On Manning

Stepped Pyramids frames it well:

A state cannot have secrets without having classes of people who are entrusted with secrets, and it cannot maintain that trust without enacting penalties for violating it. I object to the nature of Manning’s imprisonment — solitary confinement is torture, and denying prisoners necessary medical treatment is a crime against humanity. I object to its absurd duration. I believe some of the material she leaked was in the public interest.

But I cannot object to the existence of a law prohibiting leaks, nor to her prosecution under such a law. She did commit an actual crime. I am happy that her sentence is being commuted and it is long overdue. But “Chelsea Manning did nothing wrong” cannot be true from the perspective of the state.

Manning did not review the information that she shared with Assange with any degree of due scrutiny; indeed, it was impossible for her to do so, because she lacked sufficient expertise in the subject matter to tell the difference between material that was properly and improperly classified. And much of the information that she leaked easily met the bar for classification. This includes the many frank, full assessments of foreign leaders that US diplomats gave, as well as accounts of meetings with foreign governments that depended for their existence upon secrecy. An example of the latter were the cables that revealed the existence of discussions between the United States and China over contingency planning in the event of a North Korean collapse. The public benefits immensely from such talks, but the talks would not have happened had Beijing not been assured of their secrecy.

Indeed, much of the work of the US diplomatic corps over the past six years has been repairing the damage caused by the leakage of properly classified material by Wikileaks. It turns out that corrupt autocrats don’t like it when US diplomats point out (in secret) that they are, in fact, corrupt autocrats. And as such, it is simply incredible to claim that Chelsea Manning “did nothing wrong.” She caused significant damage to entirely laudable US (and international) foreign policy efforts. The best we can argue is that a) the good outweighs the ill, and in any case b) the circumstances of her detention are pointlessly inhumane. Manning’s own account of her wrongdoing, for me, shifts the balance of deliberation towards mercy, and I do agree that Obama has made the correct decision by commuting her sentence. A pardon, on the other hand, would go too far.

I also think that the folks at Lawfare get this one about right.