Bradley Manning’s Statement

http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/update-3113-bradley-mannings-statement-taking-responsibility-for-releasing-docs

by ivancdg • 13 years ago

277 117 13 years ago

A lot has been written and said about Bradley Manning but it always seemed such a distant thing. Reading this statement made me realize how he's a real person that I can identify with rather than just some guy in a news article.

jbester2• 13 years ago

In 2011, Wired posted[1] the transcript of conversations between Bradley Manning and Lamo, the man who informed on him. It's an interesting read and gives a window, albeit a small one, into his mental state and underlying motives.

I would not consider the transcript complimentary, it does not portray a high-minded, moral crusader. It portrays Manning, the depressed, confused, trans-gendered person, acting out against the Military Establishment.

[1] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/07/manning-lamo-logs/

ok_craig3• 13 years ago

And in reality, he's probably a mix of all of the above, like most people. Everyone's got ideals, everyone's got insecurities.

We tend to project our insecurities more when we're having casual conversation with people we consider friends.

We tend to project our ideals more when we're having serious philosophic debate, defending our character, or, you know, being charged with war crimes.

steveklabnik• 13 years ago

> trans-gendered

Thank you.

Juha• 13 years ago

That's surprisingly interesting to read (at least the start), lots of raw information. One fun thing I noticed, he's using sed-syntax to correct his spelling mistakes. Is that normal or is he true hacker? For example he writes "s/Hilary/Hillary".

Good hint on how safe/unsafe RSA actually is: "bradass87: 2048… never heard of it being broken publicly… NSA can feasibly do it, if they want to allocate national level “number-crunching” time to do it…"

codemac• 13 years ago

Website is offline, here is the google cache:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&safe=...

ihuman• 13 years ago

As of 4:34 EST, the website is back online

derrida4• 13 years ago

Here's the copy on the transcribers blog http://www.alexaobrien.com/secondsight/wikileaks/bradley_man...

breakall2• 13 years ago

Interesting that Manning tried to contact the Washington Post, but got blown off... Tried the NYTimes, and they didn't return his call. That may say something about the media, but I'm more curious if the reaction by the US government and other officials to the leaks would have been the same if those papers had published the material, instead of Wikileaks?

safeaim• 13 years ago

It's probably not that easy getting through the big tip inbox of such papers. Especially if you are not identifying yourself as a high-level official.

saraid216• 13 years ago

To follow on from safeaim,

I'd challenge you to get in contact with a reporter from either newspaper yourself. How would you go about it?

breakall2• 13 years ago

Be famous, rich, powerful, or all of the above?

Snark aside, I've occasionally exchanged brief emails with folks at newspapers -- an op/ed writer who wrote a particular column I liked, for example. With enough persistence, I think I could get through. If I really ran into a brick wall at the Post or the Times, I'd settle for the editor of a mid-size city paper.

OGinparadise• 13 years ago

but I'm more curious if the reaction by the US government and other officials to the leaks would have been the same if those papers had published the material, instead of Wikileaks?

Manning would have still been fried, but then NYT would not have released all of them wholesale. Some things just need to be kept secret but Wikileaks released them (lack of manpower was one issue)

jellicle• 13 years ago

Sigh. Actually, everything released in the first large dump of Manning's stuff was vetted by.... wait for it... the New York Times. Which newspaper, along with the Guardian and Der Spiegel, broke the story on July 25, 2010.

How quickly we forget.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_War_documents_leak

marze• 13 years ago

About time.

cake• 13 years ago

It's funny to see how common the tools he uses are :

Dell laptops, WinRAR, wget...

You would think the army has some fancy tech, apparently not.

tlrobinson• 13 years ago

It's amazing how many high profile "hacking" cases are essentially (or literally) "used wget to download unsecured information". aaronsw and weev come to mind.

jonknee• 13 years ago

This information was secured, he just had the ability to use computers on the secure network. People will always be an attack vector, though the military certainly could have implemented more automated alerts on unusual activity.

mpyne18• 13 years ago

Fancier than what we get in the Navy. :(

ok_craig3• 13 years ago

The third from last section, titled "Facts regarding the unauthorized disclosure of Other Government Documents" is very vague. While all other sections detail the information released, this one does not. Possibly, I suppose, because it never made it to the public. Does anyone have any idea what it could be referring to?

jasonwatkinspdx2• 13 years ago

I'm very curious about this as well. It's the only topic he's not willing to disclose in a public statement, yet he states that the documents upset him a great deal. He's not even willing to mention the specific agency involved.

