What happened to the land of the free?

I haven't watched that video, but in the interests of provoking a healthy debate, I disagree.

 

It's scary how even though they pretty much know they're in the public eye and still resort to 60's-esque CIA assassinations and tyranny.

 

Just watched the apache video in question, and I have to side with the pilots, at least up to a point. The cameras could easily be mistaken for weapons. Engaging the van seemed unnecessary, and should have been left to the ground force if anything. As you may recall, I was an aircrew member in Iraq at the time this video was shot; if I'm correctly remembering the rules of engagement, the pilots didn't really have grounds for shooting at the van.
Regardless, I have to disagree with those who villainize the pilots over their tone of voice. I've worked with gunship pilots, and they're definitely a different breed; they kill people on a regular basis. They wouldn't survive if they got emotional over it every time.
As for the HMMWV that ran over the body (that's right, it was a humvee, not a tank), it was on the passenger side, so I seriously doubt it was intentional. I don't know who else here has ever driven an up-armored humvee, but you've got pretty limited visibility. Anyway, was the whole incident unfortunate? Certainly. Was poor judgment exercised? Probably. Were war crimes committed? I think that's kind of a stretch.
Regarding the poor bastard who leaked the video: he fucked up. Apparently, he reported the incident to his chain of command and was waved off. There were other avenues, within the army, that were available to him at that point, but he chose to leak classified documents to be shared with the world. Bad idea. Also, illegal. Leaking classified documents is nowhere on the list of "right things to do" in this situation. So sorry pal, 'preciate the intent, but your execution was no bueno. Off to prison you go.

Snowden is a different situation altogether. I think he did the right thing, though not the legal one. Unfortunately, the U.S. government can't just turn a blind eye to his crimes because they were popular.

 

So no one wants to argue the point? That's unusual. Is everybody feeling okay?

 

More of a case of who gives a shit.

 

We know better than to tangle with a military man.

 

murrica

 

You forgot your gun and six-pack of beer, Yuki.
I'll lend you some.

 

Bradley Manning's maximum sentence has been reduced to 90 years. That's 46 whole years less than before. So, you know, great stuff, right? If he's lucky he'll even be alive at 115.

I read a pretty interesting article that compared Manning with Carl von Ossietzky and Walter Kreiser, the Chief Editor of Weltbühne and a journalist working at the paper. Kreiser had found out that Germany had began building up an air force, Luftwaffe, which was prohibited according to the Treaty of Versailles. In 1931 they published a piece on the affair and was subsequently arrested for treason and espionage, much like Manning (and possibly Edward Snowden in the future). You may be wondering what they were sentenced to. 18 months in prison, which I must say is quite mild compared to the insanity Manning is facing. The courts at the time argued (much like the US argues) that while everything they had written was true, they were spreading information that the state wanted to keep secret and they were therefore traitors.

Ossientzky did continue his fight after he was released in 1932, but soon enough Hitler had taken over and he was put in a camp, where he died. He also received the Nobel Peace Prize, for which Manning also has been nominated (it went to the EU instead). But that's another story.

 

Unfortunately for Manning, he didn't just leak one Apache gun video. He leaked a SHLOAD of sensitive material. Hence the multiple counts and long sentence.

 

Re:

He did what he thought was right, and obviously from the perspective of the prosecution, it wasn't. This can lead to a problem, though - what do situations like this lead to in regards to freedom of the press? From what I was able to find, the main focus of what Manning had released was related to the amount of civilian deaths being much higher than we, as civilians, were aware. Other things revealed were how US diplomats were pressuring foreign powers not to pursue cases against the CIA. I'm sure there are things I've missed regarding more harmful information, but what I mentioned seems to be something we should know.

Our government (and extensions thereof) work(s) for us. We should know what they're doing, how they're doing it, and how well it's getting done. While I admit I probably wasn't able to find the meat of everything leaked by Manning, what I've seen shows the US government is more concerned with us not knowing what they do. It creates a situation where we're kept blind so we don't ask as many questions, and that's not a good thing. Such scenarios reek of complacency.

Now, I understand certain sensitive military issues aren't covered by freedom of the press, i.e. location and number of troops, how they're armed, etc. I'm pretty sure Manning must have released something with that information in it to have been charged so severely.

But I see a problem in the media's hypocrisy - CNN recently reported on what Snowden had done in a piece that demonstrated terrorist groups were changing their behavior in response to the leaks. Now, here's the problem;

That report showed the NSA is actively watching terrorist groups, knows where they are, and can say they're acting differently in response to the leaks. This is information much more dangerous to let into terrorist hands than simply letting them know their emails are being watched. I saw the reporters outing that event had not been charged with anything.

 

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To play devil's advocate, what's to say that they don't already actually know this? Is it counter intelligence (or whatever it's called, I'm talking out of my ass here) to *say* you know and see all when you really don't? And isn't it naive to think that these "terrorist cells" or whatever don't already know or at least suspect this information?

I do find it amusing that, in the age of instant worldwide communication and globalization, we might quite possibly know less about the important things that matter due to government obfuscation.

 

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This and the "What happened to the land of the free?" topic really ties this all together for me. The NSA's alleged surveillance of Americans is the type of shenanigans we Americans mocked other countries for doing to their people.

There is no end to the bluffs and psychology organizations play against others. Honestly, no information can be trusted. Just today I had my mind blown by the possibility that my very employment is a conspiracy: I am not employed because I offer a service that somebody has decided is valuable, I'm employed to earn money to buy things to keep the machine going.

Apparently Chris Kutcher has it figured out.

 

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Honestly, your points are solid. Though, I can argue that now the media is being used as a tool to control our government's enemies, if what you're saying is true. Though I guess that's always been the case, I had never considered the news a weapon.

 

That's what I was telling you before.

Economics is a science only insofar as it describes who shits on whom, and who calls it ice cream.

I'm counting on natural law to sort it out: population + technology = education = empathy = liberalism = socialism.

Of course, I rarely factor in human nature, so more likely population + technology + bullshit = robot thought-police + concentration camps + fundamentalist church-state.

I'm just glad I don't have children, otherwise it would really piss me off.

 

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⇒ population = liberalism - technology

Now that's an implication we can all get behind. :hippy:


Not to mention socialism - empathy +1 = (education + liberalism) ÷ 2(population + technology)