Bradley Manning's Typical Day

[georgephillip]

George,

Whilst I commend your tenacity, on an agenda I have mixed feeling on, although I believe he should be sanctioned for exposing his country, you're quoting a far-right newspaper that, along with its sister paper, The Observer - both belong to Guardian Media Group - that's objected to the coalition offensive in both Iraq and Afghanistan since the invasion of Afghanistan. This blatantly bias material you're using as your source material could be construed as you skewing the argument by citing sources that present the argument in your favour.

Swagger:

"War is necrophilia."

I have never seen war.
I'm relying on Chris Hedges for the observation above and those that follow:

"War perverts and destroys you.

"It pushes you closer and closer to your own annihilation—spiritual, emotional and, finally, physical.

"It destroys the continuity of life, tearing apart all systems, economic, social, environmental and political, that sustain us as human beings.

"War is necrophilia.

"The essence of war is death.

"War is a state of almost pure sin with its goals of hatred and destruction.

"It is organized sadism. War fosters alienation and leads inevitably to nihilism.

"It is a turning away from the sanctity of life."

If Bradley Manning and the far right press can reveal war's true cost to those who blindly follow the flag they were born under, both deserve my full support and gratitude.

I hope you'll consider the "stark, dreadful and inescapable choice" that Einstein and Russell warned about 55 years ago:

"Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war."

Bitter Memories

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

--John Stuart Mill​

Looks like Mill nailed your stupid coward moonbat ass to the wall.

"Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?" (Albert Einstein & Bertrand Russell in 1955)

 

[Mr.Fitnah]

15 books changed daily, wow where do I sign up?

 

[The T]

Swagger:

"War is necrophilia."

I have never seen war.
I'm relying on Chris Hedges for the observation above and those that follow:

"War perverts and destroys you.

"It pushes you closer and closer to your own annihilation—spiritual, emotional and, finally, physical.

"It destroys the continuity of life, tearing apart all systems, economic, social, environmental and political, that sustain us as human beings.

"War is necrophilia.

"The essence of war is death.

"War is a state of almost pure sin with its goals of hatred and destruction.

"It is organized sadism. War fosters alienation and leads inevitably to nihilism.

"It is a turning away from the sanctity of life."

If Bradley Manning and the far right press can reveal war's true cost to those who blindly follow the flag they were born under, both deserve my full support and gratitude.

I hope you'll consider the "stark, dreadful and inescapable choice" that Einstein and Russell warned about 55 years ago:

"Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war."

Bitter Memories

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

--John Stuart Mill
​

Looks like Mill nailed your stupid coward moonbat ass to the wall.

"Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?" (Albert Einstein & Bertrand Russell in 1955)

And this has to do with present reality until what you go to change what you decry...HOW?

The private is TOAST...He's fucked up his own life.

Get used to the idea.

 

[georgephillip]

You still don't get it do you? As much as *I* rail against government and thier misdeeds against Liberty?

The fact is? He was granted access to sensitive information with the precursor, that he was responsible for not divuldging the information by contract...agreement.

That is the LAW...he is accused of violating that contract...which has penalties he knew going in...in this case the UCMJ.

Despite his feelings ...his quarrel with a lover...ill will toward his superior officers...he knew the price...regardless.

Want this practice ceased? Petition your Congresscritters. Until then? He has to pay the price no matter what his feelings are or how many assholes in Gubmint it exposes to your delight or anyone else's.

Get it yet?

"We swiftly deform ourselves, our essence, in war. We give up individual conscience—maybe even consciousness—for the contagion of the crowd and the intoxication of violence."

Bitter Memories

Maybe you don't want to get it?

Your government is committing no greater misdeed than the deliberate murder of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bradley Manning has chosen to sacrifice his freedom by speaking out against our "intoxication with violence." If that violates a legal contract or agreement with those who direct the killing innocent civilians for money, his support of a Greater Law and individual conscience gives Manning the moral high ground, in my opinion.

"Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?" (Albert Einstein & Bertrand Russell, 1955)

And you don't get The RULE OF LAW.

Don't like it? PRESS to CHANGE IT.

Get it?

"LAWS" written for the benefit of those who profit from terrorism are changed by defiance before they are legislated out of existence.

Ask anyone who sat in at Jim Crow's diner.