That makes me think that disclosing this topic would create even worse charges than he already faces. So a reasonable guess is that these documents are actual compartmentalized information. But of course then the question is how he was able to access them given the impression I get is his office was rather low security, not a SCIF.

It's hard not to think that there's a significant part of the story here that isn't being told.

GHFigs2• 13 years ago

He's not even willing to mention the specific agency involved.

This is part of him pleading guilty to these charges, one of which is over "more than one classified memorandum from a government intelligence agency". It's not him personally being shifty about it--that's what the charge is.

But of course then the question is how he was able to access them given the impression I get is his office was rather low security, not a SCIF.

He refers to the "T-SCIF" many times in this statement, 'T' meaning 'Temporary'. There's even a photo in the chat logs published by Wired.

grecy• 13 years ago

Interesting there was no mention from him about how he was treated while incarcerated, or about being held for so long without charge/trial.

sigzero• 13 years ago

His lawyer already did describe his confinement I believe. So there was probably no need. Not sure about the second part but maybe he is barred from that somehow.

throw-away23• 13 years ago

You mean how he was held in protective custody (not solitary confinement, as is commonly and falsely claimed by idiots like Glenn Greenwald) because he has a history of mental instability (ie Gender Identity Disorder, punching another soldier) and the Army fears he's a suicide risk (which he probably is)?

joering22• 13 years ago

Throw - serious question. Is there any environment where someone could press you hard enough and long enough so that you would be a "suicide risk" ?

derrida4• 13 years ago

"protective custody". Right. Like if he were let out onto the streets on bail he would flee, or go on a murdering rampage.

You are blaming the victim.

The military is entirely responsible for the conditions he is held under in custody. That's part of what the word custody means. A UN Torture Investigator (Juan Mendez) concluded he was living in "inhumane and degrading conditions".

AnthonBerg• 13 years ago

Give me six lines written by an honest man and I'll find in them a reason to hang him.

joering22• 13 years ago

Good point; the entire statement sounds like a confession of a brainwashed man. I wouldn't be surprised if they broke him. Give me 12 months in solitary confinement and force me to sleep naked and wake me up every 2 hours to make sure I did not try to commit suicide by biting off my own head, and I will admit I killed a Pope or anyone else in that matter :(

mpyne18• 13 years ago

I think the thing I was most surprised about is that the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs were the very first thing Manning had uploaded to WikiLeaks, and this happened far before Manning had been given the order to determine what other anti-Maliki literature was being drummed up by the FP 15.

I had always had the impression that Manning had been generally dissatisfied by American geopolitics but that the FP 15 order had been the last straw for him and that he'd started divulging information to WikiLeaks all at once.

It wasn't like that at all. He released the Iraq/Afghanistan actions database way before any of that. Before he saw the "Collateral Murder" video. Before the FP 15. Even before he punched a soldier in the face (around 8 May 2010, which was his "altercation").

WTF. He was essentially a WikiLeaks mole working on the inside... even though he made clear that no one from WikiLeaks pressured him into divulging information he also freely admits that some of the information he went out of the way to find, was simply because it was a matter of discussion in the WikiLeaks IRC/Jabber chat.

He freely admits releasing documents that he felt could possibly harm the U.S. as well: "Of the documents release[d], the cables were the only one I was not absolutely certain couldn’t harm the United States."

And why did he release these cables if they were the only documents that were risky? "I believed exposing this information might make some within the Department of State and other government entities unhappy."

He also talked about reading quotes after WWI, about how "the world would be a better place if states would avoid making secret pacts and deals with and against each other." Certainly true! However he seemed to have missed the history lesson from WWII, where the U.K. and the U.S. both enjoyed significant military advantages thanks to their signals intelligence and codebreaking feats.

If Manning were as smart an intelligence analyst as he claims to be then he should know full well that information which is unclassified individually may still be a risk to national security (and therefore classified) if released as an aggregate.

The U.S. did this to the Japanese several before the Battle of Midway; for instance an increase in message traffic from the Japanese Naval base at Truk was a clue to the intelligence analysts at Station Hypo at Pearl Harbor that the Japanese fleet was prepping for a major operation, even though they couldn't break the code. (A good book to read regarding this is Ian Toll's "Pacific Crucible").

