Speaking of SEALs

Edward Gallagher was something special, even by the punishing standards of the Navy SEALs. Both a lifesaving medic and a crack sniper, he was repeatedly decorated for valor and for coolheaded leadership during 19 years of combat deployments. After his latest tour, fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq, he was named the top platoon leader in SEAL Team 7 and nominated for the Silver Star, the military’s third-highest honor.

But now, less than a year later, Special Operations Chief Gallagher, 39, is locked in the brig, facing charges that during that same deployment — his eighth — he shot indiscriminately at civilians, killed a teenage Islamic State fighter with a handmade custom blade, and then performed his re-enlistment ceremony posing with the teenager’s bloody corpse in front of an American flag.

  NYT

Say what? His re-enlistment ceremony with a corpse? Just how do you do that?

[T]he case may widen as the investigation implicates other SEALs who did not report what they knew. A lieutenant has already been charged.

[...]

In a two-day preliminary hearing at Naval Base San Diego that concluded Thursday, prosecutors presented accounts from several other SEALs in Chief Gallagher’s platoon describing his behavior as reckless and bloodthirsty. They said he fired into civilian crowds, gunned down a girl walking along a riverbank and an old man carrying a water jug, and threatened to kill fellow SEALs if they reported his actions.

Some platoon members were so distraught by the chief’s actions, investigators said, that they tampered with his sniper rifle to make it less accurate, and fired warning shots to scare away civilians before the chief had a chance to shoot them.

“They said they spent more time protecting civilians than they did fighting ISIS,” Special Agent Joe Warpinski of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service told the military court.

[...]

His lawyer, Phillip Stackhouse, said the charges were baseless. He said the only evidence that the chief had killed anyone came from accounts offered by a few SEALs who were disgruntled because they could not meet their leader’s demanding standards.

“I promise you, we will call many more SEALs who will say none of his ever happened,” Mr. Stackhouse said.

I'm sure that's right. It's a brotherhood.

The purpose of the hearing, known as an Article 32 hearing, was to determine whether the case should proceed to a trial. Both sides said they believe it will, probably in 2019.

[...]

His eighth deployment, from February to September 2017, was to Mosul, Iraq. Some of the SEALs who served under him told investigators that at first they were excited to be led by someone with Chief Gallagher’s reputation, but they soon started to see him as unhinged. He fired his rifle about ten times as often as other snipers, they said, even at times when there seemed to be no targets.

Do we think maybe eight deployments to combat are a bit much?

In May 2017, Iraqi forces captured an enemy fighter who had been wounded in an airstrike. Video images show the bleeding fighter, who was thought to be between 12 and 17, being brought to the SEAL platoon on the hood of a truck, and Chief Gallagher and others cutting away his clothing to give medical aid.

Photos of the fighter viewed by The New York Times appeared to show that medics had put tubes used to treat a collapsed lung in his side and cut an emergency airway in his throat.

Navy investigators said that one SEAL medic was kneeling over the fighter’s head, treating him, when Chief Gallagher walked up and, without saying a word, took out a handmade knife and stabbed the teenager several times in the neck and side.

[...]

Members of the platoon then posed for photos with Chief Gallagher as he held the teenager’s head up by the hair with one hand, and held his knife in the other. Photos show Chief Gallagher then raising his right hand to perform a re-enlistment ceremony over the dead body, while another SEAL member holds an American flag.

Okay, well that explains the "re-enlistment ceremony."

Investigators say several SEALs in the platoon spoke to commanders about the episode, but that no action was taken. Some of them reported it to higher leadership in December 2017, and again in April, when a criminal investigation was opened.

In September, when the Navy became aware of what prosecutors said were efforts by the chief to intimidate witnesses, he was arrested and put in pretrial confinement.

In the hearing Thursday, a Navy prosecutor, Chris Czaplak, said the chief had done damage beyond murder.

“Does the public still believe we are the good guys, because Chief Gallagher decided to act like the monster the terrorists accuse us of being?” he said. “He handed ISIS propaganda manna from heaven. His actions are everything ISIS says we are.”

