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Supporters of U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, who is suspected in one of the biggest security breaches in U.S. history, said Thursday that website WikiLeaks has fulfilled its pledge to aid in his defense by contributing $15,100, the Associated Press reported.

The Bradley Manning Support Network announced the gift.

Jeff Paterson of the affiliated group Courage to Resist, in Oakland, Calif., said the contribution brings the total raised for Manning's defense to more than $100,000 but is still short of the $115,000 needed.

Manning is being held in maximum security at a Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va., awaiting a possible trial. He hasn't commented on military charges that he illegally obtained more than 200,000 State Department cables and gave classified material to an unauthorized person.

Meanwhile the U.N.'s Geneva office for torture issues was looking into mistreatment complaints filed by supporters of Manning -- the prime suspect in what is believed to be one of the most blatant acts of treason against the United States.

Urged on by his attorney, David Coombs, Manning supporters have been waging an online campaign claiming the Army private's prison conditions are inhumane, charges the military says are baseless. Villiard said Manning is treated the same as every other maximum-custody detainee in the brig.

"It's not the Shangri-La," Villiard said, but other prisoners in the wing receive the same treatment.

Now why should I have much compassion for a guy who admittedly stole secret documents and released them to Assange?  An act which endangered the lives of other soldiers and seriously hampered our diplomatic and intellgence gathering abilities?  And gave aid and ammunition to terrorists who could use these leaks as a recruitment tool?

Why should I care about this guy, his supporters...OR Julian Asange?

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such humanitarians

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Meanwhile Manning is busting his ass in the brig, while Assange is luxuriating in a mansion somewhere.

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60 minutes interviewed Assange on Sunday.  Why is it ok with you guys that the military lie to it's people?  Is there not something appealing to you about hearing the truth?  I suppose because a person fights for their country they should have to keep their dirty secrets too?  That's bullshit, and you both know it.  It SHOULD BE that our military hold itself accountable for the many civilian casualties they are responsible for.  Did either of you see the Black hawk footage of our guys shooting up a crowd of civilians and journalists?   Do you care that the civilian casualties out weight the number of insurgents killed?  Well, I do.  I am glad for the people who have a conscience enough to disobey orders when those orders protect murderers of innocents.  I suppose it's ok because it isn't happening on our soil.  Bradley Manning is a prisoner of conscience.   Who has been injured or killed because of his actions?

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that's one way of looking at it.

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I'm not ok with being lied to.  However, people who have never served in the military cant understand the concept of "need to know".

Furthermore, what wikileaks has released isnt simply some sort of cover up.

They've released private conversations between US officials and our agents, spies, and personal thoughts about foreign dignitaries.  Assange and Manning have also blown the cover of many informants and put them and their families lives in danger.

Why are you guys ok with that?

Look... people..(the media) and the left on youtube are making stuff up and ignoring things that really do speak to this guy's charcter.

Here are the facts:

Manning was arrested after admitting that he had downloaded material from (the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network—used by the U.S. Department of Defense and Department of State to transmit classified information) and passed it to WikiLeaks.

That's espionage.  Should be considered treason.

Here's his hard-luck story.

Manning was raised in Oklahoma and his father's job kept him away from home a lot.  Mannings friends say he was small for his age, played sax, and had difficulty adjusting school, life, whatever.  (Wow...and no one else has ever had a hard time adjusting to school life).  

When he was 13, the father leaves home (poor guy.  He;s the only one too.  The world is picking on him) and the mother takes him to live in Wales.  There, his schoolmates remember him as a "hot-headed" computer nerd, known for having an attitude.  He would even have altercations with teachers if he thought something was not right.

He returned to the United States after his exams, moved in with his father and sister in Oklahoma City, and took a job with a software company, Zoto. He fell out with his dad, in part because of his sexuality, and the rest...(probably more because of his big mouth and know-it-all attitude) and moved in with a friend in Tulsa.

So here's a smart aleck kid with a big mouth that cant get along with friends or family.  So what does he do?  Joins the US Army!!! Yeah...they're gonna put up with his crap there.

Guess what?  They didnt,

While he was in school training to be an intelligence analyst, he was reprimanded for posting messages to friends on YouTube that revealed sensitive information.  (Remember...this is a know it all loudmouth that wont listen to anyone else.  He knows what's best and no one can tell him anything.  He's alienated his family and friends.  And we're surprised to learn he's now in trouble in the US Army?)?

