however, he released a massive amount of information and did
not know what was contained therein. Did he embarrass people â definitely.
Did he endanger lives of innocent and non-military people â I do not know
but he probably did and for that I cannot forgive him.
August 15, 2013 at 14:34
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Who the hell are you to forgive or not forgive? The State is a monster
that will crush anyone who threatens it. Those who subvert the State are
made an example of, not because they might have endangered the lives of
âinnocent and non-military peopleâ (the State doesnât give a damn about
âinnocent and non-military peopleâ) but because they are threatening the
State. Those who rely for their âsecurityâ on the State (that includes
âinnocent and non-military peopleâ) are complicit with the State in its
acts of repression. So, it is not a black-and-white question of
forgiveness or non-forgiveness but, as in many things, a question of
proportionality.
August 15, 2013 at 16:30
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Who the hell are you to tell me what I can or cannot feel?
August 15, 2013 at 18:34
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Well said, Wignerâs friend.
August 15, 2013 at 14:55
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Evidently he was selective, kinda. Although whether that was by design
or a consequence of his clearance level I know not which. He hasnât leaked
any hardcore military secrets, merely the mundane reports of
establishment/military middle management. Frankly, you, I or an enemy is
more likely to learn about the stocking levels of toilet paper at Bagram
than the capabilities of the M1 Abrams Tank.
Anna is correct in that we expect better of our military personnel but
with one small caveat; no one else is telling us what the hell is going
on. Those charged with oversight are ever more likely to classify their
own reports than inform the public. Their incestuous little club is
running riot. That Manning was misguided will find no argument from me but
he does, in my opinion, deserve praise for his actions. How else would we
have learnt that defence contractors hired underaged male prostitutes?
That 700 innocent Iraqi men, women and children were killed for merely
approaching check-points? Or the continuing torture after Abu Ghraib?
As Nick Clegg said: âWe can bemoan how these leaks occurred, but I
think the nature of the allegations made are extraordinarily
seriousâ
August 15, 2013 at 12:02
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An excellent explanation about some of the background facts to this
case.
What puzzles me, is how the IT supremos of the most technologically
advanced nation on earth could be so dumb as to allow a Private (albeit âFirst
Classâ) access to its myriad of âsecretsâ, AND, allow them to be simply copied
onto common portable media.
August 16, 2013 at 21:09
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The answer to your question lies in the way that pre 9/11 all the US
security agencies(civilian and military) were ring fenced from each other
and did not share information freely across those boundaries. After 9/11,
when it was discovered that the CIA had info on the jet terrorists, but did
not pass this intel the FBI. To overcome the information hogging and avoid
turf wars, the DHS was formed to bring all the civilian intelligence and
security departments under one roof with common access to all the data
files. There was also put into place a broad data path for the military
intel services to access all this civilian acquired and held intel. You can
work the rest out for yourself, but which ever way, we had a typical public
sector clusterfuck, and in this case with a disgruntled little drama queen
working out his issues with the army via a computer terminal and a usb
memory stickâ¦
August 15, 2013 at 12:00
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Interesting. I have heard of Manningâs struggle with being âacceptableâ and
so forth. Perhaps it explains his actions, perhaps not. I have no firm views
on the ârightnessâ or âwrongnessâ of all these parties, and so I shall sit in
the corner of the virtual snug, and become better informed
August 15, 2013 at 11:52
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Heard this person interviewed on the BBC World Service the other day.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23464947
August 15, 2013 at 11:38
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I would recommend Alex Gibneyâs film We Steal Secrets, which shines a very
interesting light on the personalities of Manning and Assange.
Downloadable from the usual placesâ¦
August 16, 2013 at 07:55
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I hold no firm view on Manning or Assange but I do know about the work of
Alex Gibney. He is a âthesisâ film-maker, where evidence can be turned or
suppressed in support of the overall story he wants to tell. Nothing wrong
with that (compare opinion pieces in newspapers, essays in literature,
blogging) except that his work tends to be judged as if it is was balanced
and objective.
Here is an Assange-friendly commentary on a transcript of the film (by
skipping through one can get the material on Manning etc without having to
spend time watching the film, and get Assangeâs responses as well):
http://wikileaks.org/IMG/html/gibney-transcript.html
August 15, 2013 at 11:35
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There appears to be some idle speculation that Jullian Assange has autism,
but there is no concrete evidence that he actually has it. There is also some
idle speculation that he has nasty BO, which if true would make things
interesting for the poor employees of the Ecuadorian Embassy.