They've known who we are for many, many years. We're the ones who are in denial.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

2 SEALS, 2 Marine Raiders charged with murder

Update on the Logan Melgar murder (from a year ago):

The military has formally charged two Navy SEALs and two special-operations Marines in one of the most grisly murder cases in recent U.S. history, The Daily Beast has learned.

Two members of elite SEAL Team Six, Petty Officer Anthony E. DeDolph and Chief Petty Officer Adam C. Matthews, along with two Marine Raiders face charges that include felony murder, conspiracy, obstruction of justice, burglary, hazing, and involuntary manslaughter in the strangulation death of a Green Beret, Army Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar. All four were charged with felony murder and with lying to investigators.

[...]

The Marine Raiders’ names have not been made public. All four names are redacted to the public on the formal charge sheet.

[...]

According to the charges, the alleged conspirators “drove to the Marine quarters” in Bamako, Mali “to obtain duct tape,” then drove to the shared Army/Navy headquarters, “entered the bedroom of SSG Melgar by breaking through his locked door,” restrained him with the duct tape, and “strangled SSG Melgar by placing him in a chokehold.”

[...]

There was an ongoing disagreement between the Green Beret and DeDolph over the SEALs’ professionalism, a source familiar with the episode told The Daily Beast. Melgar was upset with lapses in operational security, according to a source familiar with the investigation’s findings. DeDolph and Matthews, both members of SEAL Team Six, were soliciting prostitutes and taking them back to the safe house in Bamako, Mali’s capital city. As The Daily Beast reported last year, Melgar had found the SEALs skimming cash from a fund to recruit informants about local Islamist activity.

  The Daily Beast

SEAL team 6, the vaunted Osama bin Laden capturers.

Melgar was part of a six-man intelligence operation in Mali supporting counterterrorism efforts against al-Qaeda’s local affiliate, known as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Melgar reported the violation to his chain of command, drawing the ire of the SEALs and two Marine Raiders, who were also on the team assigned to assist with counterterrorism.

Then on June 4, 2017, Melgar was invited to an embassy party, and the rest of the team was not.

[...]

DeDolph and Matthews, along with the two Marine Raiders, allegedly confronted Melgar at the safehouse around 5 a.m. DeDolph, a mixed-martial arts fighter, put Melgar in a chokehold. The attackers and Melgar fell onto the bed with Matthews on top of Melgar, according to a source familiar with the inquiry.

DeDolph realized Melgar wasn’t breathing, according to a preliminary investigation report first reported by NBC News. The SEALs tried to resuscitate Melgar with CPR and opened a hole in his throat. They then took Melgar [...] to a French medical facility, where he was pronounced dead.

At the clinic, DeDolph admitted to an embassy official he choked Melgar, according to NBC News and subsequent reports.

After the SEALs returned to the safehouse, they engaged in a cover-up, according to several witnesses—including cleaning up evidence and coaching witnesses. The charge sheet accuses the members of the conspiracy with “providing a false timeline of events to the Navy chain of command,” and “purposefully” left out the duct tape when making their statements on Melgar’s death. They as well allegedly “disposed of the alcohol” they kept in the shared Army-Navy quarters, and lied to investigators.

[...]

Logan Melgar’s wife, Michelle, was briefed on the case earlier this month in Norfolk, Virginia, and again this week at Fort Bragg, according to sources. She declined to discuss the case in detail with The Daily Beast, but said she supports the prosecutor and that her goal was to not allow the incident to cause a rift between the Special Forces and SEALs and Marine Raiders.

“While I have faith that the military court will handle this situation in the best possible way, I also understand that the mission continues,” she said. “Our men must work well together, and we need to support them in doing so.”

Mighty generous.

Ban on Transgender People in the Military: The Truth Comes Out

"After consultation with" his "generals", eh?

Trump’s sudden decision was, in part, a last-ditch attempt to save a House proposal full of his campaign promises that was on the verge of defeat, numerous congressional and White House sources said.

[...]

House Republicans were planning to pass a spending bill stacked with [Trump's] campaign promises, including money to build his border wall with Mexico.

But an internal House Republican fight over transgender troops was threatening to blow up the bill. And House GOP insiders feared they might not have the votes to pass the legislation because defense hawks wanted a ban on Pentagon-funded sex reassignment operations — something GOP leaders wouldn’t give them.

