In Jail with a Clear Conscience

By the order of a military court, Private First Class Bradley Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison for providing secret information to Internet project WikiLeaks.

It’s the longest term that has been given in the U.S. for leaking confidential data to the mass media. One has to be careful with terminology because for real espionage, or providing the information to a potential enemy, courts have been giving life sentences.

However, Manning managed to avoid the scariest charge formulated in the so-called Espionage Act — supporting the enemy. The court admitted that the information that became accessible for wide audience because of his “leakage” couldn’t give American enemies either military or any other advantage and didn’t put soldier’s lives or national security in jeopardy, even though the prosecution claimed that the 2007 video on which American helicopters were destroying a colony of civilians, including the camera man and the driver for Reuters, was used by al-Qaida as propaganda and that some of the revealed documents were even seen by Osama bin Laden.

So Private truth-seeker even got a right to early release after a third of his sentence, and considering his detention and military term in the war zone (he was arrested in Iraq), it can happen in eight years.

It has to be kept in mind that in the U.S. sentences are passed according to the number of charges, and then the terms for each court-approved charge are summed up. Manning was accused in 22 crimes, 17 were approved by court; one, as we said, was denied, and four the court was able to soften. Therefore, Manning has 21 proven crimes, for each of which he will serve roughly one year and eight months.

The verdict was negotiated by a special institution that has the right to shorten the term, but not prolong it. Manning’s lawyers even have notice to appeal. However, taking into consideration that he voluntarily pled guilty on 10 out of 20 accusations, it’s highly unlikely that further legal proceedings will change much in the young man’s fate.

Also, considering that he didn’t kill, rape or cripple anyone — unlike American soldiers in Abu-Ghraib, which Manning told a lot about — it seems a little too much.

Ann Wright, a former U.S. Army colonel and current private adviser for military and diplomatic issues, who kept a close eye on the course of the trial, claimed in an interview with The New York Times that this was a very harsh sentence. Yes, he revealed secret information, but it had to be revealed in order to understand what’s going on in the government.

This leaps to the core of the issue. Before Obama came to power — that’s right, throughout the history of the U.S. — army men and civil servants were accused of leaking secret information to the mass media only three times! In all these cases they were able to get away with probation or a few years in jail. During Obama’s presidency, seven civilians were accused of such crimes, including Edward Snowden, who got temporary asylum in Russia. Let’s stress it one more time: We are not talking about espionage to advantage of a foreign country, but about revealing secret information to the mass media, information that, generally speaking, can be revealed to the public, according to the First Amendment.

Today many Americans ask a question: How did that liberal president, Nobel Peace Prize winner, vociferous opponent of Washington hawks and proclaimer of freedom, become the embodiment for total spying on his own citizens and mass media, wiretapping and flying unpiloted aircraft upon his own country?

Of course, the so-called “Patriot Act” was ratified by Bush Jr., and it was he who opened the door for those CIA, FBI and National Security Agency (NSA) programs that have been actively disclosed. But the Espionage Act was adopted in 1917. On this case, Obama deals with a borrowed inheritance, which includes two large-scale interventions in the Middle East. My friend and coworker Boris Mezhuev has even suspected that Obama decided to use total wiretapping instead of wasteful and bloody war; that’s why he’s so mad with the whistle-blowers who tell the whole world about programs such as PRISM and others like it. That’s why he considers Snowden and others to be somewhat paradox associates of Bush Jr. That’s why his reaction on Snowden’s stay in Russia is a psychological breakdown.

But what does Obama say himself? At the Aug. 10 press conference he said that he understood Snowden’s motives and wanted to dismantle the spying system that was established by the former Republican administration, but to do so consistently and deliberately rather than quickly. In other words, a person who did what Obama was going to do was on the brink of being arrested — after all, he faced 20 charges — and became a stumbling block for two nuclear states.

And what about Guantanamo? It was not Snowden or Manning, but Obama who promised to close it back in 2008. Wasn’t there enough time? With his “deliberate” speed there will be no time for anything (except legalizing gay marriages, of course) until 2016, when it’ll be time for him to go.

George Bush initiated a lot of awful projects, but he was at the very beginning of the war. What can be excused with war-time logic cannot be excused with the logic of peace.

Here is the answer for you. There was no transformation of a liberal prize winner. Obama always has been like this. With his left-oriented judgments and technological capabilities, the U.S. could not avoid sticking its nose in all the spheres of life of its civilians, could not avoid growing the muscle of Big Brother, could not avoid chasing everyone who leaked some information about this Big Brother to the press.

For us these eight years were relatively calm when it came to relations with the overseas hegemon; for the Americans it wasn’t that simple.

That’s why we can assume that poor Bradley Manning won’t remain behind the bars for too long. The Democrats will be reminded about these spying affairs in 2016, and maybe in 2017 Manning will be given amnesty.

Good luck, Bradley.