August 15, 2013 at 13:44
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@ There appears to be some idle speculation that Jullian Assange has
autism @
Confusion over his being Australian I expectâ¦â¦â¦.
What seems more undiscussable is what George tried to discussâ¦
Let me tell you, I think that Julian Assangeâs personal sexual behaviour
is something sordid, disgusting, and I condemn it. But even taken at its
worst, the allegations made against him by the two women â and Iâm not even
going into their political connections, Iâm going to leave that for others
and for another day. Iâm going to leave the fact that one, maybe both, of
his accusers have the strangest of links to the strangest of people,
organisations and states, Iâm going to leave that entirely aside. Even taken
at its worst, if the allegations made by these two women were true, 100 per
cent true, and even if a camera in the room captured them, they donât
constitute rape. At least not rape as anyone with any sense can possibly
recognise it. And somebody has to say this.
George Galloway.
August 15, 2013 at
14:00
August 15, 2013 at 14:26
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I urge everyone interested in the Assange allegations to read the David
Allen Green/Jack of Kent blog regarding Assange. He helps clear a lot of
things up, by going to primary sources:
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/david-allen-green/2012/08/five-legal-myths-about-assange-extradition
http://jackofkent.com/2012/06/assange-would-the-rape-allegation-also-be-rape-under-english-law/
August 15, 2013 at 15:36
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Iâm not sure there is anything âprimaryâ about either article. They
seem predicated on the notion that the law in Sweden equates with
English law but nobody seems to be discussing how it got so that the
situations as Iâve read described, have been arrived at âin lawâ.
Some of the commentators make much more sense than the articles.
I was in court when this was discussed in detail. It was clear that
woman 2 never objected to sex with Assange . She was not happy though
when she discovered he did not wear a condom but (in her own words)
decided âto let it continueâ. As she never objected to the sex itself
& gave consent when he told her he did not use a condomâ¦. this does
not constitute rape in the UK. She also did not consider it rape as she
gave her interview in the evening, saw that Assange was accused of rape
& decided not to sign her interview in the morning.
Healthy men get an erection during rapid eye movement sleep. This
happens 100 percent of the time. I was never a lover with a huge number
of partners, but once, I woke to find my new partner had detected an
erection that accompanied my REM sleep, and had started performing
fellatio, without first waking me. Was this bad manners on her part?
That night was the first time we made love, and we had not previously
discussed fellatio. So, yes, I think it was. I guess I could have tried
to get the police to charge her with a sex crime â for initiating a
sexual act without my consent. That possibility never occurred to me
until this moment.
http://jackofkent.com/2012/06/assange-would-the-rape-allegation-also-be-rape-under-english-law/
August 15, 2013 at 11:28
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Takes a great actor to make you realise the *bad guy* is actually the guy
whose side you want to be onâ¦â¦â¦..
August 15, 2013 at 11:29
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August 15, 2013 at 11:28
August 15, 2013 at 11:19
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âwe live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by
men with guns. Whoâs gonna do it? You? â¦. You donât want the truth because
deep down in places you donât talk about at parties, you want me on that wall,
you need me on that wall. We use words like honour, code, loyalty. We use
these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them
as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself
to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I
provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather
you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick
up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I donât give a damn what you think
you are entitled to.â
August 15, 2013 at 11:23
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Moor â is that Jack Nicholson by any chance ???
August 15, 2013 at 13:29
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â âwe live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded
by men with guns. Whoâs gonna do it? You? â
My world, my walls, my guns? Yes, I will do it. And really, if the
military were protecting freedom, they would attack the government.
August 15, 2013 at 11:18
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Did you see the Black Adder episode when Rowan Atkinson had a pencil up
each nostril and kept repeating the word âwibbleâ?
August 15, 2013 at 11:10
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Funny you should mention Karin Ward, you are of course quite right Anna,
the likes of her and Manning are just pawns in the hands of the manipulators.
I do feel sorry for these people and I hope that folk will not be too hard on
the little man (and woman) when the truth finally comes out. Peopleâs
consciousnessâ need to be raised in order to prevent one evil set of thoughts
merely replacing another â¦â¦ i hope Iâm making sense.