According to ABC News, he was also reprimanded while in Iraq for assaulting a fellow soldier, and was demoted from Specialist to Private First Class.  He was also sent to a chaplain after officers noticed what ABC called "odd behaviors."

So this suggests that his superiors did at least try to help him at first...rather than merely kick his ass out.  But apparently things didn't work out and they were about to discharge him.  

In Jan 2010, he began posting on Facebook in a way that suggested he was upset about something. According to The Daily Telegraph, he wrote that "Bradley Manning didn't want this fight. Too much to lose, too fast," and said he was livid after being "lectured by ex-boyfriend."

Here are some of his quotes:

"Ive been isolated so long ... i just wanted to figure out ways to survive ... smart enough to know whats going on, but helpless to do anything ... no-one took any notice of me.

"i'm exhausted ... in desperation to get somewhere in life ... i joined the army ... and that's proven to be a disaster now (Duh)... and now i'm quite possibly on the verge of being the most notorious 'hacktivist' or whatever you want to call it ... its all a big mess i've created."

So Manning has a grudge to grind now.  No one understands him.  Everyone hates him.  Boo hoo.  If the Army, his dad, his teachers, his classmates would only see things HIS way.  But they dont.  The world is against him.  The Army is against him.  So screw em.  He decides to get back at them.

Of the security he wrote: "it was vulnerable as f*ck ... no-one suspected a thing ... kind of sad ... weak servers, weak logging, weak physical security, weak counter-intelligence, inattentive signal analysis... a perfect storm "

"I mean what if I were someone more malicious," writing that he could have sold the material to Russia or China. When asked why he had not done that, he wrote: "it belongs in the public domain ... information should be free."

So here's a guy that is amused at how easily he could access this info and has decided on his own what should and should not be Public Domain.  He's acted as judge and jury...which is what other criminals usually do.  Serial killers do this too.  Ie...they deserved it..

He felt encouraged by the response to the Baghdad airstrike video: "the reaction to the video gave me immense hope ... CNN’s iReport was overwhelmed ... Twitter exploded ..."He said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and several thousand diplomats were "going to have a heart attack" when they discovered that an "entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format to the public ... everywhere there's a US post ... there's a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed.

This kid was now getting some sort of cheap thrill over the trouble he has caused.  He was laughing about it.  

Manning can rot in prison for all I care.

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Oh, you mean they are doing the same thing that Scooter Libby got away with?
How is Julian Assange the devil for reporting on these things?   I will say again what Bradley Manning did by releasing the info on the Black Hawk soldier(s) who opened fire on a group of journalists and civilians (pretty sure 12 innocent people were killed in that attack) is IMPORTANT.  The info he put out there about civilian casualties out weighing the IS IMPORTANT because it proves that we have been lied to by our government.   I think if we knew all the fuckery that is going on over there we would pull our asses out.  But, really doesn't effect us right?  How about the money spent on killing innocents?  I guess, we are good with our hard earned cash going to taxes that kill people's children.  It's not need to know, right?
I am not trying to be a **** here but the fact that we are a people who fund the military means we should need to know who our money is killing.
Again, Who has been harmed in this?  This information has not lead to any deaths or aborted mission,etc...Have you?

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Eh...how do we know people havent been harmed/killed and we just dont know about it?  

Ya know...war Sucks.  Period.  It's why we dont really like to go.  People die.  Innocent people sometimes die.

But Manning (which is who I was talking about) did what he did out of a sense of revenge...not activism.  And the video being shown now makes it seem like Americans go out of our way to intentionally slaughter innocent people.

This isnt true though.  99% of Us troops are trying to do the right thing.  Manning has given info out that can and has been used as propaganda and a recruyiting tool.  Al Quaida gets hold of that video, recruits people to kill our boys over there.

But thats ok.  go ahead and defend he and Assange.  They're heroes to the far left.

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i personally love the fact that an australian hacker gets to decide what is and isn't in our national security interest. i also love that he's now going after private institutions, stealing their information as well, not to mention jeopardizing american diplomacy, the very thing that helps keep us out of wars. i think it's fine that wikileaks has published the names and locations of civilian informants in ongoing warzones. i can rest at ease tonight, knowing that julian assaunge is keeping us safe. because it's readily apparent that he really cares about america, and is looking out for our best interests. after all, that is what we elected him for. maybe next we'll find out the truth about our government's involvement with aliens, or learn of the passcodes to our nuclear arsenal.

