Bradley Manning. Traitor.

For what it is worth, the U.S. government has not charged Army Pfc. Bradley Manning with federal treason. Instead, his 22 offenses include violation of UCMJ Article 104, “aiding the enemy,” or, more specifically, “knowingly giving intelligence to the enemy through indirect means” [1]. Some consider this the “next best” (or worst) thing to treason itself, though by legal technicality, it is not treason. Whether or not the charges of “aiding the enemy” should legally be considered the same as “treason” is a separate discussion that involves intricacies of law outside the scope of this debate. However, what can be debated, is whether or not Manning should be tried with treason--in effect, whether or not he is a traitor. Going along with my opponent’s assertion that “the law is the law. Whether you agree with said law or not it does not change that fact,” I would first like to establish the legal definition of treason. According to Article III Section 3 of the United States Constitution, “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. This law is represented in 18 U.S.C. § 2381 of the United States code, and reads as follows:"Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States" [2]. It is factually indisputable that Army Pfc. Bradley Manning did not levy war against the United States of America. In fact, he served in Iraq from October 2009 until he was arrested in May 2010. One then must argue whether or not Army Pfc. Bradley Manning adhered and/or gave aid and comfort to U.S. enemies, which first requires identifying our enemies. There is not really an “official list” of U.S. enemies to be found, unless you count everyone who isn’t a military ally [3]. The next best thing, then, is American public opinion. The results of a February 2012 Gallup Poll [4], with a random sample of 1,029 adults from all around the U.S., identified Iran, China, North Korea, Afghanistan, and Iraq as the top threats. Next, I suppose, one must also consider exactly who our “enemy” is in the Iraq War. Our initial reasons for going to war were that we believed Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that posed a threat to our security, and that we believed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to be harboring and supporting al-Qaeda. No WMDs were found. No meaningful connection between Hussein and al-Qaeda was established. Hussein was executed in December of 2006, almost 3 years before Manning was deployed to Iraq, and 7 months before the controversial Baghdad airstrike released by Manning in the“Collateral Murder” video [5]. The idea of a concrete “enemy” dissolved. The “War on Terror” came to the forefront. “al-Qaeda” and “terrorists” became our only “real enemies.” The charges against Pfc. Bradley Manning state that he delivered U.S. government documents to Julian Assange of Wikileaks. He did not deliver them to Saddam Hussein, as he was long dead. He did not deliver them to al-Qaeda, nor did he deliver them to the Iraqi government, militants, or insurgents. He did not deliver them to Iran, China, North Korea, or Afghanistan. He delivered them to Julian Assange of Wikileaks. That Wikileaks is a “foreign entity,” as my opponent points out (which I suppose means that their founder, Julian Assange, is Australian), is entirely irrelevant to their status as an “enemy.” Moreover, as a self-declared not-for-profit media organization, they have no decided political affiliation, and certainly cannot be classified as “anti-American.” On the contrary, in fact, they seem to embody many of the values envisioned by our country’s Founding Fathers. Their website states: "The broader principles on which our work is based are the defence of freedom of speech and media publishing, the improvement of our common historical record and the support of the rights of all people to create new history. We derive these principles from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In particular, Article 19 inspires the work of our journalists and other volunteers. It states that everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. We agree, and we seek to uphold this and the other Articles of the Declaration" [6]. Moreover, had Manning released the documents to “an American group like Info Wars or Truth.org,” as my opponent suggests, the ultimate outcome would have been the same--the information would have been released for the entire world to see, including our "enemies." As to the content of that information, to address my opponent’s second point, Manning is pleading guilty to 10 of his 22 counts, those pertaining to communicating national defense information to an unauthorized source (Wikileaks). As my opponent himself points out, “Bradley Manning did intentionally and premeditatedly choose of his own free will to break the laws of the Armed Forces and Federal Government by releasing classified Government documents and information.” However, he did not release that information to a U.S. enemy, nor did he release it with the intention of helping our enemies. He released it to a nonpartisan media organization, whose responsibility it was to make the necessary information public to the rest of the world. Whether or not the U.S. government should pursue charges against Wikileaks, as it was from Wikileaks that our enemies received those government documents, is another debate entirely. What can be concluded at the end of Round 2, however, is that Bradley Manning cannot, in accordance with the United States Constitution, be considered a traitor. [1] List of Charges Against Bradley Manning: http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] Legal Definition of Treason: http://en.wikipedia.org... [3] List of U.S. Military Allies: http://en.wikipedia.org... [4] 2012 Gallup Poll of Enemies: http://www.gallup.com... [5] Summary of the War in Iraq: http://en.wikipedia.org... [6] About Wikileaks: http://wikileaks.org...