NYT Former Exec Editor Misrepresents Bradley Manning
from the wow dept
A few days ago, the former executive editor of the NY Times, Bill Keller wrote about the Bradley Manning situation, in which he discusses Manning's revelation that he originally tried to go directly to the NY Times and the Washington Post, but was ignored, leading to the decision to approach Wikileaks. Keller's piece is basically an attempt by the NY Times to rewrite history to make Keller and the NY Times feel better. I wouldn't say that Keller lies necessarily, because he might just be very, very ignorant, but there is no doubt that he blatantly misrepresents what Manning said and did.Specifically, Keller argues first, that Manning was trying to dump all of the information he had, indiscriminately, and the wise reporters at the NY Times would have figured out what was really important: "If Manning had connected with The Times, we would have found ourselves in a relationship with a nervous, troubled, angry young Army private who was offering not so much documentation of a particular government outrage as a chance to fish in a sea of secrets." Furthermore, he argues that Manning's motivations in making his speech to the court last week somehow contradict the only other clear statement into Manning's motivations: his 2010 chat logs with Adrian Lamo that Lamo turned over to the government, leading to Manning's arrest. Those chat logs were leaked to the press, and Keller argues that Manning's reasoning for leaking the material is not clear, summarizing it as:
His political views come across as inchoate. When asked, he has trouble recalling any specific outrages that needed exposing. His cause was "open diplomacy" or — perhaps in jest — "worldwide anarchy."Furthermore, Keller insults the many people who have supported Manning by suggesting that Manning has created his current views based on what his supporters have told him.
However, as multiple people shot back, this is simply untrue. Author Greg Mitchell points out that Keller is flat out "wrong" and that if he actually read the chat logs, Manning lays out his reasoning, which is entirely consistent with his statement in court. He points out that contrary to Manning "having trouble recalling any specific outrages," Manning has no problem doing so, pointing to examples of corruption in favor of Iraqi prime minister Maliki (rounding up dissidents who were just exercising basic free speech rights), along with the now famous Collateral Murder video. Mitchell points out that for Keller to claim that Manning had not mentioned anything specific, is simply wrong:
More from the Lamo chat log: It virtually opens with Manning saying he had seen evidence of "awful things" such as at Gitmo and Bagram. Then he mentions "criminal political dealings" and cites the "buildup to the Iraq war." He details what he saw on the "Collateral Murder" video and why he wanted it released ("I want people to see the truth"). He wants to get this and much else out (he IDs more) because it might "actually change something." As for the State Dept. cables, he hopes they will spark "worldwide discussion, debates and reforms." Yet Keller claims this was all "vague."When Nathan Fuller, a supporter of Manning, emailed Keller about all of this, Keller doubled down and stood by his original assessment, saying nothing more than that he believed his characterization is "fair." When pressed, Keller reveals his general attitude towards Manning's supporters, claiming that they have "assembled a coherent political motivation by fishing here and there in the Lamo file." As opposed to Keller who quoted five whole words from the transcripts and took even those out of context?
Meanwhile, Daniel Ellsberg, who probably identifies with Manning more than anyone else in the world, having famously given the Pentagon Papers to the NY Times decades ago, has responded angrily to Keller (video) stating that: "It shows him as an arrogant, ignorant, condescending person. A very smart person who manages to be stupid in certain ways.... What we've heard are people like the NY Times who have consistently slandered [Bradly Manning]."
He, personally, had access to material higher than top secret, higher than Bill Keller has ever seen.... He chose not to put out the top secret communications intelligence, to which he clearly had access. He put out only material that he felt would be embarrassing [rather than harmful], and which, three years later we can say, only was embarrassing.
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Filed Under: bill keller, bradley manning, motivations, reporting, wikileaks
Companies: ny times, wikileaks
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"chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
I could go on. If you follow what we now know are lies back to 2002-2003, you can't possibly be left with any shred of support for the Iraq war or the lying gov't.
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Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
Also, politicos lie, news at 11.
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Re: Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
how do you separate the soldiers who want to defend their country from being forced to do so by supporting political interests which have no focus on defending the country?