 

[georgephillip]

Sure. It's stupid America-hating moonbat horseshit.

Moonbats shit stupid American horses?

Who knew?

If you can get past your programmed reflex of instantly rejecting any criticism of America....

That's rich, coming from someone with a programmed reflex of instantly criticizing America.

...let me hear your solution to Chris Hedges's struggle to find the words to describe war's reality.

"It is as if the wider culture sucked the words out from us and left us to sputter incoherencies.

"How can you speak meaningfully about organized murder?"

Bitter Memories

My solution? Easy: "Learn the difference between killing and murder, you moron."

No charge.

When is killing unarmed civilians BY THE THOUSANDS something other than murder?

 

[The T]

"We swiftly deform ourselves, our essence, in war. We give up individual conscience—maybe even consciousness—for the contagion of the crowd and the intoxication of violence."

Bitter Memories

Maybe you don't want to get it?

Your government is committing no greater misdeed than the deliberate murder of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bradley Manning has chosen to sacrifice his freedom by speaking out against our "intoxication with violence." If that violates a legal contract or agreement with those who direct the killing innocent civilians for money, his support of a Greater Law and individual conscience gives Manning the moral high ground, in my opinion.

"Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?" (Albert Einstein & Bertrand Russell, 1955)

And you don't get The RULE OF LAW.

Don't like it? PRESS to CHANGE IT.

Get it?

"LAWS" written for the benefit of those who profit from terrorism are changed by defiance before they are legislated out of existence.

Ask anyone who sat in at Jim Crow's diner.

Keep living in the past...even that has been righted...or are you living in some fucking time warp the rest of us aren't aware of?

Or is anarchy more an additive in your cup of tea?

 

[georgephillip]

15 books changed daily, wow where do I sign up?

Fitnah:

Rachel and Pat were wondering if they could have blueberries on Sunday's pancakes?

Just askin'.

 

[georgephillip]

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

--John Stuart Mill
​

Looks like Mill nailed your stupid coward moonbat ass to the wall.

"Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?" (Albert Einstein & Bertrand Russell in 1955)

And this has to do with present reality until what you go to change what you decry...HOW?

The private is TOAST...He's fucked up his own life.

Get used to the idea.

I think we agree Manning is TOAST.

I'm not sure he regards what he's done as a fuck-up.

When I think back to when I was 22 and the Vietnam War was raging, I can't imagine risking 50+ years in prison to reveal the lies that kept "organized murder" a part of my reality.

Frankly, I would not have had the courage.

 

[The T]

"Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?" (Albert Einstein & Bertrand Russell in 1955)

And this has to do with present reality until what you go to change what you decry...HOW?

The private is TOAST...He's fucked up his own life.

Get used to the idea.

I think we agree Manning is TOAST.

I'm not sure he regards what he's done as a fuck-up.

When I think back to when I was 22 and the Vietnam War was raging, I can't imagine risking 50+ years in prison to reveal the lies that kept "organized murder" a part of my reality.

Frankly, I would not have had the courage.

And frankly some of us have a larger regard for the rule of LAW...especially as a military member that knows the cost of betrayal is when we signed on...

Apparently the private didn't care.

He can take it up with GOD when he makes it there IF he ever does...

 

[Moon]

The closest thing to a smoking gun that I'm aware of that Manning's revealed was published last July in Antiwar.com:

"The Guardian provides a helpful interactive map, in which you click on a location and read the 'incident report.'

'Of course, you’re reading a selection of what the Guardian editors consider important, but it looks to me like their news judgment isn’t bad at all, because the first one I clicked on was an intelligence report detailing meetings of the Taliban with Osama bin Laden in Quetta, Pakistan, and in villages on the border with Afghanistan.

"So, bin Laden is not only alive, but they know where he is.

"I guess when Hillary was hectoring the Pakistanis about the whereabouts of bin Laden, the subtext was: 'If we know, then you must know, too!'”

Bradley Manning's Gift

Knowing where someone was at some point in time is not the same as knowing where he is.

At "some point in time" it "was known" where bin Laden "is."

Possibly at multiple times since 911 the US National Security State has known where to find bin Laden and chosen not to.

Maybe he's worth more alive than dead to those who profit from the War on Terror?

Was, not is.

