A trial date has been set, Tolstoy. I agree it's been slower than it should have been, but what is the issue otherwise?

And what does his being gay have to do with anything. HE is accused of treason for acts he admits he committed, not because he is gay.

Also, can we not work on solving several injustices all at the same time? Is there something that says we have to, as a nation and a people, focus on one injustice and only that one so that we solve it before moving on to the next?

Oh, I don't know. How about being held in solitary confinement for two years and treated worse than the detainees at Guantanamo? How about the fact the exposed the military and the politicians as a bunch of lying sacks of shit, and should be getting a Medal of Freedom instead? How about the government's pernicious smear campaign revolving around his sexual identity, which the LGBT community has been dead silent about because the president happens to be a Democrat?

Daniel Ellsberg was acquitted of treason and espionage and is considered a hero today for leaking the Pentagon Papers. What Bradley Manning did was no different, but we all know he will never see the sunrise again - in large part because Americans are more concerned with Obama's mutterances about Gay Marriage than the treatment of the hero who exposed him to the world as a liar.

"Is there something that says we have to, as a nation and a people, focus on one injustice and only that one so that we solve it before moving on to the next?"

No, there isn't. But the "Obama said something about Gay Marriage, Hooray!" threads have gotten over 90 posts in eight hours, while this one is going to die a quick and quiet death. Says a lot about our priorities and what is wrong with this country.

I think there is at least one important difference between Ellsberg and Manning.

Unless I'm mistaken, Ellsberg released 7,000 pages, whereas Manning release 700,000 *documents*. Now, I can see how Ellsberg and those he worked with knew what was on what they released. But, did Manning really go through 700,000 documents? I doubt it And, if he didn't, then what exactly what he doing?

Yes, the solitary confinement seems over the top, Tolstoy.

But I'm sorry -- an army private who releases classified documents is going to be treated pretty harshly. That's as it should be. (But yes, that should come AFTER conviction, not before -- and should not include things like vast amounts of solitary confinement).

But, to address the OP. I agree that it's BS how he's been treated before he even gets a trial. He hasn't even been convicted of anything. He's still an American and a human. I really don't think 2 years counts as a "speedy trial".

Addressing the issue of why we are going on about a topic other than this, nothing was in the news today (or this week or this month or...) about the Bradley Manning case. We talk about current news/trends here. We haven't talked about the Trayvon Martin killing in a while either because there hasn't been any national headlines recently.

We talk about what is on the forefront. Bring soemthing to the forefront and it may well get talked about on this forum for some time to come, including this case. But as we have had a major round of discourse regarding this and Julian Assange, there isn't much to add at this point. It's not like The Powers That Be monitor this forum and say "Oh! WebDip is talking about something they see as a collective bad! Maybe we should do something about it?"

He probably hasn't been tried yet because his lawyer wants more time to prepare a defense. That's a really normal thing to happen.

This guy is no hero. He leaked extremely sensitive diplomatic information. He ought to go to prison.

He knew what he was doing, so let him have his martyrdom. He's not getting freed and he knows it, so what's the deal?

I mean yeah, don't like, torture him, but jail is what he's going to get. I don't know if he deserves it, but he broke the law and will go to jail. I scarcely think very many share the view that someone who leaks a shit ton of classified things should be a hero. He didn't expose like some huge immoral thing, just chump change. I dunno. For some reason I've been ambivalent about the whole Wikileaks thing for a long time.

Wikileaks are completely random, and they're as helpful to liberty or whatever it is they're fighting for as someone firing a machine gun into a crowd.

I know of at least one instance where wikileaks published the name of somebody who was reporting human rights violations in his country to the UN, and he's had to flee for his life. Way to go, wikileaks.

Yeah, someone tries to stop a war and expose the lies and hypocrisy around his government's foreign strategy and what does he get?

If Manning's defense team wants him to get a speedy trial why haven't they entered a plea of guilty or not guilty and choose a jury trial or trial by judge? It doesn't seem like his attorney's want to go to trial before Septemeber at all. He will probably dodge the most serious charges, but he broek so many regulations he is going to be incacerated in a military prison for a long time. Why did the guy ever volunteer for the military anyway. He sure wasn't drafted.

"expose the lies and hypocrisy around his government's foreign strategy"

It always shocks how naive people can be about honesty and transparency in foreign affairs on the forum of a site dedicated to the game Diplomacy. Doesn't this game teach you anything?!?!

And the most shocking thing about Wikileaks was how nothing in it was really all that shocking or new or made America look any worse than it already does. The New World Order must not use the diplomatic cables to plot their deeds.