I wonder how long Obama really was a law professor. He has not been acting like he has that experience. Pronouncing him guilty before trial, not a good practice.
This was a blunder that could help the defense. How can Manning receive a fair trial when the commander-in-chief pronounces him guilty, and the judges will all be officers under his command?
If that happened in Iran, China or Russia we would think they were an autocracy with a phony court system. Imagine if a top cleric pronounced someone guilty and then the person went before a jury of clerics. Or Putin did and then the trial was before a Putin appointed judge.
All this on top of nearly a year of solitary confinement, torture conditions, before even being formally charged (which will happen in June at the Article 32 hearing). He even had his former law professor, Lawrence Tribe, criticizing him for that violation of due process and the right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.
What officer who wants to continue his career in the military would find Manning not guilty under these circumstances?
Obama also made another mistake in his comments. When a questioner compared him to Daniel Ellsberg who leaked the Pentagon papers he implied Manning had leaked more serious documents. In fact, Manning leaked low-level intelligence and diplomatic cables that hundreds of thousands had access to. He was, only a private, after-all. Ellsberg leaked Top Secret documents that described U.S. strategy and rationale for Vietnam as not being what they had told the public. Ellsberg was so high up that he was the one who told the Secretary of Defense about the alleged Gulf of Tonkin attack. In fact, Ellsberg was guilty of something much more serious.
KZ
