I thought that was the point of Wikileaks, to highlight issues that need investigation. I was therefore extremely disappointed when I heard that the next thing being released was over 250,000 miscellaneous materials that are mostly diplomatic cables that suggest no wrongdoing that needs to be investigated. That was the beginning of my disillusionment with Wikileaks and as more information came out about the materials...

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Note from the editor in chief: The author of this article made a statement that Manning and Assange caused the death of others. We support differing viewpoints and opinions on this subject but expect claims of this nature to be supported and properly sourced. Rob Kall

First, a disclaimer, Private First Class Bradley Manning is presumed innocent until proven guilty. This article discusses alleged actions and crimes only and will explore what should happen to him if he is found guilty of the offenses of which he is accused and how background colors the opinions of people commenting him.

I've been reading articles and comments from many of my progressive friends about how great they think Wikileaks is and how they think Manning and Assange are heroes. I have to admit that after the first item of interest leaked by Wikileaks, the video of what seems to be a US helicopter firing on unarmed civilians in Iraq, I thought to myself, this organization Wikileaks has done something important here. What happened in that video needs to be investigated. It might turn out to be totally innocent, but it looks bad and needs investigation.

I thought that was the point of Wikileaks, to highlight issues that need investigation. I was therefore extremely disappointed when I heard that the next thing being released was over 250,000 miscellaneous materials that are mostly diplomatic cables that suggest no wrongdoing that needs to be investigated. That was the beginning of my disillusionment with Wikileaks and as more information came out about the materials, their source, and the institution targeted, that disillusionment only grew.

Bradley Manning, a Private First Class in the US Army, is allegedly the source of the 250,000+ documents released by Wikileaks in the past month or so. The story goes that Manning, who had a security clearance and access to several sensitive repositories of sensitive US government information, brought some re-writeable CD media to work, Lady Gaga music if memory serves, and he erased that music and downloaded sensitive documents onto that CD media from the US Government's SIPRNet service. SIPRNet or The Secret Internet Protocol Router Network is described by Wikipedia as:

"a system of interconnected computer networks used by the United States Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of State to transmit classified information (up to and including information classified SECRET) by packet switching over the TCP/IP protocols in a 'completely secure' environment". It also provides services such as hypertext document access and electronic mail. As such, SIPRNet is the DoD's classified version of the civilian Internet. SIPRNet is the SECRET component of the Defense Information Systems Network.

Before we go further, additional discussions of the classification of sensitive documents are in order. There are three classifications of sensitive documents in the United States, they are "Classified", "Secret" and "Top Secret". Wikipedia describes those classifications as:

Top secret - This is the highest security level that if publicly disclosed would cause "exceptionally grave damage" to national security.

Secret - This is the second-highest classification. Information is classified secret when its release would cause "serious damage" to national security. Most information that is classified is held at the secret sensitivity.

Confidential - This is the lowest classification level of information obtained by the government. It is defined as information that would "damage" national security if disclosed to the public.

Several tens of thousands of the documents provided to and released by Wikileaks were classified as Secret, or documents whose release would cause "serious damage" to national security. Without mitigating factors then, we can say that anyone whose duty it is to safeguard document(s) categorized as "Secret" has committed a serious crime if they willfully and intentionally cause that document/those documents to be released without authorization.

Does Manning have mitigating factors in the release of this information if it is proven that he is the person who released it? For a few of the documents, and for those unfamiliar with the military, it would appear that an argument could be made that he does. Manning was upset about the video he saw that apparently showed a helicopter firing on unarmed civilians in Iraq. This video was one of the first things that Manning turned over to wikileaks.

The problems with the idea of mitigating factors, however, are several. First, of the 250,000+ documents and materials allegedly released by Manning, less than 20 or so at most are whistleblowing in nature. The rest are rather routine diplomatic communications that while routine, are embarrassing to either the US, or one of scores of other countries whose diplomatic messages ended up on SIPRNet and Mannings CD. Another way of describing the release of those non-whistleblowing documents and materials is an action that is harmful to the United States or other countries without any positive impact whatsoever. The release of those materials was a poorly aimed malicious act. Here are some examples:

• The new nuclear plant in Bulgaria has cost overruns http://www.wikileaks.ch/cable/2009/07/09SOFIA363.html
• The US Ambassador to Peru opinion on the health of the President of Peru http://www.wikileaks.ch/cable/2006/12/06LIMA4570.html
• Demographics of the Muslim population in the UK http://www.wikileaks.ch/cable/2009/01/09LONDON27.html
• Request by the Vatican for help with setting up a security crisis management team http://www.wikileaks.ch/cable/2008/12/08ROME1541.html

That anyone would assert that these four documents, or the vast majority of the rest are whistleblowing or somehow make government better by sunlight is laughable.

Let's now discuss the materials that were whistleblowing in nature, to include the video of the helicopter. If one hasn't been in the military and is not familiar with resources available to military personnel, it might seem that the release of those documents is a mitigating factor in Manning's actions. However, the military provides several resources for military personnel to blow the whistle on fraud, waste and abuse and other unlawful and/or unethical acts. One of the most important of those resources is the various inspector generals.

Most military personnel have at least two or three inspector generals at various levels to which they can go to report wrongdoing. Each of the branches of the military have an inspector general at the branch level. There is an Army Inspector General, an Air Force Inspector General, etc. Then, as each of the branches is broken down into major commands, each of those major commands has an inspector general. Also, many of the subunits under the major commands have IG's (inspector generals). Finally, many forts/posts/bases have an IG for the personnel in that installation to use.