[...]

House lawmakers took the matter to the Trump administration. And when Defense Secretary James Mattis refused to immediately upend the policy, they went straight to the White House. Trump — never one for political correctness — was all too happy to oblige.

[...]

In the flash of a tweet, he announced that transgender troops would be banned altogether.

[...]

The announcement, multiple sources said, did not sit well with Mattis, who appeared to be trying to avoid the matter in recent weeks.

  Politico

Combine that with this:

How much more cynical and political can you get?

Just be sure to throw the least popular, least powerful people under the bus, and who cares?

The president had always planned to scale back President Barack Obama-era policies welcoming such individuals in combat and greenlighting the military to pay for their medical treatment plans. But a behind-the-scenes GOP brawl threatening to tank a Pentagon funding increase and wall construction hastened Trump’s decision.

[...]

While Democrats and centrist Republicans are already blasting the move, one White House official said the decision would be "seen as common-sense" by millions.

Millions who don't have the mental capacity to think it through logically.

The transgender fight first surfaced in the House a few weeks ago. With the backing of almost the entire GOP conference, [Missouri Representative Vicky] Hartzler offered an amendment to a defense authorization bill that would ban funding for gender reassignment surgeries and treatments for transgender active-duty personnel.

Bible thumper, no doubt. And then Trump went her one better.

“It’s not so much the transgender surgery issue as much as we continue to let the defense bill be the mule for all of these social experiments that the left wants to try to hoist on government,” Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), a conservative supporter of the Hartzler proposal, said last week.

I think the word you're looking for is "foist", Rep. Franks (R-Jerk).

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  

Setting the Country Back by Decades

"Tremendous medical costs." How many transgender people do they have in the military that will need those medical procedures?  "Disruption."  Letting women into the military - could they take on that burden?  Gays?  Suddenly there's going to be an enormous influx of transgender people enlisting?

Pathetic excuse, asshole(s).

UPDATE 4:00pm:  The "why" - Congressional GOP threatened to withhold the billfunding his wall if he didn't ban military sex reassignment operations.

FURTHER UPDATE:

FURTHER, FURTHER UPDATE:

Our Military Is Just Not What It Used to Be

The siren call of fame and fortune in the age of spectacle comes for us all.

A FORMER NAVY SEAL who shot Osama bin Laden and wrote a bestselling book about the raid is now the subject of a widening federal criminal investigation into whether he used his position as an elite commando for personal profit while on active duty, according to two people familiar with the case.

Matthew Bissonnette, the former SEAL and author of No Easy Day, a firsthand account of the 2011 bin Laden operation, had already been under investigation by both the Justice Department and the Navy for revealing classified information. The two people familiar with the probe said the current investigation, led by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, expanded after Bissonnette agreed to hand over a hard drive containing an unauthorized photo of the al Qaeda leader’s corpse. The government has fought to keep pictures of bin Laden’s body from being made public for what it claims are national security reasons.

[...]

[Bissonnette's lawyer] said that he had negotiated a deal in 2014 with the Pentagon and the Justice Department to hand over to the government some of the millions of dollars in book profits Bissonnette had received.

He would not confirm Bissonnette’s possession of the bin Laden photo or whether any investigation still remains open.

[...]

Federal investigators [...] became interested in whether Bissonnette’s business ventures with companies that supply military equipment — including companies whose products were used by SEAL Team 6 — were helped by his role in the elite unit’s procurement process, according to one of the people familiar with the case.

[...]

Bissonnette was seen as a rising star within the SEAL Team 6 command. According to several former SEAL Team 6 operators, he was once described by his commanding officer as the model for naval commandos: smart, discriminating, and lethal.

  The Intercept

And self-serving. I guess they didn't notice that.

SEALs sign nondisclosure agreements about their work, and even beyond the legal ramifications of violating those agreements, former SEAL Team 6 members who speak publicly about their battlefield exploits are often ostracized by their peers.

[...]

According to two retired SEAL Team 6 operators, Bissonnette’s name has been added to a rock kept at the Virginia Beach SEAL Team 6 base. The rock is used to mark former members who are no longer welcome at the command, including former SEALS who have violated a series of unwritten codes of conduct among the unit.