I suppose at least I can't say he was doing this to get back at the Army per se, since he'd done everything before they reduced him in rate. But conversely, much of what he leaked was not "war crimes" at all, but merely stuff to "start a debate".

I'm not really sure what to think about all of it. It seems to me that based on his very half-hearted attempts to go to the media that he was intending all along to go to WikiLeaks (whether consciously or not), and that the reasoning for it was not about specific things at all (at least the initial leaks).

I wish he would have talked about why he felt the need to brag to Lamo about it. Maybe that (talking to Lamo) was brought on by his stress from his punishment from the Army, it would almost be doubly ironic if the way he unmasked himself ultimately came about from his own fist hitting the face of another soldier.

Riesling• 13 years ago

> WTF. He was essentially a WikiLeaks mole working on the inside...

Calling someone a "mole" that has not been recruited, has not received any kind of compensation and has gotten no commands is a a really large stretch of the meaning of the word "mole".

> He freely admits releasing documents that he felt could possibly harm the U.S. as well: "Of the documents release[d], the cables were the only one I was not absolutely certain couldn’t harm the United States."

No. That is not what he said at all. I read the complete statement three times and you are leaving out important parts. It is true, that he initially was not certain that they couldn't harm the United States. But that is why he got more information about the cables and came to the following conclusion:

"I believe that the public release of these cables would not damage the United States, however, I did believe that the cables might be embarrassing, since they represented very honest opinions and statements behind the backs of other nations and organizations."

> And why did he release these cables if they were the only documents that were risky? "I believed exposing this information might make some within the Department of State and other government entities unhappy."

Nowhere did he say that this was the reason for releasing the Cables. Those are the reasons he stated:

"The more I read the cables, the more I came to the conclusion that this was the type of information that should become public. I once read a and used a quote on open diplomacy written after the First World War and how the world would be a better place if states would avoid making secret pacts and deals with and against each other."

> He also talked about reading quotes after WWI, about how "the world would be a better place if states would avoid making secret pacts and deals with and against each other." Certainly true! However he seemed to have missed the history lesson from WWII, where the U.K. and the U.S. both enjoyed significant military advantages thanks to their signals intelligence and codebreaking feats.

Those quotes were from a book with the topic "Open Diplomacy". He was talking about the reason for releasing the diplomatic cables and not about nuclear missile codes or secret uboot positions.

> I'm not really sure what to think about all of it. It seems to me that based on his very half-hearted attempts to go to the media that he was intending all along to go to WikiLeaks (whether consciously or not), and that the reasoning for it was not about specific things at all (at least the initial leaks).

Yes, he knew that he would get caught eventually (right before he started releasing the material) and that is why he went to two different newspapers just to make sure he does not look like a wikileaks mole once he got caught.

Your entire post is twisting the facts just to make him look bad. I am giving you the benefit of the doubt and believe you haven't read the statement thoroughly.

Also this is just BM's statement. So it must not necessarily be true.

But when we are talking about this statement, let's stay with the facts.

mpyne18• 13 years ago

> Those quotes were from a book with the topic "Open Diplomacy". He was talking about the reason for releasing the diplomatic cables and not about nuclear missile codes or secret uboot positions.

So individual soldiers now get to decide which information is actually sensitive and which is not?

Also, should GMail start leaking emails from Fortune 500 companies and local/state governments by the same logic you employ?

> Your entire post is twisting the facts just to make him look bad.

I'm trying to evaluate and see to the underlying reality. People will try to say what they think puts them in the best light while hinting around what might actually be the core of the issue (I'm certainly no different unless I pay close attention to what made it into the textarea).

I mean, practically the worst thing you could say in that courtroom if you're trying to avoid lengthy jail time is a variant of "Oh, I just felt like starting a public debate on topic $FOO". Especially when that was the reason for your first-ever leak.

At least with the FP 15 and the Reuters FOIA issues pretty much anyone who isn't cold-blooded can easily sympathize with Manning. I simply would have expected him to come across those issues first, not essentially last.

> Yes, he knew that he would get caught eventually (right before he started releasing the material) and that is why he went to two different newspapers just to make sure he does not look like a wikileaks mole once he got caught.

Come. ON. Army CID, Army IG, DoD IG, the Chaplain, a medical mental health practitioner, actually going to a physical office of the NYT or WaPo. He could have (but didn't) do any of these if he wanted to avoid the accusation of pre-selecting WikiLeaks.

