Bradley Manning, the possibly gay or trans private first class accused of trafficking secret documents out of the military to Wikileaks on a Lady Gaga CD, was described yesterday by NBC’s Today as an “outcast” who joined the military to impress his father. That lamestream media defending the queers again!
The reactionary Media Research Center is leading the battle against Today‘s supposedly sympathetic report that has the entire State Department losing their shit. In an argument appearing in the Wall Street Journal an Newsbusters, MRC’s Geoffrey Dickens opines:
Instead of leading with how Army Private First Class Bradley Manning may have jeopardized national security with his document dump to WikiLeaks, NBC’s chief Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski, in his profile of Manning on Tuesday’s Today show, told viewers he was the “most unlikely suspect, with a youthful smile” and portrayed him as an abused victim of the military. Miklaszewski used the New York Times’ Ginger Thompson in his report to tell the tale of young man who apparently decided to avenge the abuse he had taken over the years, dating back to high school, by selling out his country.
And the anti-30 Rock blogs are joining in. FireAndreaMitchell.com, where we found the above clip, writes:
Leave it to the progressive liberal biased media to make excuses and paint Bradley Manning who basically has committed treason against the United States. Liberal hack Jim Miklaszewski on the Today Show did just that, painting poor Manning as the victim of bullying, being teased for “being a geek”, and once in the military, “quickly became a target.” Are you crying yet? Miklaszewski also rags on Manning’s father who had the nerve to kick him out of the House after he finished high school! We know progressive liberals need their parents basements badly. How dare the father! Oh and they began the segment by clamming Bradley Manning was the “most unlikely suspect, with a youthful smile.” Uh?
Is it so wrong to tell America about the motivations to leak the documents this young man might have had? Certainly not. But calling Manning “a young man” who was “was an outcast who tried desperately to fit in” hardly sounds like a overly sympathetic description. In fact, it’s one that could be used to describe Portland’s would-be Christmas tree bomber Mohamed Osman Mohamud. Which doesn’t mean I’m equating Manning to a terrorist, but there’s a reason people are driven toward actions easily (and arguably very fairly) described as “nefarious”; it is the job of journalists to find it.
How about we take this to the next level?
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Fagburn
We know Bradley is gay – why are you saying “probably”?
He’s a queer hero.
You could have mentioned the Bradley Manning Support Network
http://www.bradleymanning.org/
DR
Yes, this was far too sympathetic a picture of a narcissist who engaged in treason. He abused his position, leaked state secrets and put countless lives at risk.
I don’t care if he’s gay, bi, trans, whatever. No amount of alleged teasing by his comrades justifies what he did.
ousslander
he’s punk who thought of himself and gaining some kind of fame/infamy. no sympathy here. I hold my sympathy for the people that are going to die because of his actions.
don’t they hang traiotrs , anymore?
jak
Not only is he a traitor who should be hanged, but if he is gay he is a traitor to his fellow servicemembers who are desperately trying to prove they are worthy of full acceptance.
Kamikapse
Wow.. 2 people in a row calling for his execution… Only in America…
Sig.
This dude has more courage than all of the commenters asking for his execution combined.
Do you really believe the bullshit about people dying possible due to WikiLeaks???? They are angry because their shit got exposed!
Julian Assange is awesome, he should get a medal or something.
Fagburn
Join the campaign to support Bradley Manning for his courage and integrity in serving his country by helping make the government accountable to its citizens, and to inform the world of what its people should know…
Tallskin
There was a similar spate of abused homosexuals here in the UK being traitors to their countries, back in the 1950s and 60s, Burgess, McClean, and defecting to the Soviet Union, taking a suitcase full of secrets with them.
However, in those cases a lot of people, british and US secret agents, anti communist partisans in the occupied countries, lost their lives to Soviet firing squads, after torture.
This is different, no-one, as far as i know, has lost their lives.
Which is not to say people won’t lose their lives, but the information leaked is of a different order and type.
Lefty
@jak: “he is a traitor to his fellow servicemembers who are desperately trying to prove they are worthy of full acceptance”
I think that sums up the anti-Bradley Manning sentiments of everyone on here.
Or to put it another way, “Quit exposing the murder of innocent people in Iraq and the fact that the US government knew gay Iraqis were being tortured and murdered 15 months before it was reported anywhere (which we now know thanks to wikileaks) – we’re trying to get ACCEPTED here!”
As others here have said, what Bradley Manning did was an act of great courage and the fact that some gay people feel the need to attack him is disgraceful and cowardly.
You can keep your acceptance if this is what you need to do to get it.
