Well obviously because having "female genetalia" [sic] = being weak, spineless, and too touchy-feely to see that True Manly Justice gets well and properly done.

This must be why only the male of the species can give birth, because them wimminz with all their frail little lady parts are just too fragile and sensitive to endure it. :shifty:






I'm just sayin'.

Rgr that...onward and upward.

There's a great Betty White quote but I can't repeat it here.

Manning deserves due process but I cannot help thinking of the classic Summery Trial (Captain's Mast to the Navy types) and the Old Man shouting out from behind his desk "March the guilty b-----d in Sergeant Major" so the thing could get started. Hard to get away with that sort of thing these days.

The defence seems driven by two considerations, the infamous helicopter attack footage and the document classification process. From what little I know about the UCMJ they will have a really uphill fight establishing relevance.

No comments as to the former but even though intelligence agencies routinely over classify material, I cannot see why this should have any bearing on the case whatsoever. The mere fact that the material was classified should make unauthorized distribution a crime. The why was well beyond Manning's pay grade.

Anecdotally, when I worked in Operations, the Intelligence gang across the hall used to drive us to distraction which their obsession for classifying open source material. The unit had a subscription to the English language edition of the Red Star, sort of a Soviet Star's and Stripes or the CF's Sentinel and the Int guys would cull articles from the magazine for inclusion in the unit INTSUM's with the extracts themselves classified as secret. This, even though the Red Star editions were left in the coffee room where they were freely read by anyone in the headquarters building including visitors. I would imagine similar things happen in the US armed forces.

I hope Manning is convicted, legally, quickly and cleanly while receiving the most severe sentence the court can deliver short of the death penalty.

Gawrsh, wimmin sure is touchy an' emotional like...

http://elifesize.com/mm5/graphics/00...7%20Popeye.jpg

Well, you know, he is Soopaman ! Get it ? Get it ?
But, he looks not soo special here (especially from 1:02 on)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxfzm9dfqBw

I agree. There may have been a need for some tweeking but to swing to the other extreme is risky.. as demonstrated.


As for young troops having access, this is a tradition with the military. People in the military frequently are given responsibilities far sooner than many civilian positions. That includes access to highly classified information. Fortunately, 99.99% of the troops are honourable and trustworthy. Unfortunately, due the the nature of the business, that 0.01% can cause a lot of potential problems.

I normally don't buy into the "let's make an example" type of discipline, but in this case, I feel it is appropriate. So much of our security depends on personal integrity. It is impossible to operate in an environment that is completely safe from an insider betraying his country. We must be able to trust our people.

When you have a bad troop like Manning, it is important not not only get rid of him as the threat but to communicate clearly to the other troops that such behaviour can not be tolerated.

There are other Mannings out there and we need to convince them that what Manning did is not the appropriate course of action.

One of the problems with Manning is that he only had his initial investigation. After five years he, and everyone, would have been re-investigated and this 5 year periodic can reveal security problems. As part of the periodic his co-workers are interviewed.

Manning had his initial investigation in 2008 and he started downloading documents in 2009/2010.

This is one of the reasons there have been talk about limiting accesses until a troop has their first periodic, but the ops tempo of the military can't handle that. Troops need to be able to do their job when they get out of school.

The problem is that there is only so much that an initial investigation can reveal and it is worthless in identifying people like Manning who become disgruntled with the military after the investigation.

This is one of the areas where Manning's NCOs and Ops Officers should have stepped in. But we all know about "could have and should haves"

Lol, nothing "emotional" about it. Occasionally I just get tired of the automatic equating of perceived weakness and inferiority with the possession of mommy parts.

I suspect it may have arisen in the human consciousness partly as compensation for the fact that daddy parts are, in general, far more vulnerable and "weak" than their female counterparts. :O:

External genitals are an enormous cross to bear. :yep:

Have you tried using a wheel barrow? :DL

:rotfl2:

So that is what Jesus hauled up to Golgatha and was nailed to...

But didn't simon give him a hand on that job?

:smug:

:03:

This.