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Oh yeah, its all the USA's fault.  We're villains.  Evil.  We oughta just go ahead, get us some brown shirts and Swastikas and come out of the closet as the Nazis we are portrayed by the far left.

Folks criticize the USA all the time, but where were all these bleeding hearts when Sadaam was gassing the Kurds?  Where were they when the Taliban were beating and beheading and stoning women .., and making sport of it all?

What they fail to mention is how the US military has established schools in these other countries.  How we send billions in food and money to help the PEOPLE of these nations.  And how we stepped in to help prevent the ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Bosnia.  

No...they dont mention all that.  Or they blow it off by saying yeah the US has done some good..but....

They neglect to mention we also spend billions to prevent the extermination of Jews in Israel too!  I guess we're supposed to care of Muslims but turn our backs on Kurds and Jews eh?

*Sigh*

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america just needs to be the only nation without any classified information or state secrets.

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I guess I am just a big fan of the TRUTH.  
It has nothing to do with my political affiliation.
Sorry, Bradley Manning may be the douche you call him out to be but I am glad as an American that the info he shared (at least the civilian deaths) came out.  It is the right of the people to know.  Obviously, he is paying for his "treasonous acts."  

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Originally Posted by Lelania Bailey:
I guess I am just a big fan of the TRUTH.  
It has nothing to do with my political affiliation.
Sorry, Bradley Manning may be the douche you call him out to be but I am glad as an American that the info he shared (at least the civilian deaths) came out.  It is the right of the people to know.  Obviously, he is paying for his "treasonous acts."  

but you can't have the truth by releasing select information. all that does is push an agenda, in this case, an anti-american agenda. do you really think we'd be better off by having all of the people entrusted with classified material making everything they know public? you think that would make us safer? and what gives assange the right to decide what does and doesn't put peoples' lives in danger? shouldn't that be up to our elected officials? and when manning vowed not to divulge state secrets to anyone without security clearance, doesn't that mean anything at all?

as for these civilian deaths. exactly what deaths are you referring to? i think i have a pretty good idea, but i want to be sure. and if civilian deaths are the yardstick by which we measure everything, again, what about the names and locations wikileaks released of people in iraq and afghanistan who have helped u.s. forces? do you think the u.s. military is purposefully trying to kill innocent civilians? most of the civies killed in iraq were killed by rival iraqis, not u.s. servicemen. in fact, we go to such lengths not to endanger innocent lives, that it endangers military lives. my cousin was in a firefight for 12 hours, because the bad guys were hold up in a compound, and they didn't want to just level the place because they didn't know if women and children were inside.

look, there are a lot of things i would like to know too. and in an ideal world, we wouldn't have to have any classified material. but in the real world, there are tons of bad guys out there who would have no problem cutting your head off, bomb a building, or worse. and if we were to know everything about what our government does, then so would they. i just don't see it as a positive, any time joe shmoe buck private and his hacker friend go on a personal crusade to undermine our government. and you know like i do, that they're trying to take this further, doing the same thing with private institutions. you simply can't put out a message that anyone with security clearance can break their vow of secrecy, with no consequences, and then expect us to be safe.

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This is one instance I was speaking of but there have been many more.  In the documentary, Restrepo Afghan outpost there are other instances caught on video.  A Commander said "It's not our fault they are associated with the Taliban."  Five civilians, two who were children, were killed.   Part of what Bradley Manning put out there was the inaccuracy of the civilian death count.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/04/whistleblower-report-leaked-video-shows-us-coverup/

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I have no doubt that we've made some mistakes.  I also know there are cases where (some) soldiers....probably break the law.  And its really really embarrassing.  That whole Abu Grabe thing is an example.  Those soldiers should have been tried and sentenced asap.

What I would rather have seen Manning do is take info he has to the proper authorities.  And if they were corrupt, take it to a higher authority.  there is always someone you can go to if you think we are breaking the rules because (contrary to what some think) most military personnel are honest.

Unfortunately Manning didnt do that.  I truly believe he did this out of spite and vengence.  Imo, he's a scumbag.