Aaron
@Sig.: Julian Assange already has several awards, none of which he deserves. Believe it or not but YES, people most likely will die for his idiotic actions; leaking classified government documents (90% of which contains virtually irrelevant information to the United States/international public) which most likely would’ve been officially released 10 years from now anyway.
Julian Assange is not bringing about any startling and revelatory information. INTERNATIONAL GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS TALK ABOUT EACH ODER BEHIND THEIR BACK??? OMG NO WAI!!!! LOTS OF PEOPLE HAVE DIED DURING THE IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN WAR AND THE GOVERNMENT IS KEEPING RECORDS OF IT???? ZOMFG HOW IS DIS EVN POZZIBLE!!!!!
Anyway. While Bradley Manning’s motives for his actions are understandable, and much more admirable than Assange’s bullshit reasoning, I still can’t condone what he’s done. He is endangering countless lives. I have sympathy for the man, but just because he’s a queer individual, a Gaga fan, and been bullied all his life (all of which I am) doesn’t mean I’m going to support him in his actions.
Aaron
@Lefty: You are aware that those documents contain information on civilian deaths as a result of, uh, I dunno, suicide bombers? That’s where the majority of the deaths have come from. Yes, soldiers have been inadvertently responsible for deaths, and some (disgustingly) purposefully responsible for deaths, but that’s war.
And yes, the United States government did know. But god knows if we tried to do anything about it people would be screaming over our horrible disregard of human rights by killing/capturing the torturers!
AV
Manning is a hero.
The charge of treason is ridiculous and terribly hypocritical. Anyone ever pick up an American history textbook? Our founders were treasonous.
Anyone ever read the Pentagon Papers?
Anyone ever learn about the Nuremberg trials? Soldiers who act based on the facts and don’t just walk blindly through this world should be celebrated and honored.
And it’s BS to say these released cables have put anyone in danger. Exactly zero deaths have been reported as a result of the Iraq or Afghanistan leaks.
“Oooooh don’t tell the truth cuz someone could die!” Bull.
DavyJones
@AV: Except these leaks aren’t at all like the Pentagon papers. In that case there was a specific violation of the law and public trust which was being revealed; and in that case there was very good reason for the documents to be released. Here however, the vast majority of these documents where detailing legitimate government business.
The sheer volume of the release makes it almost impossible to imagine that Manning, or anyone else, sat down and reviewed each document to decide if it detailed any violation of the law or public trust; What is comes down to is Manning violating the law and reveling secret documents, not out of a need to right a wrong, but for his own purposes. And that’s illegal and treasonous, for good reason.
Have these documents gotten anyone killed yet? I doubt it, but they’ve also only just been released; we honestly have no idea what the scope of the damage from this leak is and likely won’t for some time. What we do know is there is a good reason governments keep secrets; and there is a good reason News Paper Editors aren’t on the panel to decide what should be secret and what shouldn’t.
Also, I wish Queerty would stop trying to twist every revelation from these documents into an assault on the Gay Community. Just because a person is gay, and the are the subject of a diplomatic cable doesn’t mean that they are the subject because they are gay, believe it or not there are other attributes that also factor into a person’s being.
dlb363
Yikes, usually I support Queerty and its politics, but this is, to be honest, is pretty nefarious. There is certainly room for debate on the morality of publishing these documents without thorough vetting, and whether that responsibility lies with Manning or WikiLeaks (The British Guardian went through the documents with US Government officials and removed material they were “convinced could harm National Security”).
U.S. officials themselves have said the hype (by the mainstream media on both sides, and, unfortunately, widely read gay-blogs) of the violence wrought by these leaks are most probably overstated, and have as yet resulted in no known injuries and death. As much as we cannot yet foresee the negative consequences of this leak, we CAN see the positive change it have. I mean jesus, we’re talking about a critical tool we have here to expose and challenge massive state-sanctioned violence and terrorism abroad, ongoing actions a decade old that affect the lives MILLIONS under the thumb of US military occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan, US extraordinary rendition and “enhanced interrogation techniques” (torture) throughout Latin America, Europe and the Middle East, economic/political sanctions, and weekly threats of “keeping the option open” for violence and invasion against Iran (which, under the official United States code is itself clearly an act of terrorism: http://westgatehouse.com/art98.html
My point is, to assume this act as obviously nefarious or deplorable (while after we may decide whether the person’s context clears him of this treason) is shamefully blind. There is something horribly wrong about a country’s media that it is beside itself with rage when a shitloda of TRUTH about the government and what the hell it does is revealed that hypothetically might harm someone, while daily atrocities go by without a peep.
