**BREAKING** Pvt. Chelsea Manning released after 7 years in prison

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP)— Pvt. Chelsea Manning, the transgender soldier convicted of giving classified government materials to WikiLeaks, was released from a Kansas military prison on Wednesday after serving seven years of her 35-year sentence.

President Barack Obama granted Manning clemency in his final days in office in January. Though she’s set to be released from Fort Leavenworth, Manning’s lawyers and the Army have refused to say when and how she’ll be freed due to potential security concerns.

Washington Times

For me, this is probably the only thing positive that will remembered about Obamas time in office - at the end of Obamas tenure, he granted clemency to Manning for crimes committed under the Espionage Act.

Chelsea is a whistleblower who bought to the worlds attention the conduct of the military/Industrial complex's agenda to usurp the worlds resources under the guise of freedom and democracy.

Chelsea Elizabeth Manning (born Bradley Edward Manning, December 17, 1987) is a United States Army soldier who was convicted by court-martial in July 2013, of violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses, after disclosing to WikiLeaks nearly three-quarters of a million classified, or unclassified but sensitive, military and diplomatic documents.Manning was sentenced in August 2013[5] and pursuant to a commutation by President Obama, was released on May 17, 2017. - Wikipedia

twitter.com...

Below is a snippet of what landed Chelsea in prison - among other evidence of wrongdoing, she released this footage to Wikileaks who proceeded to release it to the world....



Congrats Chelsea, today is the beginning of the rest of your life - stay safe my friend.

I'd like to know what was ever done to that heli crew and/or their commanding officer. Hung by their balls hopefully. Oh wait, firing on civilians and children...they didn't have any.
Murdering, sh** eating, miserable SOBS.

Sorry SLC, assholes hurting kids sets me off.

Some called Manning a traitor, some a hero. I think he was doing his job, protecting us from domestic enemies, ie, the military/industrial complex.

You can go now.

Yah hey, sorry about that.

Edit: Suppose Assange will come out now and face the organ grinder music?

This is a good thing , i think she is a hero for what she did , exposing murder , because that what it was nothing else.

This is a good thing.
God only knows what [pronoun] went through the past few years.
Military prison for a whistle blower has got to be worse than rough.

If you want to join the military. Don't do dumb sh*t like Bradley Manning did and nothing will happen to you. Duh.

The Marine Corps surgically removed my heart strings... I wish the same scope would be put upon the fire bombers of Japan during ww2 "oh the murder and chaos of war" wars have causalities some just some not. Calling a JDAM while serving getting heavy fire from a building with both machine gun assets and rocket fire understanding that the bomb may or will destroy surrounding targets is a call I would make or may have in the past. The he/she did what he or her did in malice because they (he/she) more then likely didnt like the army and thought war is sick... war is crazy, but if you are there like I was, I wouldn't do more to hurt the people around me.

War is an ugly business, I don't see many things regarding what their own people in these places do to murder, mutilate, and torture people on wiki leaks when I was serving either... I've been to make shift torture rooms, Ive seen beheaded bodies, I saw suicide bombers, I have been attacked in combat... taddling to a bunch of internet warriors isn't exactly the best way to solve world issues.

a reply to: Sublimecraft
Whistleblowing is great and has its place in the world, but the reality is that, especially for government and military employees, there are possibly some legal ramifications to whistleblowing, depending on how you go about doing it.

Manning should remain in jail for the way that he went about doing what he did. There were many other ways that he could have released the information, but he chose one of the ways that were the most illegal, and that was his fault and his choice.

I worked in the JAG Corp when I was in the Army, and my colleague with whom I work now was in the intelligence field in the Army, as was (just retired) one of my best friends while in the Army--the message that this sends to military personnel that it's okay to leak classified, stolen files and information to non-U.S. organizations with blatant disregard as to what exactly is contained in the file dump is one that the "Commander In Chief" should not be promoting. Granting clemency to Manning's sentence, IMO, dramatically reduces the rule of law in the military, which should be stricter than civilian life, not less punishing.

Manning, being a veteran, can kiss my ass for the "how" behind what he did. The civilian in me, though, appreciates some of what was made known.

