Is this the first time in history that a Nobel laureate is overseeing the criminal prosecution of a Nobel nominee?
Apparently, three members of the Icelandic Parliament have nominated Army PFC Bradley Manning for the Nobel Peace Prize. On February 1, 2012, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, Margrét Tryggvadóttir, and Þór Saari, all members of the Icelandic Parliament, sent their nominating letter to the Nobel nominating committee.
This is, of course, their right to do so. But it shows a deep ignorance of what Manning stands accused of.
Manning, you may recall is to be court-martialed for allegedly capturing 250,000 Department of State diplomatic cables, Department of Defense gun camera video and other classified documents onto CD-RWs labeled Lady Gaga, spiriting the discs out of the Secure Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) where he worked, and sending the information to Wikileaks. In effect, what Manning did was put the lives of American service members, diplomats, and citizens at greater risk.
I disagree that the Nobel committee members who nominated Manning don’t know what he stands for. They do. They fully understand that he betrayed the trust of his country because he disagreed with one narrow policy, a policy that had nothing to do with terrorism. He apparently disagreed with Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, a policy that was later overturned via the political process Manning had sworn an oath to defend. His betrayal certainly didn’t serve the ends of peace: It put the lives of many good people in grave jeopardy.
Nobel rewarded Jimmy Carter for trashing America. They rewarded Barack Obama in anticipation that he wouldn’t forcefully advocate for the American idea. Now they’ve nominated a traitor who betrayed America in war time. It’s obvious that the Nobel Peace Prize has become the Nobel America Sucks Prize. Nobel couldn’t just go all out and award Osama bin Laden posthumously (though it did award the prize to another unrepentant terrorist years ago), so in Manning it gets the next best thing.
Ron Paul will be delighted!
– retroactively and posthumously to Quisling. Except for Nobel’s money, they have trivialized the award to “Best Intentions”.
The Nobel Committee is nominating itself for irrelevance.
I nominate this comment for the tatler Threadwinner Prize.
Agreed. The Nobel Prize, formerly a highly-respected recognition of accomplishment, has become a joke. A bad joke. That high-pitched whine you hear is Alfred Nobel spinning…
Just like that stupid event that occurs at Gobbler’s Knob each Groundhog Day, the hot dog eating contest on Coney Island, and the Kardashians daily activites, the Nobel Peace Prize gets far more attention than it deserves.
Which is none.
And if we ignored all of the above they would simply go away without notice.
He apparently disagreed with Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, a policy that was later overturned via the political process Manning had sworn an oath to defend.
Well put. But I would add: The policy was in place when he voluntarily enlisted in the military! Which makes me believe he joined the military for the sole purpose of doing exactly what he did.
And let’s keep Julian Assange in mind. Manning stole a quarter of a million documents and passed them off to the citizen of another country.
If found guilty, he needs to hang. …That is unless Ron Paul needs him for a running mate, of course.
Why the exception? The traitor should swing.
Nah. He gets the gay exception, like the guy who blew up the Iowa’s turret in a lover’s tiff with his butt buddy. Gay, where gay? I guess the other guys who were blown up were just collateral damage. After all, he was upset!
Gays in the military…what could possibly go wrong? As usual, it’s really not about the sex, it’s about one’s mental attitude. If they can’t accept nature’s discipline, what makes you think they’ll accept any other?
Next, assless uniforms…ooooh-gah!
Which one, Manning or Assange?
Click to view the mutt
Birgitta Jónsdóttir
Ok, this is slightly off-topic, but it’s something that’s been bugging me for a while now.
Homosexuals were never allowed to serve in the military before Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. As I understand it, before DADT, if someone in the service was discovered to be gay, they were discharged – as well as anyone who knew about it, but didn’t report it. DADT didn’t change the rules to make homosexuality in the service permissible, but it did remove the penalty for keeping it secret. (Thus, the name – Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell).
Here’s where I’m confused. Shouldn’t repealing DADT mean going back to the days where you could be discharged from the military for keeping someone’s homosexuality a secret? How did repealing DADT morph into allowing open homosexuality in the military? Have I missed something?
Imagine Congress passed a law declaring that the maximum penalty for theft was 1 year in prison. After a decade or so, they decide it was a bad idea and repeal it. Upon repealing it, they conclude that as a result of the repeal, theft is no longer a crime. That’s the closest I can come to what seems to have happened here.
If anyone has an explanation for their reasoning that I’ve missed, I’d love to hear it.
The day they handed it to Le Duc Tho and Kissinger was enough for me. The Arafat thing merely drove the point home.
The Bradley Man
—apologies to “The Candy Man”
Who can take state secrets?
Send them to Wikileaks?
Justify himself no matter what havoc it wreaks?
The Bradley Man
The Bradley Man can
The Bradley Man can because he’s a soldier fighting for equality
Who can join the service?
Then betray his oath?
‘Cause he’s just pursuing his own personal growth
The Bradley Man
The Bradley Man can
The Bradley Man can because he’s a soldier fighting for equality
The Bradley Man betrayed his uniformed comrades
While working in a war theater
Burned CDs to distribute later
That’s what people call a traitor
Who can ride a rainbow
Into his own hell?
Who is the new posterboy for don’t ask and don’t tell?
The Bradley Man
The Bradley Man can
The Bradley Man can because he’s a soldier fighting for equality
The Bradley Man betrayed his uniformed comrades
While working in a war theater
Burned CDs to distribute later
That’s what people call a traitor
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Who can ride a rainbow
Into his own hell?
Who is the new posterboy for don’t ask and don’t tell?
The Bradley Man
The Bradley Man can
The Bradley Man can because he’s a soldier fighting for equality
Yes, the Bradley Man can because he’s a soldier fighting for equality
Bradley Man, Bradley Man
Bradley Man, Bradley Man
Bradley Man, Bradley Man…