But that's exactly what Manning did. If he were being prosecuted for discretely releasing specific information about specific crimes, we'd be talking about a different case.
Yet people say the same thing about Snowden, who seems to have "discretely released specific information about specific crimes" to a larger extent than Manning did.
And while we're talking about it. It wasn't like the Pentagon Papers were all that specific. Ellsberg leaked the 47 volumes wholesale.
All it really says is that it was useful, for some reason or another, to divide the information into 47 parts.
Do you really not believe that a revolution is called for?