That's not even the weirdest part. He was already lurking in their chat, soon to be friends (as he perceived it) with DDB or Assange, their ethics and geopolitics were right up his alley, etc. That part doesn't even surprise me one bit, I see his failure to motivate himself to go to a media source every week, when I fail to wake up 2 hours early on Monday "because I'm going to start working out". That's just basic human psychology. The seed had already been planted in his mind, it was just a matter of how long it would take for him to convince himself that he could live with himself.

With this much I'm 100% in agreement with jacquesm elsewhere: He should never have been screened for that position. Raw intelligence cannot be the sole or primary determining factor for what position you're assigned.

grandalf6• 13 years ago

What is your point? That he's an imperfect version of the kind of rebellious hero figure people think he is?

Very few people have sufficient courage of their convictions to consider doing what he did. The rest of the psychological portait is noise.

mpyne18• 13 years ago

I'm not even sure exactly... the Manning case has confused me since it came out.

The biggest question was always why. His supporters claimed it was about war crimes, but it couldn't be that by sheer breadth of unrelated information he leaked.

The motive of getting back at the Army at least made sense, but he makes fairly clear that his NJP was the last thing that happened, not the first.

So an idealistic quandary? Perhaps he wasn't yet sufficiently jaded but he had to have known nothing would change going that route. By leaking indiscriminately, at such sheer scale, and information that's not actually pointing to a war crime or other government malfeasance he opens the government up to many defenses against what the information contained.

But either way, he said he wouldn't. He said further that if he did uncover evidence of wrongdoing that he would report it properly.

I mean let's put it a different way. You provide a SaaS/PaaS /what-have-you to a Fortune 50 enterprise.

What, ethically, would stop you from snooping at their data and leaking it? If you contort your logic enough, as happened to Manning, you could easily flip it around entirely to claim that you had a moral imperative to look for wrongdoing in the emails and documents of these large multi-nationals that affect so many lives across the world.

Presumably we can rely on the tech startups incubated at HN not to do this, but why? Why would it be OK for Manning and not your cloud provider? Why would it not be OK for the cloud provider and OK for Manning?

I guess in the end that's what I wonder most about, even now. Why?

I and probably millions of others have had the opportunity "to start a public debate" if that's all we were worried about, but we didn't. Why did Manning? L'appel du vide? The stress of being LGBT in the military? And how can we balance the need for transparency in military and government with the very real need for INFOSEC to protect the same?

dyno123455• 13 years ago

The portrait of his unstable behavior leads to doubts about strong moral convictions being the reason why he did it.

porsupah• 13 years ago

I am terribly, interminably indebted to Bradley Manning. I cannot possibly repay the debt of conscience he managed to summon up.

ck22• 13 years ago

You cannot look at any statement from him without realizing he's been kept in extremely hostile conditions, just this side of torture, WITHOUT TRIAL for over 1000 days (nearly three years!) being told he's facing execution or life imprisonment.

Any of us would say ANYTHING facing that. Anything.

They are roasting him alive now, government has over 140 "witnesses" to put on the stand.

They are going to make an example out of him, it's going to be horrible.

jacquesm17• 13 years ago

Just that side of torture, imo.

GHFigs2• 13 years ago

Manning has not been held the conditions you're referring to since April of 2011. If you care about the case, please learn more about it.

jacquesm17• 13 years ago

Probably you should clarify your statement a bit or you'll be downvoted a lot (upvoted you, but that's only one.)

Anyway, what I find disgusting about the whole 'Manning' case is that vetting procedures should have never ever allowed this man to get even close to sensitive material, let alone top-secret. Burning him at the stake is just a way to assign blame when in reality every person that ever evaluated Mannings psychological profile had been asleep at the switch. The guy needs help, not punishment. The fact that we as a society depend on the Bradley Mannings of this world to keep us on the straight and narrow is what is really frightening.

smutticus• 13 years ago

50 years from now everyone involved in these proceedings still alive will be ashamed of what transpired. We'll be issuing apologies and talking about 'how this never should have happened.' Then it will happen again in slightly different circumstances and the people alive then will find slightly different justifications for their actions.

jacquesm17• 13 years ago

Just by how Bradley Manning was treated and by the continued existence of Guantanamo bay's facility the United States has lost a large chunk of its voice the world over when they start talking about human rights.