"Possibly" is a very broad and loaded word, and utterly meaningless outside of conspiracy theories. When you get some, you know, facts, let us know.

 

[georgephillip]

And you don't get The RULE OF LAW.

Don't like it? PRESS to CHANGE IT.

Get it?

"LAWS" written for the benefit of those who profit from terrorism are changed by defiance before they are legislated out of existence.

Ask anyone who sat in at Jim Crow's diner.

Keep living in the past...even that has been righted...or are you living in some fucking time warp the rest of us aren't aware of?

Or is anarchy more an additive in your cup of tea?

My limited understanding of anarchy is that the NEED for the state's monopoly of violence has been eliminated.

Everyone would treat others as they want to be treated.

Obviously, we're far from that day and, possibly, moving in the wrong direction.

There's a tendency Americans display to conflate their military's unquestioned dominance over this planet with a near-religious belief in their own invulnerability to the sort of destruction we've inflicted on countries like Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Americans don't really believe Einstein's and Russell's choice because we don't see anyone else on the globe capable of destroying our cities and killing our children.

But the lack of external enemies doesn't mean war won't destroy the US.

It just means we'll kill each other with no hard feelings and no shortage of profits for a lucky few.

 

[georgephillip]

And this has to do with present reality until what you go to change what you decry...HOW?

The private is TOAST...He's fucked up his own life.

Get used to the idea.

I think we agree Manning is TOAST.

I'm not sure he regards what he's done as a fuck-up.

When I think back to when I was 22 and the Vietnam War was raging, I can't imagine risking 50+ years in prison to reveal the lies that kept "organized murder" a part of my reality.

Frankly, I would not have had the courage.

And frankly some of us have a larger regard for the rule of LAW...especially as a military member that knows the cost of betrayal is when we signed on...

Apparently the private didn't care.

He can take it up with GOD when he makes it there IF he ever does...

I don't know what Manning's religious beliefs are.

Possibly he acted out in releasing classified information, or maybe he felt he was answering to a higher authority's Law.

It looks like he will have about twice as many years as he's already lived to think about it.

And many of us won't be able to make an moral assessment of his actions until all of the 200,000 pieces of information he released are made public.

 

[georgephillip]

Knowing where someone was at some point in time is not the same as knowing where he is.

At "some point in time" it "was known" where bin Laden "is."

Possibly at multiple times since 911 the US National Security State has known where to find bin Laden and chosen not to.

Maybe he's worth more alive than dead to those who profit from the War on Terror?

Was, not is.

"Possibly" is a very broad and loaded word, and utterly meaningless outside of conspiracy theories. When you get some, you know, facts, let us know.

Depends on your definition of "is", you know.

At some point(s) in time elements of the US National Security State knew the precise location of bin Laden.

Wiki has some thoughts about "possibly" that don't seem "meaningless outside of conspiracy theories":

"Indicates that the proposition may be true (is not certainly false) regardless of any facts or circumstances known to, stated by or implied by the speaker."

 

[txlonghorn]

So?

So you think resistance to wars of aggression that were sold to the US public as "defensive" and "necessary" is somehow a bigger crime than those who lied the country into those wars and those who get rich from mass murder?

Some of you are throwing the word "traitor" at Manning.

What do you call Dick Cheney?

Sir?

Well, if I were going to call him, I'd probably say, "Hey Mr. Cheney! Nice shot!"

 

[txlonghorn]

Not sure I understand some of these rules. No excercising in the cell? Really? Why not? I get the 'no sleeping' rule...that's ok...well, maybe not the 5 AM part, but I get the deprivation of sleep deal.

I guess when you fuck up like he did, you REALLY have something to think about...and plenty of time to do it.

 

[Claudette]

Both wars were approved by a congress that receives almost all its campaign funds from the US investor class. That class invests heavily in wars that kill civilians at a 10:1 ratio to armed combatants.

Since the US invasion of Iraq one in four Iraqis has been killed, maimed, displaced or incarcerated.

I would call that a war crime.

Would you?

Nope.

Sorry. Ain't buying your investor class bs either.

Congress approved both wars. Don't think there are any war crime charges there at all.

Civilians have been killed in war since time immemorial and will continue to be killed in every war that comes down the pike.