My comment has nearly zero to do with the appropriate things that were leaked, but the "how" that it was done, so please respond (if you do) accordingly.

a reply to: SlapMonkey

Given your military background there, I understand your perspective on her conduct. Indeed there are many ways to skin a cat, one thing is for sure, what was eventually released by Wikileaks had a massive impact in the geopolitical world.

Fox have posted a video saying that she will remain on active duty & be eligible for health benefits.
Fox News

a reply to: Sublimecraft

If he simply released the video and related documents it would be one thing. But he just randomly sent as many classified documents as he could get his hands on to Wiki. I don't think that's whistleblowing, that's espionage. This is particularly true given the state of Wikileaks at that time. There was no way Manning knew for sure that those documents didn't contain material that would harm US assets or that Assange would not use them to do so.

I think Assange and Snowden are valiant people. I personally put Manning in a different class. Having said that, 7 years is a mighty long time.

The OP is one of those handful of ATS members whose perspective I am always interested in, and we’re going to agree about 90% of the time, but this isn’t going to be one of those times…

Bradley Manning swore an oath. It’s as simple as that. Under the laws of the United States and the Uniform Code established by the National Command Authority, there are only a very few instances where breaking that oath is justifiable. Placing your own moral outrage and contempt for command and the military itself above the safety of the boots on the ground isn’t one of them.

I know the Manning apologists will argue that there exists no evidence US service personnel were harmed by his actions.

But how do they know?

When Mr. Manning was furiously and randomly emailing every scrap of raw intel he could lay his mitts on to WikiLeaks (and maybe elsewhere – Manning was deeply connected to various “hacker” groups years before his acts of espionage), he was not screening this material to weed out information that could be used by our enemies to kill U.S. personnel. He couldn’t have done that because that was way above his level of expertise.

Manning was not well-educated nor did he have any training on the analysis of intelligence data. He was a goddamn clerk… He either knew that he could be putting his fellow soldiers in grave danger and didn’t care, or had no real idea of the consequences of his actions. I suspect it’s both…

I get it. There were some graphic gun camera vid’s of friendly fire and mistaken identity engagements that resulted in the deaths of innocents. Tragic on every level. If it were up to me, we’d never fight another war again.

But I have news for you – this has ALWAYS HAPPENED in war and always will. The fact is, technology and training have dramatically reduced the indiscriminate nature of modern warfare exponentially.

But it’s still going to happen. Mistakes are going to be made. When a Commander-In-Chief and (hopefully) our U.S. Congress make the decision to go to war, at that very instant innocent lives are already predestined to be lost. Anyone who didn’t already know that war is ugly, brutal, unfair, and vicious is beyond help.

I’m not even going to get into the “Cablegate” and Guantano leaks because as far as I’m concerned, this issue begins and ends on the battlefield and with the safety of our service personnel in an active war zone.

I have yet to see one scintilla of evidence indicating the intelligence and data stolen by Bradley Manning exposed any intentional wrongdoing by the United States Armed Forces. What there is ample evidence of is that Manning systematically and intentionally tried to cover his tracks along the way, going so far at one point that he wiped hard drives – and I don’t mean with a cloth or something.

What has always been clear to me in the Bradley Manning matter is that there was in fact premeditated intent, planning, a targeted and systematic operation, and then the intentional dissemination of stolen classified data to a FOREIGN STATELESS INTELLIGENCE AGENCY – WikiLeaks.

That, by any reasonable standard, is the definition of “espionage”.

I am opposed to capital punishment for any reason – I know many of you are probably surprised to hear such a rabid right-winger as myself admit that, and I’ll explain why another time, but if ever there was a clear-cut case for execution for treason, it is Bradley Manning.

When we take that oath, we don't add any disclaimers like "unless we disagree with the orders given, or we don't like the commander". When you take that oath, you understand that failure to do your job efficiently could jeopardize the lives of others.

He/she did break the law, and if we disregard the law it serves no purpose existing. We can all thank Snowden and Manning for releasing things that needed to be seen, but we cannot ignore the rules that were broken in doing so. Both were well aware of the consequences of their actions before they released their information.

Order or Chaos, you choose.

a reply to: Brotherman

Thank you.

I don't agree with the clemency. It sets a standard that justice works for some people and not for others.

