Too Bad About Manning

[LogikAndReazon]

The traitorous little darling only got 35 years.........a shame

 

[waltky]

He just got sentenced and he wants a pardon already??...

For leak, Bradley Manning gets stiffest punishment
22 Aug.`13 — Army Pfc. Bradley Manning stood at attention in his crisp dress uniform Wednesday and learned the price he will pay for spilling an unprecedented trove of government secrets: up to 35 years in prison, the stiffest punishment ever handed out in the U.S. for leaking to the media.

Flanked by his lawyers, Manning, 25, showed no reaction as military judge Col. Denise Lind announced the sentence without explanation in a proceeding that lasted just a few minutes. A gasp could be heard among the spectators, and one woman buried her face in her hands. Then, as guards hurried Manning out of the courtroom, about a half-dozen supporters shouted from the back: "We'll keep fighting for you, Bradley!" and "You're our hero!" With good behavior and credit for the more than three years he has been held, Manning could be out in as little as seven years, said his lawyer, David Coombs. The soldier was also demoted and will be dishonorably discharged.

The sentencing fired up the long-running debate over whether Manning was a whistleblower or a traitor for giving more than 700,000 classified military and diplomatic documents, plus battlefield footage, to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. By volume alone, it was the biggest leak of classified material in U.S. history, bigger even than the Pentagon Papers a generation ago. In a statement from London, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange decried Manning's trial and conviction as "an affront to basic concepts of Western justice." But he called the sentence a "significant tactical victory" because the soldier could be paroled so quickly.

Manning could have gotten 90 years behind bars. Prosecutors asked for at least 60 as a warning to other soldiers, while Manning's lawyer suggested he get no more than 25, because some of the documents he leaked will be declassified by then. Military prosecutors had no immediate comment on the sentence, and the White House said only that any request for a presidential pardon would be considered "like any other application." The case was part of an unprecedented string of prosecutions brought by the U.S. government in a crackdown on security breaches. The Obama administration has charged seven people with leaking to the media; only three people were prosecuted under all previous presidents combined.

Manning, an Army intelligence analyst from Crescent, Okla., digitally copied and released Iraq and Afghanistan battlefield reports and State Department cables while working in 2010 in Iraq. He also leaked video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad that mistakenly killed at least nine people, including a Reuters photographer. Manning said he did it to expose the U.S. military's "bloodlust" and generate debate over the wars and U.S. policy. He was found guilty by the judge last month of 20 crimes, including six violations of the Espionage Act, but was acquitted of the most serious charge, aiding the enemy, which carried a potential life in prison without parole. Whistleblower advocates said the punishment was unprecedented in its severity. Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists said "no other leak case comes close."

More For leak, Bradley Manning gets stiffest punishment

See also:

WikiLeaks source Manning gets 35 years, will seek pardon
Wed August 21, 2013 > Manning's leaks did "vast damage" and deserved more prison time, lawmaker says; Manning will seek a pardon, says he acted "out of a love for my country"; Assange says case will yield "a thousand more Bradley Mannings"; Prosecutors said Manning was arrogant and showed "extreme disregard"

Bradley Manning, the Army private whose disclosure of hundreds of thousands of U.S. military and diplomatic documents gave American officials a global case of heartburn, was sentenced to more than three decades in prison Wednesday. A military judge sentenced Manning to 35 years -- less than the 60 prosecutors sought and far shorter than the 90 he could have received -- minus credit for the about three and a half years he's already been behind bars. He showed little to no reaction when the judge, Army Col. Denise Lind, sentenced him at Fort Meade, outside Washington. But in a statement read by his attorney afterward, he said he acted "out of a love for my country and a sense of duty," to expose what he said were abuses committed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The attorney, David Coombs, said the statement was part of Manning's application for a pardon from President Barack Obama. "If you deny my request for a pardon, I will serve my time knowing that sometimes you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society," the statement said. "I will gladly pay that price if it means we could have a country that is truly conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all women and men are created equal." White House spokesman Josh Earnest had no comment on a possible pardon, saying only that Manning's request would be considered "like any other application."

Manning, 25, was convicted in July of stealing 750,000 pages of classified documents and videos and disseminating them to WikiLeaks, the online anti-secrecy group. Lind also reduced his rank from private first class to private, ordered him to forfeit pay and benefits and be dishonorably discharged. "We're still here fighting for you Bradley!" a supporter yelled as Manning was hustled out of the courtroom. "We love you Bradley!" another said. An aunt and a cousin of Manning's wept openly in the courtroom.

Manning was found guilty of 20 of the 22 charges against him, including violations of the U.S. Espionage Act. He avoided a potential life sentence when Lind rejected charges that his actions aided the enemy. Lind already had agreed to reduce Manning's sentence by 112 days after ruling that the harsh treatment he was subjected to in the brig at the Marine base in at Quantico, Virginia, was out of line. Manning will be eligible for parole in 10 years, Coombs said. In the meantime, he called on Obama "to focus on protecting whistleblowers, instead of punishing them."

More WikiLeaks source Manning gets 35 years, will seek pardon - CNN.com

 

[R.C. Christian]

The future Nobel Prize laureate might be out in as little as 13 years.

 

[auditor0007]

The sentence was overkill. Hopefully he serves no more than ten years.

 

[Political Junky]

I heard 7years and 9 years.