That'll teach him, eh?

Bissonnette [...] acknowledged in interviews that he violated military rules that required him to allow the Defense Department to review his manuscript prior to publication. He has since sued an attorney he consulted, claiming the lawyer advised him the manuscript did not have to be reviewed by the Pentagon. The lawyer, Kevin Podlaski, did not respond to a message requesting comment.

He'll get his kickback from Bissonnette later.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

American Justice

The lawyer for Guantánamo prisoner still can't access information that the CIA leaked to the maker of the Hollywood film (government propaganda) 'Zero Dark Thirty'.

Video

Profiles in Courage

Major Jason Wright

There may have been a little hubris involved (the possibility that Major Wright would have been taken off a hig and I don't by any means know that it was.

Last week, Maj. Jason Wright — one of the lawyers defending [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks] — resigned from the Army. He has accused the U.S. government of "abhorrent leadership" on human rights and due process guarantees and says it is crafting a "show trial."

[...]

His former client is one of six "high-value detainees" being prosecuted at Guantanamo for offenses that could carry the death penalty.

"All six of these men have been tortured by the U.S. government," he says.

Wright says Mohammed in particular has faced a level of torture "beyond comprehension." He says his client was waterboarded by the CIA 183 times and subjected to over a week of sleep deprivation; there were threats that his family would be killed. "And those are just the declassified facts that I'm able to actually speak about," Wright says.

[...]

"The 'original sin' being the fact that the CIA tortured these men and that they've gone to extraordinary lengths to try to keep that completely hidden from public view," Wright says. "So the statute that Congress passed has a number of protections to ensure that no information about the U.S. torture program will ever come out."

[...]

"Leave aside our constitutional principles — which we should try to uphold irrespective of who the defendant may be — the Constitution has been completely stepped on throughout this entire process," he says.

[...]

Wright says it doesn't matter what happens at trial; the government likely won't release the defendants even if they are acquitted.

[...]

Earlier this year, the Army instructed Wright to leave the team in order to complete a required graduate course with his promotion from Captain to Major. The course can be deferred for a variety of reasons; Wright had already deferred once. But his latest request for a deferral was denied without explanation.

"So really I only had two choices," he says. "I could either accept and voluntarily leave my own self from the case and my obligations to my client. Or I could refuse the orders."

He decided would be an ethical violation to abandon his client voluntarily, so he refused the orders. "And when you refuse the orders, you have to resign from the Army," he says.

[...]

NPR asked the Pentagon to comment on Wright's interview. A spokesman from the Army wrote:

"The Judge Advocate General denied the second deferral request because a suitable and competent military defense attorney replacement was available, Major Wright was not the lead or sole counsel, and it ensured Major Wright remained professionally competent and competitive for promotion."

And a spokesman for the military commissions also disputes Wright's characterization of the commission, including his allegations of planted listening devices. He wrote:

"The prosecution has never listened to a single attorney-client communication, and no entity of the U.S. government is listening to, monitoring, or recording attorney-client communications at the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay."

  NPR

The defense in the 9/11 case has alleged clandestine government interference with legal proceedings. Past hearings at Guantanamo have shown that listening devices were planted in rooms where lawyers and prisoners met, and that someone outside the court had a kill switch that cut the closed-circuit broadcast feed of the trial when secret CIA prisons were mentioned. In addition, the defense has alleged spying in the case, claiming the FBI propositioned a defense team security officer to be a confidential informant.

  RT

I would suggest that now Major Wright should turn whistleblower and reveal those torture tactics he has been forbidden to discuss, but I don't think the American public would care enough for it to make any difference, and it would further harm Major Wright.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Grow a Conscience, Get a Court Martial

A Navy nurse who refused to force-feed hunger strikers at Guantánamo has been sent back to the United States with no resolution of his case.

The nurse has never been identified. Last month, a lawyer for a cleared, force-fed hunger striker told the story of the Navy lieutenant, a nurse, who refused to take part in the feedings — and the military confirmed it.

Guantánamo detainee Abu Wael Dhiab described him as perhaps 40 years old and Latino, an officer who at first willingly administered tube feedings to detainees, but over time became a conscientious objector.

[...]

