WASHINGTON: Bradley Manning, the US soldier alleged to have passed to WikiLeaks a trove of military and diplomatic documents, will have a first hearing before a military court next month, the Pentagon said Monday.

Manning, who has spent the past year-and-a-half in prison, is to appear before a December 16 tribunal in Fort Meade, Maryland, just outside Washington, DC, military officials said.

Army officials said Manning is to appear at an "Article 32 hearing," the first step in a court martial that could end up in a life sentence.

"The primary purpose of the Article 32 hearing is to evaluate the relative strengths and weaknesses of the government's case as well as to provide the defense with an opportunity to obtain pretrial discovery," a Pentagon statement said.

It added that the hearing, which is scheduled to take place the day before his 24th birthday, is "similar to a civilian grand jury, with additional rights afforded to the accused."

Manning allegedly gave gave thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks, which later published them online. He is charged with "aiding the enemy," a crime which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Manning is the only suspect facing trial in the United States for the document dump -- a massive intelligence breach which led to an embarrassing daily drip of diplomatic revelations and military secrets in newspapers and websites around the world.

Manning, who was arrested in July 2010, served as a US intelligence official in Iraq. (AFP)

I live right outside Ft. Meade and use the main entrance often. I wonder if they know its Federal grounds since its Post Hosing.

murdog wrote:Bradley Manning, if he did what he is alleged to have done, is an American Hero, imho.

murdog wrote:Bradley Manning, if he did what he is alleged to have done, is an American Hero, imho.

Jihadin wrote:General info given so I didn't violate OPSEC. You can find general information on what I said on the internet. Now if I start giving mission detail on current ops then I be violating OPSEC. I know I didn't give the SINGARS freq we operate on. CNN gave more info then what I already put out

Example on general info on US Supercarrier is 30+ knots according to Wiki. Besides Wiki has a nice section on Ft. Meade with a aerial pic of NSA on Meade.

Jihadin wrote:Anybody can get that info by watching the gates and every body knows main gate is the only one open on the weekend besides the backgate of Meade. Thats more a SAEDA issue or Threat Awareness. I wear a uniform so we're all a target

OPSEC is
Detailed information about the mission of assigned units.
Details on locations and times of unit deployments.
Personnel transactions that occur in large numbers (Example: pay information, powers of attorney, wills, deployment information).
References to trends in unit morale or personnel problems.
Details concerning security procedures.

Just to clarify. Not arguing

Jihadin wrote:Not coming after me are you? I stand you up for coffee at Dunkin Donuts and share some boston creme filled donuts with you I'm not showing you where I live though nor go into detail on what I do. You try to sell me something then coffee on you. Besides if AustonT and Frazz and GAWD forbid...Mattrym wants to meet me (forgot Seattle soon) then no issue. I'm confident in myself for anyone that comes up to me and say "DakkaDakke" and I buy them coffee. No Kool Aid....coffee.

Melissia wrote:

murdog wrote:Bradley Manning, if he did what he is alleged to have done, is an American Hero, imho.

Right, so indirectly causing the death of US many sympathizers across the Arab world, causing political doom for many diplomats and other dignitaries, and just creating general havoc across the globe is an "American Hero".

Personally I'd call him a traitor, and I LIKED wiki-leaks (at least before the douchebag used it as a political tool to attack the US for the sake of attacking the US).

Ouze wrote:

murdog wrote:Bradley Manning, if he did what he is alleged to have done, is an American Hero, imho.

I'd like to hear some expansion on this thought. I myself don't think he did anything particularly heroic.

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:Was there not a whistleblower during the 'nam war who dumped a lot of files into the public domain? I seem to recall he had a lot of support at the time.

First of all, on that video, which I’ve seen a number of times, let me speak as a former Marine company commander, and I was a battalion training officer who trained the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines on rules of war. No question in my mind, as I looked at that, that the specific leaked pictures in there of helicopter gunners hunting down and shooting an unarmed man in civilian clothes, clearly wounded, in an area where a squad of American soldiers was about to appear, as the helicopter gunners knew, to take custody of anyone remaining living, that shooting was murder. It was a war crime. Not all killing in war is murder, but a lot of it is. And this was.

