Bradley Manning. Traitor.

I will now begin my rebuttal by arguing against the things my opponent has stated. Before I begin I would like to say that my opponent started arguing about the legitimacy of the Iraq war. That is a completely different topic and debate and has very little to do with this one. I humbly request that in future rounds we refrain from crossing that line. Thank you. Now to begin. I would like to thank my opponent for stating the legal definition of treason. She suggests that by that definition it proves Manning did not commit treason. However, proving that he did by that definition will be my primary focus of this round. While it is true that Manning did not "levy war against the United States", what he can be charged with is aiding the enemy. In order to argue this I must first state for the record who the enemy is. My opponent made the very false assumption that the enemy of the US is the "public opinion" or "anyone who isn't an ally", which is absurd and border line conspiracy mumbojumbo. She also suggest that since Saddam was dead there was no enemy. However this does not challenge why he released the Afghan war logs or the embassy files, which had nothing to do with Iraq. It is also irrelevant that Saddam was already dead since we still have a very strong and determined enemy we are engaged with in the Mid East. I really didn't want to get into the Iraq war thing but since she already used it I feel pressured to counter at least this one instance. Yes it is true that our goal when we first invaded Iraq was to capture Saddam, dismantle his government, military, and arsenal. We achieved these goals in the first 2 years of the war, after which victory was officially declared. However the fighting did not end there. Who was the enemy? Before Saddam's downfall he issued one final order to his military, to continue fighting the Coalition as a guerrilla force for as long as possible. The parts of the military that obeyed that order made up about 30% to 40% of our opposition. another 10%to 20% were people of Iraq that just didn't like having invaders in their land and didn't like being conquered. But the vast majority of our enemies were radical Muslims from all corners of the earth that answered the call of jihad given by various religious and terrorist leaders to drive off the infidel invaders from Muslim lands. These are who our enemy's were in Iraq at the time of the incident, not Saddam. The enemy's in Afghanistan should be self explanatory. Ok with all that out of the way on to how Manning aided the enemy. First off as I already stated he released names of informants and Ally's of ours in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the locations of safe houses. How this aids the enemy should be obvious. Also released were troop movements and updated tactics. For those that don't know, our enemy is very adaptive. When ever we use a certain tactic or technique the learn it very quickly and adapt in order to counter it. Because of that we are always having to improve and create new tactics to stay ahead. Such as the different devices we use to scramble IEDs. Because of Manning the enemy had a sneak peak at our next line of tactics and so the enemy could begin adapting faster then normal. Once again, obviously a problem. Bradley released the profiles of known terrorists as well as all the knowledge we have on them. We keep profiles on all the Jihad's we know of and use them to track them down or spy on them. Because Manning released this information the enemy got to see everything we have on them. So lets say haji bob is a local al-Qaeda cell leader. He doesn't know that we known everything about him from where they have their secret meetings to his mothers bra size. Now that he's seen the info Manning released and sees we know about him what do you think he does. Disappears. Obviously a problem. A direct example of this is the information we had on the Pakistani Secret Intelligence Service or ISI. For the last few years ISI has been supporting and financing the Taliban. Before Manning they didn't know that we knew and were trying to figure out how to prove it and reveal them so that they could be removed. However thanks to Manning they now know that we knew so what do you think they did. Scraped all operations, quit all their treachery, and destroyed all the evidence. Now our chances of proving these crimes have greatly diminished. Also released was information that we had on Iran supporting terrorist groups. The next thing I would like to argue is the claim my opponent made that because Manning gave the data to Assange, not directly handing it to Saddam's zombie or osama bin laden, and because he didn't not intentionally mean for the info to get into jihadist hands, that he is some how absolved of any wrong doing. This is absurd. Its a simple matter of cause and effect. Because of his actions that data fell into enemy hands. Had he not released it that would not have happened. Yes he didn't directly give it to them nor did he mean to give it to them but he knew that the data would be seen by the entire world, which means to our enemy's as well. Maybe he didn't think of it at the time but he still knew. Just because he didn't do it intentionally or with malice does not absolve him of the crime. If you decide to drive drunk and hit and kill a pedestrian you still get charged for man slaughter do you not? You didn't mean to kill him but because of your actions it still happened. Cause and effect. The next thing I will cover is Wikileaks. My opponent made the false assumption that I called them a foreign entity cause Assange is Australian. This is as I already said false and my statement had nothing to do with Assange' s nationality. Wikileaks is a non American organization, that was not made in America and nor made by Americans. Thus it is a foreign entity. I hope that is clearer. Wikileaks may use and share fundamental beliefs that we also believe but that doesn't make them an American organization. Nor does it mean they are not anti-American. Their actions against us speak for themselves. My statement about if he had given the data to an American organization like info wars was mostly my own personal feelings and due to them not being a foreign organization. However if he had giving it to them he still would be guilty of breaking the law. My opponent stated that it might be better to go after Wikileaks instead of Manning since it was them who release the information to our enemies. This is wrong. Wikileaks is nothing more then the middle man here, since with out Manning giving them the data they would have had nothing to release to our enemies thus making it irrelevant. Once again its cause and effect. Furthermore Wikileaks is not a service member of the Armed Forces of the United States nor are they subject to the laws of the US military and Federal government. Unlike Manning. MY conclusion in the third round is that by US military law Bradley Manning is in fact guilty of aiding the enemy and Thus a traitor.