Manning, what was Obama thinking?

So you say.

 

What are you saying, Robert? Are you accusing me of plagiarism? I identify sources and put their remarks in quotes. I wrote the article. Are you questioning that?

Of course, Assange is Australian. I never said anything different. That said, he is a fugitive from American justice. The two statements are not mutually exclusive.

 

When you make an outrageous remark like that you should support it. Explain yourself. Why do you think pardoning a man guilty of espionage and creating havoc with our national security while endangering lives is the "right (just) thing?

I don't recognize his sex change. He was born a man. He is still a man.

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I'm curious. Why do you think it was the right thing to do?

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You might have a point there.

 

You might have used a different name but I had read that article earlier.

Did Assange live in the USA?

 

That is a very interesting rebuttal to my OP. Manning was convicted on six counts of violating the Espionage Act. Manning faced a potential sentence of up to 136 years in prison on the charges he was found guilty of. The charges to which Manning pleaded guilty carried a potential sentence of about 20 years. He pleaded guilty to ten charges.

Then there is the perception of a serious error in judgment by Obama. Despite your convincing arguments, I still think Obama made a serious mistake.

I have my qualms about that federal court ruling. How could a federal court know? The claim is the Taliban killed Afghanis. How did the court make a distinction between the deaths of Afghanis killed by the Taliban to say none were killed as a result of Manning's disclosures? Do you have any more info on that hearing?

I sincerely appreciate your contribution to this discussion.

 

Robert, I think you are a little bit confused. I have only one user name on this forum. Maybe you read my article one day, then came back to it a few days later.

Assange has never lived in the U.S.

 

I'm with President Obama, his reasoning and the insight he provided about the same. (Google it yourself.)

Goodbye, Sandy Shanks.

 

Yes, the head of the mitigation team who was investigating the Afghan dairy leaks (General Robert Carr) was asked during the court hearing if there could be any cited incidents of individuals being killed by enemy fores as the result of the leak, in which he responded that there were no specific incidences, and the Secretary of Defense (Robert Gates) stated that the rhetoric of the supposed harm from the leaks were "significantly overwrought"

I should also note that one of Obama's first military actions as president was tripling the number of forces in Afghanistan, which lead to significant increases in US and ally casualties. The 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th deadliest years of that war were the direct result of said troop increase. The US and ally forces in Afghanistan hit their peak in 2010, which also happened to be the deadliest year of that war. The notion that the Taliban were specifically targeting Afghans working for the US due to the leaked documents holds no merit. Taliban forces were always targeting Afghans working for the US, well before the documents were ever leaked. I also do not believe the documents gave any visual description of any individuals working for the US

The claim that the leaked documents lead to individuals killed by enemy forces was based on a claim that the documents had revealed the names of individuals who were working for the US. However, there were no such incidents of any named individuals listed in the documents being killed after the leaks occurred. It was also addressed in the court hearing that Afghan nationals are not as plugged in to such information as westerners, and that the information in the documents was not common information among the Taliban forces.

 

You certainly are entitled to your opinion, and I apologize if I hurt your feelings. If you are going to be in a forum like this, you shouldn't have such thin skin.

 

I won't question your insight. You seem to know what you are talking about, and I thank you again for your contribution. I based my information on news reports. Of course, no evidence of a Taliban killing spree doesn't mean that it didn't happen.

That said, I still think Obama was wrong in commuting Manning's sentence. No good would come of it, but a lot of harm could result.

 

So,mind you this is only speculation on my part, but, perhaps OBAMA commuting Manning's sentence has to do with Julian Asange(sp)-maybe OBAMA has made a deal with who Manning gave the information to (Asange),maybe he got something in writing exposing trump's involvement or collusion with the Russian's in the election in exchange for two things---Manning's sentence commuted & perhaps Asange getting (something)There was this strange tweet Asange put out a couple weeks earlier,which is what got me to thinking the above ---
mmmm-----

 

you could say that about the criminals Bush pardoned too, or any Presidents really