August 16, 2013 at 22:36
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An observation about Mr Assange I find myself in complete agreement, he is
a narcissistic person who expects the world to shape itself according to his
whim whilst he remains answerable to nobody. The excuse that he may be
extradited to the US appears to exist solely in his own little mind, the fact
that the US has shown no interest in him is simply ignored as it does not fit
with his fantasy. I understand that were he to âface the musicâ in Sweden any
extradition request would require the agreement of both the UK and Swedish
Governments and legal systems. All he needs to do is return for the
âinterrogationâ phase of the investigation and there is a strong likelihood
that the process may end there. His refusal tells a far louder tale I think,
sorry I never subscribed to the view that Assange is some sort of candidate
for sainthood but there is something messianic about his actions.
TTFN
August 16, 2013 at 23:18
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You do me an injustice Anna ârubbish that I believe its either feminist
pressure or extradition to the U.S. â-though both of those issues might be
relevant and should in my submission be amenable to being argued before a UK
Court if they are thought relevant by defence counsel along with any other
issue that he might consider has a bearing on the case âthe issue at large is
the extent to which the Courts in this country should be restricted in any
review of foreign legal process notwithstanding that any defendant is
physically within this jurisdiction and as such is entitled to the protection
of principles of English law.
I do not disagree with your assessment of
Assange Anna though usually your character assassination have less invective
and greater wit but it has little relevance to the principle at stake â-as
Bonhoffer said âFirst they cameâ¦â¦.in his age it was for the communistsââ¦â¦but
all regimes pick the easy targets imputing criminal action and motives in an
attempt to airbrush the importance of legal principles âthough I prefer the
exchange between Thomas Moore and Roper in the Man for all Seasons
William
Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes!
What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the
Devil?
William Roper: Yes, Iâd cut down every law in England to do
that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil
turned âround on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?
This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Manâs laws, not
Godâs! And if you cut them down, and youâre just the man to do it, do you
really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes,
Iâd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safetyâs sake
August 17, 2013 at 00:26
August 17, 2013 at 11:59
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Actually Anna I suspect intellectually we might not be as far apart as you
may believe we are. I do not believe in the equivalency of legal systems (but
we are not debating that point) but it would hopeless for me to try to put up
any case that say Brazil should deal with English drug smugglers as if they
had been caught in England because the English system is superior ââ
jurisdiction is founded on physical presence in a jurisdiction not on
nationalityâ-and that cuts both ways if you are in Brazil then accept
Brazilian jurisprudence âequally if are in the UK then accept British
Jurisprudence âif extradition is repugnant to English jurisprudence then I
canât see that if the Defendant is physically in the jurisdiction that that
fundamental distinction can be circumvented that is his physical jurisdiction
dictates the jurisprudence to which he is subjectâthere are some legal systems
which are repugnant to the UK system âsay Iran or even in some respects the US
ârespect for UK jurisprudence dictates as I see it that means it takes
precedence. Oh and in answer to the one question you put to me ârather more
than I do ânot just law I suspect (which says little) âbut certainly (and very
much more importantly or at least interestingly) about prose writing being
choice of topicââ or wit âI canât go past an ice cream counter now without
looking for a Magna Carta
August 17, 2013 at 12:56
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@Fat Steve
Presumably if only we could have found a couple of Jordanian
woman to make some wildly bonkers allegation, we could have got shot of more
than one unwanted berk a lot sooner than we didâ¦..
I still cannot get over the proposition that our Intelligensia would likely
have denied the US extradition of Assange for likely being a primary cause of
global mayhem but seemed determined to extradite him to answer to some
officious Swedish chefette about condom etiquette. The balance of moral
equivalence in this country is quite bizarre to behold and the LAW often
behaves like an ass.
August 17, 2013 at 13:19
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I may not have understood your point but I thought both the UK and US legal
systems provide for the prosecution of people, not sure if they have to be
nationals or not, for activities they seem to be criminal regardless of
whether or not the acts were committed in a physical location where the
relevant legal jurisdiction did not deem the action or activity to be
criminal. Eg I should think that a UK national would not escape prosecution
for sexual activity with a 14 year old in Japan even if the age of consent
there is, if I remember correctly, 12
August 17, 2013 at 13:24
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That post was a reply to Fat Steve
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