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Re: Re: Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
It doesn't mean that the soldiers are at fault, or even there superiors. In the end a military that's under the control of a civilian government is under the control of politicians. For good or bad, that's the way it is.
Of course, there are always going to be a few bad apples. How a country deals with them has always been what defines it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
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Re: Re: Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
simple, wait until we're actually, you know, ATTACKED ON OUR SOIL, and see who comes running out of their house with a gun...
running around the globe killing (mostly) brown, (mostly) poor, (mostly) moose limb nekkid apes for the benefit of transnational korporate 'people', is NOT 'defending' OUR country; and ANYONE who is too stupid to know that, is beyond hope and should be tossed in the soylent green hopper...
otherwise, the military is simply an employer of last resort for 80-90% of the poor schmucks who enlist...
what ELSE are they going to tell themselves ? that they are killing brown people so korporate krooks can loot and pillage the globe unopposed ? ? ?
no, sheeple who wise up to that and start questioning unka sam's ah-thor-i-tie will end up like manning, or worse, tillmanized...
art guerrilla
aka ann archy
eof
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Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
Wikileaks and Bradley Manning attempted to circumvent this control and that's their "crime" in the eyes of the media. Bradley Manning is a hero, no less so than Daniel Ellsberg.
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Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
Wikileaks and Bradley Manning attempted to circumvent this control and that's their "crime" in the eyes of the media. Bradley Manning is a hero, no less so than Daniel Ellsberg.
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Re: Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
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Re: Re: Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
and anyway, who cares what happens to manning, or his coward mate hiding in an Embassy, Assholeigs
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Re: Re: Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
Also, you don't seem to be all that interested in striving for a government that doesn't lie. Status quo all the way baby. Are you the kind of idiot that decried the emancipation proclamation because "black people are slaves, always have been and always will be"? Would you have thrown John Hancock under the horse carriage because "kings are our sovereigns, always have been and always will be"? Would you have called for Martin Luther's excommunication because "the Catholic church sells indulgences, always has and always will". Are you the same kind of idiot who if you had been Iraqi would be defending Saddam by saying "Governments kill citizens of their own country, always have and always will"?
I ask only because that's what you just said. It's OK for governments to lie because they always have and they always will, and anyone who exposes their lies is a traitor and should be punished to the full extent of the law, and probably even beyond that.
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Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
Wait...what? There wasn't a total lack of WMD. There was a total lack of nuclear weapons (though there was evidence that Saddam in fact DID have a nuke program several years before the invasion and he buried it in the sand once he knew the inspectors were on their way in). If you want to say the government scare mongered the public to whip up support for the war, I won't disagree with you, but let's not pretend that the Saddam regime both wasn't in possession of chemical and biological weapons programs (in fact, he'd used them against the Kurds in his own land) or that he didn't absolutely have to go....
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Re: Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
Saddam also lacked the capacity to deliver what little he had in any meaningful of significant way. In regards to his so called nuclear program, that was utterly destroyed by the Israeilies in the 80's and he was nowhere near being able to enrich uranium much less create a bomb. Finally in regards to any type of biological program that was virtually non existent and once again lacked any vector for delivery.
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Re: Re: Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
That may all be true, but none of it really matters. They said they didn't have WMDs, when in fact they did, period, paragraph, full stop. Besides, this is simply one of the FOUR tests the UN has for when a nation loses it's sovereignty, but at least you've admitted Iraq failed that tests. The other tests are as follows.
1. Violates the non-proliferation treaty - FAILED
2. Acts as an aggressor upon other nations in war - FAILED
3. Engages in international gangsterism/terrorism - FAILED
4. Engages in acts of genocide - FAILED
You can criticize the American government for scare-mongering, war-mongering, and lying, and you'd be right on every count, but none of that is an argument against going to war with Iraq. That war HAD to happen, and we mistaked our way into being on the right side of history on that one....
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Re: Re: Re: Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
Mr. Powell's speech before the UN was used as evidence for the need to go to war.
Iraq was not responsible for the Anthrax letters.
An American citizen was most likely responsible for the Anthrax letters.