Its a fact. No one likes it. But. It. Is. A. Fact.

Would your opinion of the US invasion of Iraq be any different if you had been born in that country?

You point out how civilians have always been killed in wars.

Can you explain why any investor class should profit from "sophisticated forms of industrial killing" that harvest civilian lives at a 10:1 ratio to actual combatants?

"War, once it begins, fuels new and bizarre perversities, innovative forms of death to ward off the boredom of routine death.

"This is why we would drive into towns in Bosnia and find bodies crucified on the sides of barns or decapitated, burned and mutilated.

"That is why those slain in combat are treated as trophies by their killers, turned into grotesque pieces of performance art.

"I met soldiers who carried in their wallets the identity cards of men they killed.

"They showed them to me with the imploring look of a lost child."

Bradley Manning for whatever reasons has chosen to reveal war to those who fund and support it.

For that reason alone, he's a hero.

Bitter Memories

If I were born in Iraq I would have been more worried about Saddam Hussein.

He killed hundreds of thousands of his own people and that was in peacetime.

Don't think I would have been to worried about the Americans at all.

I would be willing to bet that the Iraqi insurgents killed more civilians than the American army did.

Manning isn't a hero. He's a little dirtbag and I hope he rots in Leavenworth.

 

[daveman]

Swagger:

"War is necrophilia."

I have never seen war.
I'm relying on Chris Hedges for the observation above and those that follow:

"War perverts and destroys you.

"It pushes you closer and closer to your own annihilation—spiritual, emotional and, finally, physical.

"It destroys the continuity of life, tearing apart all systems, economic, social, environmental and political, that sustain us as human beings.

"War is necrophilia.

"The essence of war is death.

"War is a state of almost pure sin with its goals of hatred and destruction.

"It is organized sadism. War fosters alienation and leads inevitably to nihilism.

"It is a turning away from the sanctity of life."

If Bradley Manning and the far right press can reveal war's true cost to those who blindly follow the flag they were born under, both deserve my full support and gratitude.

I hope you'll consider the "stark, dreadful and inescapable choice" that Einstein and Russell warned about 55 years ago:

"Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war."

Bitter Memories

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

--John Stuart Mill​

Looks like Mill nailed your stupid coward moonbat ass to the wall.

"Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?" (Albert Einstein & Bertrand Russell in 1955)

In case you missed it, Mill said you're a miserable creature who has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

You're welcome, ungrateful bastard.

 

[daveman]

Moonbats shit stupid American horses?

Who knew?

If you can get past your programmed reflex of instantly rejecting any criticism of America....

That's rich, coming from someone with a programmed reflex of instantly criticizing America.

...let me hear your solution to Chris Hedges's struggle to find the words to describe war's reality.

"It is as if the wider culture sucked the words out from us and left us to sputter incoherencies.

"How can you speak meaningfully about organized murder?"

Bitter Memories

My solution? Easy: "Learn the difference between killing and murder, you moron."

No charge.

When is killing unarmed civilians BY THE THOUSANDS something other than murder?

Funny how you don't apply that same standard to 9/11, huh?

Moron.

 

[georgephillip]

Not sure I understand some of these rules. No excercising in the cell? Really? Why not? I get the 'no sleeping' rule...that's ok...well, maybe not the 5 AM part, but I get the deprivation of sleep deal.

I guess when you fuck up like he did, you REALLY have something to think about...and plenty of time to do it.

No exercise in his cell and limiting Manning to walking only during his one hour a day of "exercise" sounds more like punishment than prevention of injury, to me.

Possibly, it is being done to break him down physically and force his cooperation with the government's case against Assange.

 

[georgephillip]

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

--John Stuart Mill​

Looks like Mill nailed your stupid coward moonbat ass to the wall.

"Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?" (Albert Einstein & Bertrand Russell in 1955)

In case you missed it, Mill said you're a miserable creature who has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

You're welcome, ungrateful bastard.

Was Mill working for the East India Company when he called me a "miserable creature with no chance of being free...?"

I suppose you already know the level of freedom "better men" like Mill brought to Bengal?

And I'm completely in the dark about why I should be thanking those ignorant slaves currently risking their lives to prop up our 21st Century corporate overlords.

I am sure it's all as clear as sunset to you and the Gipper's ghost.