Army Col. Greg Julian at the U.S. Southern Command, which has oversight of the prison, said Friday: “He was administratively separated from the JTF and he’s pending court martial.”

  Miami Herald

"Adultry" - So That's What the Army Is Calling Rape These Days

Brigadier General Jeffrey Sinclair, 51, was initially charged with forcible sodomy and other counts of sexual assault based on allegations from a female US Army captain who served under him in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sinclair, who allegedly threatened the lives of the young woman and her family, was facing a sentence that could have put him behind bars for the rest of his life.

Yet last weekend, Sinclair’s lawyer announced that the former rising star in the Army would plead guilty to adultery – a crime in the US military – and mistreating his accuser. The punishment that came down on Thursday reflected that change, absolving Sinclair of any prison time and instead sentencing him to a $20,000 fine and an official reprimand.

[...]

After the general’s 20-year sentence was reduced to a plea deal worth a maximum of 18 months in prison earlier this week, the judge announced that jail time would not be necessary. He did not explain his decision-making process and prosecutors would not speak to reporters.

[...]

Sinclair previously pleaded guilty to possessing pornography on his computer while serving in Afghanistan, interfering with an investigation by deleting explicit pictures from his computer, and pressuring other junior officers to send him nude images of themselves.

[...]

He said later that he “maltreated” the Army captain and that she seemed to him to be “emotionally invested in a way I was not.”

[...]

Sinclair, who could still face a reduction in rank and a lowered pension, announced his retirement immediately after the sentence was announced.

“This system worked. I’ve always been proud of my Army,” he said, as quoted by Jeffrey Collins of the Associated Press. “All I want to do now is go north and hug my kids and wife.”

  RT

Oh, indeed the “system” worked. It always does.

I hope his wife takes the kids and leaves him.

The Bitter End to Private Green

Steven Dale Green, 28, of Midland, Texas, was found unresponsive in his cell last week at the federal penitentiary in Tucson, Ariz., said Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesman John Stahley. Green's death was not announced until Tuesday because prison staff was off for the long Presidents' Day weekend, Stahley said.

Stahley said Green's death is being investigated as a suicide.

[...]

Green and his fellow soldiers were stationed for several weeks at a traffic checkpoint near Mahmudiya in an area known as the "Triangle of Death" when, after an afternoon of card playing, sex talk and drinking, he and four other soldiers hatched a plan to go to the al-Janabi home, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, and rape the family's 14-year-old daughter, Abeer.

Green shot and killed the teen's mother, father and sister, then followed two other soldiers in raping the girl before shooting her in the face. Her body was set on fire in an attempt to obscure the crime.

[...]

Three other soldiers — Jesse Spielman, Paul Cortez and James Barker — are serving lengthy sentences in the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., for their roles in the attack. Each is eligible for parole in 2015. The fifth soldier, Bryan Howard, stayed behind at the checkpoint and later pleaded guilty to being an accessory. He served 27 months in Fort Leavenworth.

[...]

In multiple interviews with The Associated Press from prison, he frequently expressed regret at taking part in the attack and frustration that he was tried and convicted in the civilian system, which did not afford him parole, while the others involved went through the military justice system and have a chance to be released from prison.

"I was punished out of proportion to everybody else," Green said in October. "I'm not a victim, but I haven't been treated fairly. Not even remotely close. That's all I ever asked for was to be treated the same. They just won't do it. I don't know why."

  alJazeera

Well, maybe not out of proportion to the girl you raped and murdered, and her family you killed. Nor out of proportion to and Pfcs Thomas Tucker and Kristian Menchaca, who were captured by members of the girl’s community, tortured and killed in retaliation.

Green had already been discharged (for a “personality disorder”) when the crime came to light, which is why he got a civilian trial and the others a military trial. He was also granted a “moral character waiver” to enlist in the first place.

If the military could have kept it covered up, none of the soldiers would have been busted.

They Can't Get What We Don't Have

[An] email was sent by Admiral William McRaven, head of US Special Operations Command, to subordinate officers on May 13, 2011, instructing them that any remaining photos of Bin Laden’s body must be destroyed or handed over to the CIA. Bin Laden was killed on May 2, 2011 at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by the special operations team commonly known as Seal Team Six during Operation Neptune Spear.