Read Glenn Greenwald’s pretty good article on this: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/11/30/wikileaks/index.html
Godin
Obama called for our government to be transparent. THIS IS WHAT TRANSPARENCY is people. This millitary serviceman is a hero and accomplished what our country has wanted (right?).
mconyc08
I am sick of these little hellions and their no-good stick-it-to-the-man attitudes.
Thank God nothing major was exposed. Nevertheless, there’s a reason why some of those documents were classified as SECRET.
He.is.NOT.a.hero.
Want to do something really courageous? How about going out there and fighting some of those anti-gay radicals that hang gay teens and blow themselves up in the middle of public markets? How about helping fellow soldiers try to defend the FREEDOM which, although imperfect, allows Glbt people to continue fighting for their basic human rights?
How about coming out in support of repealing DADT? How about mentoring some gay youth? How about doing something in favor your country and not against it?
Chris
The deceitful traitor is a tranny, not gay. Hopefully, the tens of thousands of loyal, patriotic gay soldiers in the military won’t be tainted by this shim. This is a very good example of the dangers of linking the name and identity of the gay community with a completely different group. If gay troops get slimed by association with this traitor, we will be able to thank “LGBT” for killing not only DADT repeal but ENDA as well. LGBT will have done more damage to gay rights in one year than Jerry Falwell did in 10.
To the cheerleaders of this scum, he didn’t even read what he leaked. The vast majority of the leaked documents have absolutely nothing to do with gay Iraqis or civilian deaths, neither of which is a secret in any event. He dumped hundreds of thousands of documents without knowing what was in them. If no one dies, it will not be due to any concern of Manning’s.
There is no question that his criminal acts have threatened people’s lives and freedom. For example, one of the leaked cables discusses French advice concerning negotiating for the release of an American hiker who is being kept without charge in an Iranian prison. Thanks to Manning, the Iranians now know our negotiating strategy and the French’s input as well, thus prolonging the confinement of the hiker as well as French citizens who were the subject of French-Iranian negotiations.
Try him and put him before a firing squad. If DADT is repealed, gay soldiers should be permitted to volunteer for the squad.
Heather
I liked how Noam Chomsky put it:
“…the major reasons for government secrecy is to protect the government from its own population.”
This shit is a threat, not because it revealed anything the rest of the world doesn’t already know, but because it’s an embarrassment to some really powerful people with really big egos. People with big egos inevitably overreact to embarrassment, and this overreaction gets magnified by how much power these people hold. Someone’s going to pay, and pay dearly. Embarrass your boss and you lose your job, embarrass your government and you lose your liberty, maybe your life.
But it’s all a diversion. None of these red-faced megalomaniacs are addressing any of the content. The best defense is an overly zealous offense. If we’ve got no right to know what they’ve done wrong, than who do we think we are questioning them for it? Man politicians are good at politics!
Ry
The guy can rot in prison. Who gives a flying fuck what he is, it’s what he’s done against the country many of us have served that should define him. Actions, bitches, not words. He had all this terror from the military? Oh, yeah, I’m sure it sucks. I’m sorry it happened, but, you know, betraying your nation sorta fucks up the pity boat for you. Sincerely, fuck you, dickhead.
And to all these crazy radical queers that take liberalism to such heights, like down with the government, anarchy ensue bs: shut the fuck up. You confound the crap out of me. I love the US; we aren’t the best put together, but at least we don’t have outright lawlessness, and a damn justice system.
This guy purposely tried to sabotage US Diplomats abroad by dispersing information with Secret content. That makes him a dick, who purposefully caused people working under our flag harm. Who knows if a terrorist will find new reasons to bolster his hate against us? Fuck that guy. This shouldn’t be so hard to follow.
@Chris: Dude, trans-people are awesome. This guy is a loser, but making a huge statement like what you might unintentionally done was wrong.
Ry
@DavyJones: Thank you DavyJones. Common sense.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
This little fuck caused honest, valient Gay service people a world of hurt……..Every rightwing lunatic is spewing about this is why Gays should not be allowed in the military. His disgusting acts have every Gay soldier into harms way. The military is not a group of people who sit around and decide which rules to follow and which ones not to. This little fuck took an oath and swore to uphold the rules of the military like thousands of other Gay soldiers have done…….
He deserves the most severe punishment his acts call for. I for one would not shed a single tear if he was put away for life in solitary
Heather
Don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t care. They can keep my “right” to get my head blown off defending a country that would rather I didn’t exist. Isn’t it convenient that the first right usually extended to second class citizens is the right to be shot at?
seaguy
If leaking those secrets was his way of getting even with bully’s he went too far and will pay the price spending life in Leavenworth. Not sure why trans is possible he looks male to me.