The Iraq Survey Group - including members of the CIA and DOD - found that Iraq destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile in 1991, and only a small number of old, abandoned, severely degraded chemical munitions were discovered. The ISG also found that Iraq abandoned its nuclear program in 1991 and abandoned its biological weapons program in 1995.
Sorry, Dark Helmet, but you're just wrong. Even FactCheck.org disagrees with you; http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/no-wmds-in-iraq/
If the war "had to" happen, why did we end Desert Storm before finishing the job? If Iraq's WMD were such a dangerous threat that we needed to invade them, why did we wait another 12 years after the Gulf War? The reason is because it DID NOT have to happen. The Iraq war was unnecessary. Iraq wasn't a threat to stability or world peace in 2003. It had no mobile biological weapons factories, as alleged by Colin Powell at the UN. The FBI interrogator who handled Saddam (WITHOUT TORTURE) even got him to admit that any appearance of a WMD program was a bluff to keep Iran off his back.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
Again, yes, they lied. That isn't a reason to not go to war with Iraq, it's simply a reason to think our govt. lies.
"Sorry, Dark Helmet, but you're just wrong. Even FactCheck.org disagrees with you;"
Bullshit. That link actually says there WERE WMDs in Iraq, but they were from before the Gulf War, which is a meaningless distinction. Iraq said there were none. They lied. Period.
"If the war "had to" happen, why did we end Desert Storm before finishing the job?"
That's the right question, and the answer is that we should NOT have ended the war. We should have finished the job then and removed an international gangster from office.
"The Iraq war was unnecessary."
You can doom the Kurds to genocide if you wish. I choose not to because I don't believe in genocide.
Beyond that, I listed the four ways the UN decides that a country has lost its sovereignty. You didn't disprove a single one of them for the obvious reason that are not dis-provable. The war was a just one.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
As far as Iraq having lost its sovereignty, using those same standards, Israel has also lost its sovereignty. The fact is the UN never approved the invasion of Iraq, as the US did not wait for Iraq to be found in violation of UNSC Resolution 1441.
And for the record, fuck you for saying I doomed anyone to genocide (for the record, he gassed one village, not the entire race, so your claims of genocide are a stretch). Innocent people never deserve to die, and there's a lot of killing going on all over the world, and we don't do fuck all about it. "Humanitarian reasons" are just a pretext to justify doing something we wanted to do for completely different and less ethical reasons.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
That's both incorrect and short-sighted. First, in 2006 hundreds of weapons munitions were found that contained mustard gas or sarin nerve gas. While you're correct that that ammunition was degraded, the agents inside them were not, and could be exploited by terrorist or the Saddam regime. Per Army Colonel John Chu: "These are chemical weapons as defined under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and yes ... they do constitute weapons of mass destruction."
"As far as Iraq having lost its sovereignty, using those same standards, Israel has also lost its sovereignty."
Interesting theory. I wasn't aware they broke all four standards. What ethnic group have they attempted to genocide? What WMDs have they used? How have they repeatedly invaded AS THE AGGRESSOR other nations around them? What international gangsters or terrorists are they actively involved with?
"The fact is the UN never approved the invasion of Iraq, as the US did not wait for Iraq to be found in violation of UNSC Resolution 1441."
That the UN doesn't have the balls to enforce their own resolutions isn't an argument not to do the right thing ourselves. That's a non-starter.
"And for the record, fuck you for saying I doomed anyone to genocide (for the record, he gassed one village, not the entire race, so your claims of genocide are a stretch)."
Get mad all you want, I'm right. If we left Saddam alone, he'd have finished off the Kurds. And, btw, you might want to educate yourself on how EVERYONE, including the Iraqi government, says what Saddam did was genocide. You can turn your nose up at the gassing of 10k civilians. I'm not going to.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2010/03/08/1988-Kurdish-massacre-labeled-genocide/UPI-934 71268062566/
"Innocent people never deserve to die, and there's a lot of killing going on all over the world, and we don't do fuck all about it."
Not being able to save the entire world isn't a reason not to save part of it. That's not an argument, it's an excuse not to do the difficult thing and go to war.
