So much for freedom of the press

What leak? An IG report is what brought this to light.

 

http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/13/t...nservative-groups-but-were-they-also-leaking/

 

so yer sayin a secretary leakin a bit of Info is just as bad as some PFC leaking volumes of Classified material?
Again sir you are a ****ing idiot.

 

Mid, did you serve in any branch of the military? If you did, I'm
having a real hard time understanding your defense of Manning.
If you didn't serve, then I understand...you clearly don't know
anything about military protocol.

 

Can we get back to the AP deal. You want to discuss little Wonder Bunny Manning, go start a thread.
To me, the AP deal is not nearly as serious as the IRS scandal. The press makes it out to be since they are involved and very few have the professionalism to separate their personal lives from the stories they report.
The AP thing may very well be confined to the investigatory level inside the Justice Department. It would make sense if it were. And they were, after all, looking for the source of a leak that disclosed methods and sources and led, at least indirectly, to the death of at least one Saudi agent. The use of the IRS for partisan political revenge, however, could not possibly have been confined to 'two rogue lower middle level functionaries in Cinncinati'. It defies logic that that's all there were. Not with so many other offices involved. So, it was more widespread and compelled by a higher authority inside the IRS or Treasury, at the least. And why would that higher authority do such a risky thing? Almost surely there was someone on a senior political level who made the request. Was Obama personally involved? No way to know as of yet. But he well might have been. And use of the IRS to punish your political foes is far more important than overstepping investigative guidelines by overzealous special agents.

 

Nope. And there's nothing holy about military protocol if it serves no purpose other than covering up embarrassing screwups. The public should be able to find out about these things if we still value the concept of an informed electorate.

 

Kanto, dint mean to "feed" the Manning issue, jus thot my question
to Mid was pertinent to the argument.

I don't have a problem with going after the phone records looking for
the leak, even how it was done. I've said in another thread that a
lot of journalists throw national security or individual security under
the bus in the interest of personal glory. Now, the IRS, OTOH, is
a different matter...I've read that senior officials in at least three
offices knew about the efforts against the TEA Partiers. IMO, knowing
about it and doing nothing is implied approval and every head oughta
roll.. I don't think Obama knew or approved, but it wouldn't surprise me
at all to find some really high Dem officials knew AND approved. It is
unnecessary to muzzle the TP'ers because they can find ways to shoot
themselves, especially with some of the candidates they trot out...

 

Not necessarily. Let's say you have an otherwise excellent young officer. One day he/she is in the field and makes a mistake. Do you, a) immedaitely rush to the press with whatever evidence you have regarding the incident or, b) conduct an internal review, involve the officer and other people who were involved in the decision and then, if you're satisfied that the causes and consequences were fully understood and had been taken on board bury the thing as deeply and completely as possible?

I would argue that there are times for both but that either could be appropriate exercises in command authority. The world is shades of grey and we need to allow those who are selected to manage our military to have meaningful discretion.

 

I'm not bitchy about it, no worries. It is amazing how sooner or later scandal always arrives for every president.

 

Heard a piece on NPR this morning talking about that very thing...nearly
always in the second terms of said presidents....

 

Whether any of these scandals stick, it is nice to have Obammy and company having to deal with these things as opposed to being able to concentrate on their "agenda," which best I can tell is to ruin the country.

 

It's pertinent to the public in that the public needs to be shown what war looks like and there's no reason it needs to be secret. Keeping things secret should not be the default. It should be reserved specifically for information which for national security reasons, needs to be secret. I have not heard of a single death or loss of any kind other than being embarrassed as a result of the Manning disclosures. The public has a right to know. The founders never would approve of this current state of affairs.

 

I disagree. The public does NOT have a right to know about everything
the military does or has to do in its operation. Many things the military
accomplishes that they consider routine does affect the order of things
internally and, individually, may appear innocuous but taken in context of
the larger scheme of things is necessary and should not be public knowledge.

Knowing what war looks like is one thing but the outing of some individuals
and what they do in the "interest" of public knowledge is dangerous to those
individuals and should not happen. I can speak from personal experience. Many
of the things in which I was involved were innocuous and mundane but in the
overall context of my job and my group's mission they were necessary and you
had/have no business knowing about. What I and many, many others did was
help keep you safe and free to express your opinion, so, for you to say that it
was/is okay for all of that to become public is misguided and dangerous.

The founders had no concept of how the world would evolve and how truly
dangerous it would become.

 

I know firsthand the military classifies many things it shouldn't, but it is waaaaayyyyy above the pay grade of some dumas grunt like Bradley Manning to take matters into his own hands. Little sumbitch needs to be taken out and shot.

 

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the founders didn't know we were gonna have ragheads beheading folks, blowing themselves and others up, murdering our military and civilians, and pretty much causing massive world chaos.

I know Mid acts thick. A lot. However, he can't really be as naive on this issue as he acts. "Oh who cares whose kids get their nuts cut off and stuck down their own throat, we have a RIGHT to know..." Meh.

 

I'm pretty sure the founders wouldn't have collectively shat their pants and emptied the entire treasury and put us in debt like we have to pursue those enemies halfway around the world. These were men who lived to see Washington D.C. burned by the redcoats, saw enemy soldiers quartered in civilian homes, saw mass confiscations of private property by the Crown, had their slaves set free and used against them, etc. Compared to our founders, we're a bunch of poo-sees.

The sort of stuff exposed by Manning was that ambassador A thinks President B is a giant ******, that a helicopter pilot mistook a member of the media for a combatant, that even we aren't impervious to making mistakes in war, etc. This was low-level stuff, most of which should have been obtainable through the Freedom of Information Act. Some of this secrecy is being used to cover up U.S. war crimes, e.g., the video of the Granai Airstrike which is a video depicting the killing of at least 87 civilians by a U.S. air strike.

No one has been killed or physically harmed because of the information Manning disclosed, which is basically proof positive that none of it should have been secret in the first place. On the other hand, we've seen a blatant hypocrisy in the military. On the one hand, we'll treat as serious a breach of secrecy. On the other hand, it's okay to sweep murdering civilians under the rug. Hey... **** happens.

Don't misunderstand. I don't think Manning should be able to walk away from this. We are a country of laws and I support the rule of law.

 

I don't think the "Freedom of the Press" applies here. His actions compromised the security of this country. 100 years ago the sorry sack would have been shot for treason.

 

Thick. You are. It's not about what was in the secrets Manning blabbed. It. Doesn't. Matter.

What matters is him violating his oath. What matters is him jeopardizing national security. He should be shot or hanged. Period.

 

100 years he!!...had he pulled that stunt toward the end of Nam the
court martial would have been short and to the point and a full metal
jacket would have followed. Since the press was imbedded with Desert
Storm, been a ton of problems.

 

FI