In the email, addressed to “Gentlemen,” McRaven wrote, “One particular item that I want to emphasize is photos; particularly UBLs [Usama Bin Laden, as US military referred to him] remains. At this point – all photos should have been turned over to the CIA; if you still have them destroy them immediately or get them to the [redacted].”

The order to purge the photos came 11 days after the conservative government transparency organization Judicial Watch filed a FOIA request with the Defense Department seeking “all photographs and/or video recordings of Usama Bin Laden taken during and/or after the U.S. military operation in Pakistan on or about May 1, 2011.”

  RT

Wouldn’t want them to fall into enemy (i.e. American public) hands.

Naval Yard Shooting

A young man with a troubled history, but high level clearance and access to the DC Naval Yard was the alleged killer of 12.

Mondays' shooting comes less than a month after a military panel recommended the death sentence for US military Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, who killed 13 and injured 30 others at the Fort Hood military base in Texas on November 5, 2009.

[...]

US authorities are still trying to piece together exactly who Aaron Alexis was, and what drove him to gun down 12 people in cold blood and injure another eight.

[...]

Alexis had converted to Buddhism and attended the local Buddhist temple.

“We are all shocked. We are nonviolent. Aaron was a very good practitioner of Buddhism. He could chant better than even some of the Thai congregants,'' Ty Thairintr, a congregant at Wat Budsaya, a Buddhist temple in Fort Worth, told AP.

Thairintr, who said he last saw Alexis five weeks ago, said the latter was upset with the Navy because “he thought he never got a promotion because of the color of his skin. He hated his commander.”

“He was a very devoted Buddhist. There was no tell-tale sign of this behavior,” Thairintr said.

  RT

Really? “He hated his commander,” is not a sign?

Buddhist, Muslim...they're all the same, right Christians?

Revolutionary

Oath Keepers has placed three back-lit signs on the subway platform in the Washington Metro Pentagon Station, group founder Stewart Rhodes announced today.

"The first sign at the Pentagon Station is done in the style of the theater scene from George Orwell's 1984 and features Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, as 'Big Brother,'" Rhodes wrote, stating the "sign makes it clear that by exposing the NSA spying on Americans, Snowden honored his oath."

"This artwork will also be going on a billboard along a major freeway in Maryland, near the NSA headquarters at Ft. Mead within the week," Rhodes added.

[...]

"The third sign is intended to reach our military personnel within the Pentagon, and any other government employees who have ever served in the military, using the Iwo Jima flag-raising as a backdrop to the message."

  reason.com

Inciting military personnel to go against command?  Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated for appealing to police and military in San Salvador to stop following orders to kill campaneros and obey instead God’s command “Thou shalt not kill.” But this isn’t El Salvador, and this isn’t 1980, and nobody's being killed, so no worries.

"Technical" Problems at Gitmo

Defense lawyers for five Guantanamo detainees said email correspondences they sent were never received, investigative records that took years to compile had disappeared and external monitors were unable to access their internet searches. Even the prosecuting and defense teams had been given access to each other's files.

[...]

The five defendants are accused of training and funding the hijackers who allegedly crashed four commercial jets into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001, killing nearly 3,000 people.

[...]

The technical problems had started earlier in the year but by April they had become so severe that the chief defense counsel, Air Force Colonel Karen Mayberry, ordered defense lawyers not to use their Pentagon computers for any confidential casework.

The situation became so dire that when Pentagon officials wished to convey messages to legal advisors in other cities, they had to place the sensitive data onto external drives, head to Starbucks and file them via Wi-Fi using their personal computers and personal email accounts, Wright revealed.

Defense attorney James Harrington, who represents Yemeni prisoner Ramzi bin al Shibh, said he had been forced to draft motions with pen and paper.

[...]

This is not the first time that the maximum-security tribunal has suffered from ‘ghosts in the machinery.’  

Judge Pohl in January convened an emergency meeting after it was discovered that some outside source was cutting the audio feed when particular subjects in the trial were being discussed. 

[...]

Pentagon technical personnel have said it would take “up to 111 days” to fix the glitches once a contract was signed and money allocated, and that it was doubtful the work could be finished before the start of 2014.