The queer should have served out his sentence.

originally posted by: network dude
When we take that oath, we don't add any disclaimers like "unless we disagree with the orders given, or we don't like the commander". When you take that oath, you understand that failure to do your job efficiently could jeopardize the lives of others.

He/she did break the law, and if we disregard the law it serves no purpose existing. We can all thank Snowden and Manning for releasing things that needed to be seen, but we cannot ignore the rules that were broken in doing so. Both were well aware of the consequences of their actions before they released their information.

Order or Chaos, you choose.

That's exactly right, and is even more critical in the military environment where Newton's Third Law is always in play!

Wrong thread...don't know how that happened.

Have a nice day.🌻

originally posted by: network dude
When we take that oath, we don't add any disclaimers like "unless we disagree with the orders given, or we don't like the commander". When you take that oath, you understand that failure to do your job efficiently could jeopardize the lives of others.

He/she did break the law, and if we disregard the law it serves no purpose existing. We can all thank Snowden and Manning for releasing things that needed to be seen, but we cannot ignore the rules that were broken in doing so. Both were well aware of the consequences of their actions before they released their information.

Order or Chaos, you choose.

That's silly. I'll break any oath, any time, if I'm confronted with an evil. Thank goodness I'm not alone in that or we would have never had important Nazi defectors nor whistleblowing heroes. She's 10 times the soldier than those assholes in that chopper.

a reply to: Abysha

I understand your position, but it's a damn good thing you didn't join the military. In combat, attitudes like that get people killed.

It's not something everyone understands or believes in. Don't take that as a dig, it wasn't meant that way.

a reply to: SBMcG
Spot on.

Spot on, indeed. But you're getting into nuances that most people ignore in lieu of ideological praising of the generic idea of what a whistleblower is, where they disregard the other side of the big picture (that always exists) just to applaud the fact that information was released.

I'm a massive advocate of whistleblowing, but like you, I understand when the fine line between whistleblowing and massive criminal activity exists--a person's position, profession, intent, recklessness, and many other factors go into deciding where this line is drawn. Manning's position as an intelligence analyst automatically puts his actions in the 'massive criminal activity' category, IMO. He knew exactly what he was doing at the time, and the possible ramifications of the information contained within that we all can reasonably assume that he did not vet prior to release.

Manning is a POS who deserved to rot for the full 35 years to which he was initially sentenced, and Obama deserves to get his kicked in his mom jeans-covered ass for commuting that sentence (in the most cowardly way possible) and contributing to the delinquency of military members by all Service Members and veterans who take/took their jobs seriously. But what do we expect when we put someone who has no obligation to have served in the military in the position of Commander in Chief (one of the few remaining mistakes that I see in the Constitution that I feel needs rectified via an amendment).

Anyhoo, great post.

originally posted by: Sublimecraft
a reply to: SlapMonkey
Fox have posted a video saying that she will remain on active duty & be eligible for health benefits.
Fox News

Only because Manning is appealing, so the (dishonorable) discharge is pending the results of the appeal. The remainder of the sentence, which includes forfeiture of all pay and allowances, remains in effect during the appeal process, so while Manning may have certain health benefits and is technically still an active-duty Soildier (term used excessively loosely), he's not getting paid, and he will lose those benefits after he appeals his discharge (assuming that they don't upgrade it).

With is assumed loss of military benefits after discharge, the government (i.e.: Me and every other taxpayer) will not be paying for his sex change, hence the use of the "he" pronoun in my comments. I go by what equipment they have down below, not a preference for what they want to be referred to as. After the surgery, I'll call him a she. What are the odds on Manning starting a GoFundMe page for the surgery now--it'd be genius on his part, assuming that all of his supporters will put their money where their digital mouths are.

I guess in theory, the sex change could still happen, depending on how long it takes the appeal process, but I doubt that the Army would be willing to set a date with the pending dishonorable discharge (which is well deserved and duly provided).

As the good ol' drill sergeants used to say, the only place he is going to find sympathy from me is if I hand him a dictionary and he looks between sh*t and Syphilis.

And just for general edification, if anyone is interested, here is a link that explains how different military discharges affect your ability to get military benefits once you're discharged: Discharges and Their Effects on Veteran Benefits. Many people don't understand the importance of trying to appeal one's discharge if it's anything less than an honorable one--this is why.