How far the US Government will sink before they realize that every time they do something like this they are hurting their own interests is anybody's guess. Be it drone attacks that kill children as collateral damage (Oh, but we apologized) or torture dressed up as self protection it hardly matters.

If you want to criticize the world then you need to set an example, not by taking out your rage on others but by wondering what it is that you are doing wrong and then correcting that.

Slowly but surely every 'own goal' is reducing the United States' importance on the world stage. And that's a real pity because we really do need an entity that is a little larger than most that can serve as a role model for the rest. As it is the role model seems to be that might makes right and that if you deny your problems and your mistakes that you can get away with it. The rules apply to everybody but you.

grandalf6• 13 years ago

The metaphor I like is that once a gang of criminal thugs gains enough power and wealth, it can afford to start white washing its own reputation...

This is done by rewriting history. The idea that we have had wars about moral causes is 100% fals. The moral angle comes later once the victor gets the chance to tarnish his enemy forever in the history books.

sneak2• 13 years ago

Everyone paying attention feels this way.

The treatment of Manning and eventual treatment of Assange will be our generation's Vietnam - an active demonstration of our government's willingness to lie to and abuse us, a touchstone for all who are seeking a reason not to cooperate.

bconway2• 13 years ago

It would certainly be nice if that was the case. However, it's much more likely the average American doesn't know (or care) about Manning, other than the occasional footnote on the 10 o'clock news, and in a year or two he will be forgotten.

ryanmarsh• 13 years ago

Waco and Ruby Ridge were also "active demonstration[s] of our government's willingness to lie to and abuse us, a touchstone for all who are seeking a reason not to cooperate."

brudgers• 13 years ago

The interests of your government generally align with the actions of mine. Hence, the lack of disengagement between them - i.e. your government hasn't withdrawn it's ambassador in protest, frozen US assets held domestically, or imposed trade sanctions.

I'm not suggesting that this justifies anything, but we both live in NATO.

jacquesm17• 13 years ago

I think part of why that happens is because we get to vote 'en gros', instead of 'en detail'. Countries with more granular voting powers tend to do a lot better at such things (Switzerland for instance). As it is, winner takes all or coalition governments are capable of getting large blocks of people to vote against their own interests by lumping in a token bit of good with a boatload of bad as long as the emotional connection to the token bit of good (as perceived by the voter) is a strong one.

Buzaga• 13 years ago

>> The dehumanized the individuals they were engaging and seemed to not value human life by referring >> to them as quote “dead bastards” unquote and congratulating each other on the ability to kill in >> large numbers. At one point in the video there is an individual on the ground attempting to crawl >> to safety. The individual is seriously wounded. Instead of calling for medical attention to the >> location, one of the aerial weapons team crew members verbally asks for the wounded person to pick >> up a weapon so that he can have a reason to engage. For me, this seems similar to a child torturing >> ants with a magnifying glass.

>> Shortly after the second engagement, a mechanized infantry unit arrives at the scene. Within >> minutes, the aerial weapons team crew learns that children were in the van and despite the >> injuries the crew exhibits no remorse. Instead, they downplay the significance of their actions, >> saying quote ‘Well, it’s their fault for bringing their kid’s into a battle’ unquote.

>> The aerial weapons team crew members sound like they lack sympathy for the children or the >> parents. Later in a particularly disturbing manner, the aerial weapons team verbalizes enjoyment >> at the sight of one of the ground vehicles driving over a body– or one of the bodies. As I >> continued my research, I found an article discussing the book, The Good Soldiers, written by >> Washington Post writer David Finkel.

>> He writes that the soldier finds him and sees him gesture with his two forefingers together, a >> common method in the Middle East to communicate that they are friendly. However, instead of >> assisting him, the soldier makes an obscene gesture extending his middle finger.

>> The individual apparently dies shortly thereafter. Reading this, I can only think of how this >> person was simply trying to help others, and then he quickly finds he needs help as well. To make >> matter worse, in the last moments of his life, he continues to express his friendly gesture– only >> to find himself receiving this well known gesture of unfriendliness. For me it’s all a big mess, >> and I am left wondering what these things mean, and how it all fits together. It burdens me >> emotionally.

This is all that matters... the discussion on Bradley is valid but why isn't US/these soldiers on a court to answer this sort of shit? You should be ashamed of your country and try to do something about it

So many lies, fuck the power.

Bradley Manning’s Statement

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