Nor can one say that Manning or other military personnel might be unaware of these avenues for whistleblowing. The existence of the IG's, for instance, is regularly communicated to military personnel via the base magazine, briefings and various other methods. The IGs exists so that military members who cannot get an issue regarding various serious issues resolved through the chain of command have a resource to use to get action. The military WANTS its members to report Fraud, Waste and Abuse through the Inspector Generals. The military hopes that this reporting will save money and lives.

I posted two separate polls on Democratic Underground one for current and former military and one for those who had never been in the military and in both polls I asked what should be done to Manning as a result of his actions. The difference was as I expected. See:

The polls are mirror images of each other. Prior service people overwhelmingly believe that Manning deserves harsh punishment while those who have not served overwhelmingly believe he should receive no punishment.

The ideology of Democratic Underground's membership is pretty homogenous. As a former enlisted member of the US Air Force, I had a suspicion that former military would have a more negative opinion of Manning because of their knowledge of the existence of the IG and other groups to which Manning could have gone. While this poll is far from scientific and people I am sure will try to argue that other factors could influence the results, I am confident that the main reason for the divergent results is knowledge of the military system vs. those who do not have that knowledge.

Those who hope for an acquittal for Manning need to have their expectations set. The people who will be on the jury deciding his fate at his courts martial are active duty military personnel who know all too well of the different choices Manning could have made to handle his crisis of conscience.

There are more problems with how this was allegedly handled by Manning. Several of the Wikileaks, particularly some of the ones regarding China point very clearly to the fact that the US or various other countries have a mole in organizations like the Chinese politburo. One such example is the fact that a member of the politburo apparently ordered the hacking attacks on Google in the last twelve to eighteen months. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0ZcyM-A610 . Now that the Chinese know that someone in the politburo or in the confidence of a member of the politburo is passing secrets to the United States or another country allied with the US, it is a simple matter to initiate counter-intelligence operations to identify that person and their contacts. When that happens, and it WILL happen, those people will likely be apprehended and executed. *

There are several wikileaks materials that point to various intelligence agencies around the world penetrating the governments of other countries. The result of most of those wikileaks will likely be the death of the moles and agents involved. Some of those moles were themselves providing information to other governments because they had crises of conscience with their own governments. It is an odd irony, Manning and Assange have likely caused the death of some people who in their own way were blowing the whistle on their governments. *

So we have classified documents that were released that have nothing to do with whistleblowing and then we have a few documents and materials that were whistleblowing in nature but could and should have been released to the Inspector Generals or other appropriate agency that would have handled the issue, investigated and prosecuted those who engaged in wrongdoing and prevented the unauthorized release of classified information. Then we have the Wikileaks that have likely resulted or likely will result in the deaths of dozens of people involved in intelligence around the world for various countries. *

Finally, we have the argument in some circles that anything that sheds "sunlight" or makes the activities of governments more open is good, no matter how it is done. The problem with that line of thinking is that there are few organizations that operate effectively without some measure of confidentiality in some of their operations. One of those organizations or institutions is definitely the institution of diplomacy which sadly is the target of most of the 250,000+ worth of materials recently exposed by Wikileaks. The very people whom the world depends on to preserve peace and good relations between countries was the main object of what can only be described as an attack.

Wars have been started because of diplomatic miscommunication. Although there are some who disagree, it is the opinion of many that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki directly proceeded from a misunderstanding of the Japanese response to the Potsdam declaration, i.e. "We "mokusatsu' it." What was in fact a subtle request for another offer (a way for the Japanese to surrender honorably) was interpreted as killing by silent contempt, the allied demand for unconditional surrender.

The issue of the Iraqi government interaction with the American ambassador to Iraq prior to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait is another horrific example. The Iraqi's communicated (vaguely) to the US Ambassador April Glaspie of some action to be taken with regard to Kuwait, we now know they meant war/invasion, and our ambassador responded that "We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts." Three US wars directly resulted from that diplomatic miscommunication, both Iraq wars and the war in Afghanistan. We know that the troops we deployed in Saudi Arabia for the first Iraq war was one of two main complaints that Osama bin Laden had with the US that lead to Al Qaeda's attacks on US embassies, ships and ultimately, 911. History is replete with such catastrophes. Now, we have wikileaks and from it may issue an age where diplomats communicate less and when they do, they may communicate more vaguely. I'm sorry my progressive friends, if you understand history, that is not a good thing.

If it is proven that he is the source of the 250,000+ wikileaks documents, Bradley Manning is going to be convicted and I believe he will receive the maximum sentence of 52 years in jail. I believe it will be a sentence that he deserves and I think that Wikileaks did itself and the world a disservice by this latest release of documents.

Authors Website: http://www.ibtimes.com/blog/steven-leser_103/bio/

Authors Bio:
A political blogger for the International Business Times, Steve Leser is a hot national political pundit. He has appeared on MSNBC's Coundown with Keith Olbermann, Comedy Central's Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Russia Today's (RT) Crosstalk with Peter Lavelle. But, Leser is most known for his work as commentator and the progressive counterpoint on the very conservative FOX News cable network. Steve Leser has been frequently featured on Your World with Neil Cavuto, Bulls & Bears, and Cashing In against such FOX notables as Neil Cavuto and Stuart Varney. Leser gave the stirring live commentary on FOX as news broke of the resignation of Sarah Palin as Governor of Alaska.

Steve Leser is in demand in New York as keynote speaker for his authority on the power and machinations of Republican think tanks, the economy, health care reform and various other political topics.

Leser is also a political organizer and has held positions within the Democratic Party including District Chair and Public Relations Chair within county organizations.