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"for the record, he gassed one village, not the entire race, so your claims of genocide are a stretch"
Proves you don't know what the hell you're talking about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Anfal_Campaign
Try 4500 villages, with 100k civilians killed and 90% of Kurd villages erased from the map. If you want to argue further, I suggest knowing what you're talking about first.
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Oh, please, give me a break. I'm nothing of the sort, nor have I been in this thread. Try being nuanced enough to understand that you can think our govt. lying was wrong but the war was still the right thing to do. If you can't hold those two thoughts in your head at the same time, too bad for you, but I'm far from an American apologist....
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
With nuance dear mr Helmet you can excuse everything.
What i really find annoying about this whole story (not so much the yes yellers, the "nuancers" (aka the "its different" crowd) ), is that you yanks created Saddam, armed him, blessed him (he may be a bastard but he is our bastard), as long as he would follow your way, knowing the kind of swine he was, knowing what he was capable of doing.
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Its not a criticism to the people, its simply a way to referring to a country(i am not accusing the people ), but you will have to admit that if this issues ever have international consequences, it will not be said: "The united states government", but, "The United States".
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Gee, good thing I did nothing of the sort then, huh?
"With nuance dear mr Helmet you can excuse everything."
I have no idea what this is supposed to mean....
"you yanks created Saddam"
Er, no. We actually originally opposed him and helped arm the Northern Kurds against Saddam. We only worked w/him once Iran became what it is today.
"armed him"
To some extent, yes, but our role in arming him has been vastly overblown. Two American corporations gave him 1 of 4 chemical agents he used. Most of his WMD arms came from elsewhere. The Soviet Union also armed him heavily.
"blessed him"
Against Iran, sure we did. He was a secular bulwark against theocracy. We do that all the time.
"knowing the kind of swine he was, knowing what he was capable of doing."
Exactly how were we to know that he'd commit genocide?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
That said, while I sort of agree with the war itself I believe the way it was conducted and especially how Saddam Hussein was dealt with were complete disasters. And there hasn't been visible improvement on how the troops deal with the locals (which includes crimes committed against them).
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
Like Hussein in the 80s? Yeah, that's right - he was our ally in the 80s. We sold him chemical weapons, under the presumption that he'd use them on the Iranians (I guess we were a little upset about the Iranians overthrowing the puppet government we had installed a few years earlier, after our CIA helped overthrow the democratically elected government of Iran in the 50s). But you see, then some Kurds tried to assassinate him, so he used the chemical weapons we gave him on those Kurds (hey, trying to assassinate a head of state is a "national security" problem right?). We didn't like the fact that he used our chemical weapons on someone who wasn't from Iran, so we used that to justify hanging him.
Or maybe you meant Libya...that is, before we left Gaddafi out to dry?
Or maybe you meant Egypt, before we left Mubarak out to dry?
Or maybe you meant Bahrain? Or maybe you meant El Salvador?
That doesn't even count our helping the "Freedom Fighters" like the mujahideen in Afghanistan. Or the Nicaraguan contras.
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Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
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That aside, I've noticed that including but not limited to this article (and as I recall, TechDirt has responded negatively to other recent articles from him too), Bill Keller's articles have been getting so bad that I wonder if he has secretly been replaced by a poor robotic replica. I wonder if Bradley Manning would be OK with leaking that to the presses....
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These days with post-9/11 paranoia the NYT and others probably feared they'd be accused of putting America's national security at risk if they dared to publish Bradley Mannings leaked documents and videos.
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Re:
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Misinformation Central
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Sad
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New York Times Judith Miller
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New York Times Judith Miller
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Re:
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All the News that's Fit to Print
-NY Times
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Manning
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And what you think you are seeing is completly wrong.
Demographics of Techdirt readers:
79% age 25 or older (47% age 35 or older)
50% earn 50k/year or more
70% college educated
Source: Quantcast
So obviously you are the one being clueless here and the rest of your comment is nothing more than you shaking your fist at imaginary monsters.
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Above comment intended as a reply to DB Cooper, Mar 14th, 2013 @ 4:54am
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Are you aware of the legend of D.B. Cooper? Not really a shining example of a law abiding citizen there.
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