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Comment by throw-away2 | Hacker News Reader

Did you read what I said? He's being held in protective custody because they fear, rightly, that he may kill himself. And if God-forbid he succeeded in doing so, what would you and the rest of his supports say then? That they killed him to shut him up, to send a warning to other would-be whistle-blowers, or some other nonsense.

And Manning isn't a victim. He released an enormous cache of classified information, directly violating an oath that he took not to, placing ISAF Forces in jeopardy and undermining the ability of the State Department (you know, the agency that tries to affect positive change in the world without the use of force) to do its job. What wrong-doing did Manning uncover; what crimes? All he succeeding in doing was harming the State Department and endangering ISAF personnel and the Afghans who aid them.

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> What wrong-doing did Manning uncover; what crimes?

Here are some US troops shooting at unarmed civilians, children and Reuters journalists. There was never a gun held, or fired except by the US troops...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0

This is the reality of asymmetric warfare, where doing your job walking down the street in Baghdad can get you killed.

There are 1000's of such incidents we know about thanks to Manning. This happens to be the most graphic and easily understood because it is a video. Other stories are contained in the giant databases and are a couple of hundred words of text.

Personally I uncovered a case in Cablegate where the US Ambassador to Nigeria asked for someone to be rendered to the US without going through the Nigerian Courts. This constitutes extraordinary rendition, moreover, this was pre-911 before extraordinary rendition was known to be widespread.

If anybody actually looks at the material, you'll grasp its significance immediately. Moreover, there is a good chance with 250,000 cables and countless war logs if you see something significant, you are the only person in the world to have recognised the significance of that piece of information.

  > This is the reality of asymmetric warfare, where doing
  > your job walking down the street in Baghdad can get you
  > killed.

And this was unknown prior to wikileaks, right? Right? You do know that the video you linked is "edited" to put it mildly?

  > There are 1000's of such incidents we know about thanks to
  > Manning.

Yeah, sure. Nobody else knew.

  > If anybody actually looks at the material, you'll grasp its
  > significance immediately

Yes, it is easy to grasp the significance — next to none. That's why nobody talks about those cables any more.

My cynical view is that wikileaks was just a tool for Asange to make a name for himself. Manning? Just colateral damage.

Colonel O. North, nice to see you again!

That linked video shows US forces firing on an armed force carrying at least one AK-47 and at least one rocket-propelled grenade launcher which was tracked from a previous encounter with US forces.

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/201878.php

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/201889.php

Wikileaks had this information, knew that the force was armed and not civilian, knew that weapons were recovered from the scene, and intentionally lied about it when they called the video "Collateral Murder".

Provably false.

Here is the exact second that freeze-frame above is taken in the collateral murder video http://youtu.be/5rXPrfnU3G0?t=3m18s Compare with the picture that the US military claims is of an armed person http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/savegunsmall.JPG

That person isn't carrying anything let along a weapon.

At the exact time the US troops say "that's a weapon" (around or just after 3:13) and thus fix the belief that the group is carrying weapons, from the Apache all that is visible in shot are 2 camera men, with cameras.

What amazes me is that who ever decided to make this picture didn't go to the effort to at least make a claim that wasn't provably false from the available evidence. It's really hard to prove a negative existential statement, so that would have been on their side.

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