The Time magazine cover gives protester, an anonymous protester, as "Person of the Year," but it is possible to put a face and a name to that picture of "Person of the Year." And the American face I would put on that is Private Bradley Manning. The fact is that he is credited by President Obama and the Justice Department, or the Army, actually, with having given WikiLeaks that helicopter picture and other evidence of atrocities and war crimes—and torture, specifically—in Iraq, including in the Obama administration. That, in other words, led to the Tunisian uprising, the occupation in Tunis Square, which has been renamed by—for another face that could go on that picture, Mohamed Bouazizi, who, after the WikiLeaks exposures of corruption, in Tunis, himself, Bouazizi, burned himself alive just one year ago tomorrow, Saturday, December 17th, in protest. And the combination of the WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning exposures in Tunis and the exemplification of that by Mohamed Bouazizi led to the protests, the nonviolent protests, that drove Ben Ali out of power, our ally there who we supported up 'til that moment, and in turn sparked the uprising in Egypt, in Tahrir Square occupation, which immediately stimulated the Occupy Wall Street and the other occupations in the Middle East and elsewhere. So, "Person of the Year," one of those persons of the year is now sitting in a courthouse in Leavenworth. He deserves the recognition that he's just gotten in Time. Julian Assange, who published that, another person of the year, I would say, who’s gotten a number of journalistic awards, very much deserve our gratitude. And I hope they will have the effect in liberating us from the lawlessness that we have seen and the corruption—the corruption—that we have seen in this country in the last 10 years and more, which has been no less than that of Tunis and Egypt.

Well, it’s equivalent to a grand jury hearing. It’s kind of symptomatic of the present state of law in the United States, sort of like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland: punishment first, trial afterwards, sentence after that. He’s been effectively punished now ten-and-a-half months in Quantico in isolation, a kind of torture, according to the U.N. standards and to our own domestic law, that he couldn’t be sentenced to under our amendment to the Bill of Rights against cruel and unusual punishment. He couldn’t be assigned to that, but he has already. That, in itself, makes a travesty of this continued trial.

Melissia wrote:And yet, he's still effectively murdered numerous people by proxy, and he has aided and abbeted known terrorists.

Jihadin wrote:I live right outside Ft. Meade and use the main entrance often. I wonder if they know its Federal grounds since its Post Hosing.


I'm not with chucklehead. I rather see chucklehead get at least 20 yrs, busting big rocks into little rocks, and no chance for parole. Annapolis Rd going to be painful going into post.

murdog wrote:
Exposing war crimes and government corruption are more important to me than 'causing political doom for many diplomats and other dignitaries'; to me war crimes and corruption create far more 'general havoc across the globe' than leaked documents; and I'll reserve judgment on the harm caused to US national security until Mannings defence has a chance to call witnesses to testify to that.

Samus_aran115 wrote:There's no excuse for his behavior, and I think his sympathizers need to take a serious look at their morals. Granted, most of the intelligence was relatively harmless, but it's classified for a reason.

Samus_aran115 wrote:
How anyone can call him a 'hero' is beyond my comprehension. He's done nothing good for anyone, and he's put a lot of american lives at risk (potentially). The guy's a traitor, plain and simple.

And yet, he's still effectively murdered numerous people by proxy, and he has aided and abbeted known terrorists.

dogma wrote:

It never ceases to amaze me how readily Americans will adopt a collectivist mentality where the military, or national defense, is concerned.

murdog wrote:Seems to me that war crimes and corrupt regimes have done far more to create terrorists than information from wikileaks has helped them.

Samus_aran115 wrote:
I don't see why that's abnormal.

Mannahnin wrote:Can anyone in the anti-Manning camp give an example of anyone who's died as a result of his actions?