  RT

In Re: the Manning Sentence

The WikiLeaks files have been a useful and important part of what had been about a dozen underdeveloped debates about our wars and foreign policy. The prosecutors, despite using words like betrayal frequently, had trouble, at the sentencing, showing specific harm, as opposed to diffuse embarrassment. And against thirty-five years, a hundred and twelve days seems like a paltry penalty for Manning’s extreme solitary confinement and his abuse. Where is the deterrent for that?

Was the deterrent meant to be the number of years—because twenty is already a lot—or the threat of the Espionage Act itself? There are laws against giving away classified files, including those Manning offered to plead guilty to. Why was it so important to call him a spy? An answer is that we have reached a point where our government, and allies like Britain, can’t tell the difference between leak investigations and espionage and terrorism.

  New Yorker

No. They know. They’re just hoping to make sure that we can’t tell the difference.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Bradley Manning Sentence

According to the military, Manning is required to serve one-third of the [35-year]sentence before he becomes eligible for parole.

[...]

Manning will receive a credit of 1,293 days for the time he has been confined prior to the sentence, including 112 days of credit for abusive treatment he was subjected to in the brig at the Quantico Marine Base.

  WaPo

RT Live report

Bradley Manning's Sentencing Hearing

I sat in the courtroom all day on Wednesday as Bradley Manning's trial wound its way to a tragic and demoralizing conclusion. I wanted to hear Eugene Debs, and instead I was trapped there, watching Socrates reach for the hemlock and gulp it down. Just a few minutes in and I wanted to scream or shout.

  David Swanson/ War Is a Crime

No kidding. And when I heard that in the sentencing hearing the prosecutor asked the judge for a 60-year sentence, the defendant’s attorney asked for 20 years instead, I had the same feeling I had when the whole thing first started and the defense was to be that Bradley Manning was a disturbed young man who shouldn’t have been given the position he held with the Army. I had a similar feeling when Manning apologized using that same defense at the end of his trial. It almost makes me feel like Bradley Manning doesn’t deserve the support he’s been getting from people who realize what exactly he revealed through his leaks. I pity Mr. Manning, but I don’t admire him. His defense should have been classic whistleblower defense, and his lawyer should have demanded sentencing to time served with retribution for having been tortured during that time.

I don't blame Bradley Manning for apologizing for his actions and effectively begging for the court's mercy. He's on trial in a system rigged against him. The commander in chief declared him guilty long ago. He's been convicted. The judge has been offered a promotion. The prosecution has been given a playing field slanted steeply in its favor. Why should Manning not follow the only advice anyone's ever given him and seek to minimize his sentence? Maybe he actually believes that what he did was wrong.

[...]

This was the sentencing phase of the trial, but there was no discussion of what good or harm might come of a greater or lesser sentence, in terms of deterrence or restitution or prevention or any other goal.

[...]

This was the trial of the most significant whistleblower in U.S. history, but there was no mention of anything he'd blown the whistle on, any of the crimes exposed or prevented, wars ended, nonviolent democratic movements catalyzed. Nothing on why he's a four-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee. Nothing.

[...]

What was discussed on Wednesday was as disturbing as what wasn't. Psycho-therapists, and relatives, and Bradley Manning himself --- defense witnesses all --- testified that he had been wrong to do what he'd done, that he'd not been in his right mind, and that he is a likable person to whom the judge should be kind.

Should likable people get lesser sentences?

[...]

What, I wanted to scream, about the likability of blowing the whistle on major crimes? Shouldn't that be rewarded, rather than being less severely punished?

[...]

The first witness on Wednesday was a therapist who had consulted with Manning while he was in the Army and in Iraq. This man noted that Manning had problems with his occupation, but gave no indication of what that occupation was. Manning was under stress, but the moral crisis discussed in [Manning's] chat logs [with the snitch who turned him in] was never mentioned. Instead, Manning's lawyer directed the witness to discuss "gender issues."

[...]

The next witness was a therapist hired to work for the defense. He said that Manning suffered fits of rage in the military. Shouldn't he have? If you'd been dropped into the war on Iraq and seen what it was, how would you have most healthily reacted? This therapist believed Manning suffered from gender dysphoria, or gender identity disorder. The whole room seemed to suffer from basic human decency dysphoria. [...] Manning, we heard, had been stressed out over his boyfriend, and as a result of his alcoholic parents. The notion that war could cause stress didn't enter the courtroom.

