Like many of my brothers and sisters who have served this country, I was
outraged when the news first reported that PVT Manning, the Army soldier
who infamously provided classified information to WikiLeaks, had actually made
"the short list" for sentence commutation at the close of President Obama's
second term.
Here's a quick refresher on Manning's case, courtesy of Wikipedia:
After serving in Iraq since October 2009, Manning was arrested in May 2010
after Adrian Lamo, a computer hacker in the United States, provided information
to Army Counterintelligence reporting that Manning had acknowledged passing
classified material to the whistleblower website, WikiLeaks. Manning was
ultimately charged with 22 specified offenses, including communicating national
defense information to an unauthorized source, and the most serious of the
charges, aiding the enemy. Other charges included violations of the Espionage Act,
stealing U.S. government property, charges under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
and charges related to the failure to obey lawful general orders under Article 92
of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Manning entered guilty pleas to 10 of 22
specified offenses in February 2013.
(I primarily wanted to provide this background to distinguish Manning from
Bowe Bergdahl, the soldier who separated from his
unit in Afghanistan in 2009 and was released from six years of captivity in Pakistan
in exchange for five Taliban prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.)
The Washington Post writes:
From the moment a military judge handed down a 35-year prison term for
Chelsea Manning in 2013, President Obama and some administration officials
saw the sentence as excessive.... The key question for the president was
how much time Manning should serve. He and his advisers looked at other
government leak cases, which indicated that 35 years was the longest
sentence ever imposed for a leak conviction.
NBC News reported that the
sentence was 10 times longer "than those of recent whistle-blowers."
PVT Manning's sentence was the result of having committed multiple offenses,
and of having provided over 700,000 documents, including secret
diplomatic communications, to WikiLeaks.
The New York Times characterized
the contents as "some 250,000 diplomatic cables, dossiers of detainees being
imprisoned without trial at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and hundreds of thousands of
incident reports from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."
The WikiPedia page
of the case against Manning offers a more granular account:
The material in question includes 251,287 United States diplomatic cables, over 400,000
classified army reports from the Iraq War (the Iraq War logs), and approximately 90,000
army reports from the war in Afghanistan (the Afghan War logs). WikiLeaks also received
two videos. One was of the July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike (dubbed the "Collateral Murder"
video); the second, which was never published, was of the May 2009 Granai airstrike in
Afghanistan.
I don't understand. What makes Manning a "whistle-blower?" PVT Manning
was a US solider on active duty in a war zone. To my military mind, any breach of
classified material by a soldier or sailor is described with words like "treason"
and "espionage," not "whistle-blowing."
The NBC News article also mentions that the length of the sentence
was likely meant to send a message to Edward Snowden, whose disclosures to
WikiLeaks were discovered while the Manning case was in process. I think that's
plausible.
One might imagine the topic of the commuted sentence became a hot topic yesterday
when the news broke. On its face, the notion of commuting Manning's sentence
flies directly in the face of the oath he took, the NDA's he signed, and position
he held. And that's why I used the terms "treason" and "espionage." In my view,
it's not like Manning didn't know what handing over that material to WikiLeaks meant.
He knew full well. It's the risk he took.
In conversations with a small circle of friends (we were all stationed together in
our military days), one offered a different perspective:
I will respectfully disagree. I think [commuting Manning's sentence was] actually a
good move. The gender thing came up after conviction and the change was going to be
on DoD's dime. This way DoD isn't paying for it, Manning has a [Bad Conduct Discharge]
so [Manning will receive] no VA benefits and can go do whatever convicted felons do.
The commutation just saved DoD an unneeded distraction.
An excellent point. DoD has been wrestling with gender and gender preference issues
for years — think of the controversies of women in combat units, women serving on
submarines and so forth; of gays in the military and "don't ask, don't tell."
Manning's request brought with it the spotlight of the media
(because it was announced during a TODAY show
interview). Gender reassignment? Can you imagine the headache this represented
for the DoD?
The New York Times recounted some
of the arguments and milestones: The DoD did not provide that kind of care in 2013,
at the time of Manning's sentencing. Three years on, the DoD announced it would allow
transgendered soliders and sailors to openly serve, and that it would provide
services for treatment of gender dysphoria, to include gender reassignment. I would imagine
that PVT Manning is revered by the LGBTQ community — particularly those
in service to our nation — for this reason. (By the way, the Trump Administration may
reverse those new DoD protections,
as Rolling Stone
and New Republic report.)
Let's not confuse treason and gender dysphoria. The former is what bought PVT Manning
35 years in Fort Leavenworth. The latter is likely at least partly responsible for the
commutation of his sentence, along with other factors: He accepted responsibility (read:
plead guilty), allegedly little actual damage was done regarding national security, and
he's already served six years (and was eligible for parole this year).
To all of these factors, my military mind says, "I don't care. What he did was treason."
And now for something completely different:
a tweet from WikiLeaks that reads,
"If Obama grants Manning clemency Assange will agree to US extradition despite clear
unconstitutionality of DoJ case." WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange
(who is named in the WikiPedia account of the case,
by the way) would actually be willing to leave the Ecuadorean embassy and be extradited
to the United States in exchange for Manning's clemency. WOW.
Suddenly this becomes a game of "What's more important": Keeping Manning in Leavenworth
(remember, up for parole this year) OR getting Assange? (What? You've never watched Law
and Order?)
So there we have it: the multiple dimensions of the basis for the President's clemency
action: the notion the sentence was heavy-handed to begin with (and more about Snowden than
it ever was about Manning); a financial motivation (Manning no long burdens military healthcare
system); a political motivation (Trump); a shot at a much bigger fish (Assange). The cost?
Negligble, comparatively. Manning is released this coming May,
a convicted felon.
When one looks at all of these factors, the situation appears far more complex than it
does on its face. What does my military mind say now? "Manning deserves everything he gets
with regard to sentencing for espionage... but think of just the intelligence value Julian Assange
represents. What government wouldn't make that trade?"
You can bet the US would absolutely jump at the chance to get hold of Assange. And yes, it's
worth letting Manning walk early.
UPDATE:
Gizmodo, citing The Hill on Wednesday, reported that
Assange is not availing himself to US authorities after
all; the White House apparently
denied that a potential deal with Assange had anything to do with the clemency decision.