Thursday, August 15, 2013

Bradley Manning vs the Rosenburgs

Discussion in Pajamas Media about differences between the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenburg, who got the chair, and Bradley Manning.  I hadn't heard that Manning had actually been sentenced, but it's a good bet he gets off with a jail sentence. 
   The article begs the question of why the difference in sentence for essentially the same crime.  Well, I can answer that.  The Rosenburgs passed the secret of making atomic bombs to Stalin.  They gave a ruthless dictator the ultimate weapon.  No country can risk its cities to atomic destruction, no terrain feature can be held against nuclear bombardment.  Two atomic bombs ended Japanese resistance and brought an end to WWII, the most destructive war in history.   In 1945 the United States alone possessed atomic weapons.  Things might have stayed that way for decades, but for the Rosenburgs.  Thanks to their information the Soviets detonated their first bomb in 1949.  This made the Cold War, which lasted forty years, possible.  Forty years of tyranny, bloodshed, and misery for  all trapped behind the Iron Curtain.
   In short, the Rosenburgs caused incredible damage to world peace, US security, and caused  untold human suffering. 
   Bradly Manning, not so much.  The material Manning released was embarrassing, but compared to the Rosenburgs, fairly small potatoes.  In fact, the Manning case is more embarrassing because it revealed US document security was non existant.  No way should an Army private be able to access State Dept classified.  The way you keep secrets secret is you don't reveal them to anyone you don't absolutely have to. The rest of the world, both our friends and our enemies, now knows that you don't tell the Americans anything that you don't want to appear on Wiki Leaks and the front page of the New York Times.  And that isn't Manning's fault, it's the fault of who ever set up the system that allowed a private such wide ranging access to US secret information.  That guilty bureaucrat hasn't even been named in the press. He, who ever it is, gets off free, when he ought to get the chair.    

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