[...]

Manning suffered from Post-Adolescent Idealism (if only that were contagious! I wanted to scream).

[...]

Manning's sister said that he had calmed down and matured during the past three years. No mention of his naked isolation cell. No mention of the existential threat hanging over him. No mention of how clear-minded and principled he appears to have been back when he was supposedly immature.

[...]

Manning wanted to end wars that the majority of Americans think were wrong ever to have begun, and he helped to end them --- at least in the case of Iraq. He'd had clearly degree. A full-blown public debate on abolishing the institution of war is yet to come.

Don't hold your breath.

And, Manning himself, I think, blew it. I can’t really blame him, either, I suppose. I’m sure he knows the depths to which he can be further punished. Perhaps he was assured that if he pled this way he would be shown leniency in his future captivity. Who knows? It was his choice to make. Still, he has helped, but then set back immensely the cause of justice and, while I don't believe there is any chance of preventing future wars, at least prevention of future war crimes.

Such a Deal

Convicted WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning will now face a maximum sentence of 90 years in prison after his judge agreed to merge some of the 20 offenses he was found guilty of last week.

  RT

Down from 130+. Whew, THAT’s a relief.

Good Old American Justice

In 2007, a court-martial at Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base north of San Diego sentenced [Sergeant Lawrence] Hutchins to 15 years in military prison after finding him guilty of unpremeditated murder, larceny and other crimes.

[...]

Witnesses had testified that Hutchins and another marine shot Awad and placed an AK-47 and a shovel next to the corpse to suggest he had been planting a bomb.

Earlier, Awad had been bound and gagged at another location, according to a finding by a lower court of appeal for the military.

[...]

Three judges on the US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces on Wednesday found […] Hutchins gave a statement to a US Navy investigator while in custody that should have been ruled inadmissible.

The court ruled that it "was an error for the military judge to admit the statement made by Hutchins," which was used at his court-martial.

"Therefore, notwithstanding the other evidence of Hutchins' guilt, there is a reasonable likelihood that the statement contributed to the verdict," the court said.

  alJazeera

Apparently his right to remain silent was violated. And that brings me back to another interesting piece of work from the Supreme Republicans.

If you want to invoke your constitutional right to remain silent, you’d better not be silent.

That’s the circular logic of a recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, which held that simply remaining silent is not enough to protect American citizens from self-incrimination. Though it’s received scant media attention, the decision has serious implications for criminal prosecutions, legal experts say.

[...]

In January 1993, Genovevo Salinas was brought in for police questioning about the murder of two brothers. Police found shotgun shell casings at the scene, and Salinas -- who was not arrested and not read his Miranda rights -- agreed to let police inspect his shotgun. When police asked if the shells would match his shotgun, Salinas did not answer the question. He stayed silent, looked down at the floor, shuffled his feet and bit his bottom lip.

[...]

The case eventually made its way to the Supreme Court, where in a 5-4 decision last week, the court found that Salinas’ self-incrimination privilege had not been violated, mainly because he never flat-out said, “I’m invoking my right to remain silent.” This despite the fact that Salinas was not under arrest at the time of questioning, and was therefore not read his Miranda rights.

  IBTimes

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Brad Manning's Testimony

We have a leaky ship indeed. Someone has chanced taping Bradley Manning's court statement in defiance of a military judicial order that no video, audio or photographs be published.

The US government and its military has carefully ensured that people hear about Manning from the government, but do not hear from Manning himself. It is way past time for Manning's voice to be heard:

  Glenn Greenwald

I've tried to visit the website that released these videos, but at present, I get this error:

I have a feeling they've been taken offline by the government. At this time, there are some expcerpts on Greenwald's Guardian page.  I can't pull up the audio segments, but there are transcripts along with them.

UPDATE from Greenwald:

Extreme amounts of traffic has taken down the FPF site and may be causing problems with the embedded players I've posted. If you're having problems listening to them here (or seeing them), just wait a bit and they should be working shortly.