Manning’s enablers: The US Army — and our schools. By Ralph Peters. New York Post, July 30, 2013.
Ralph Peters on Bradley Manning. Video. The O’Reilly Factor. Fox News, July 31, 2013. YouTube.
Peters:
Yesterday,
military judge Col. Denise Lind found Wiki-leaker Pfc. Bradley Manning guilty
on five counts of espionage, as well as multiple counts of theft, computer
fraud and military infractions. Giving Manning every benefit of the doubt, the
judge found him not guilty of the charge of intentionally aiding the enemy —
but still convicted him on 19 of 21 counts.
Now
begins the separate sentencing phase of Manning’s military trial. But the long
“guilty” list ensures he’ll spend decades in a military prison.
Yet two
“unindicted co-conspirators” were missing in the dock throughout the trial. Not
Julian Assange and his Wiki-gnomes, but the US Army and our blame-America
culture.
Consider
the guilt of the Army and Military Intelligence. Six weeks into basic training,
Manning was tapped to be discharged as unsuitable. But the Army, hungry for
even the worst cuts of meat, not only canceled the discharge move, but sent him
to its Intelligence Center and School, granting him a Top Secret/Special
Compartmentalized Information (TS/SCI) clearance.
Initially
stationed at Ft. Drum, NY, Manning was referred for mental-health counseling.
But he kept that sensitive clearance. Then he was sent to Iraq, where his
behavior was erratic and provocative, but he continued to have access to
high-level intelligence until he threw a destructive office tantrum and had to
be restrained.
Eventually,
he was demoted one grade and, finally, sent to work in a supply room. But the
damage was already done: a vast dump of confidential and secret US government
documents.
Extreme
political correctness and the Army’s insatiable appetite for troops with top
clearances had combined to enable the largest leak of classified information in
our history.
Prior
to 9/11, a soldier could lose his or her clearance over a minor infraction and
access to Special Compartmentalized Information was granted on a strict “need
to know” basis. To lose access today, you have to hand over 700,000 classified
documents to WikiLeaks or give the Chinese and Russians the NSA’s gravest
secrets.
Back
when I served in Military Intelligence, Manning never would’ve gotten a
clearance in the first place — warning flags were everywhere. Same thing with
Edward Snowden: He never should have gotten a clearance of any kind.
But
serious vetting ended with 9/11: Today, it’s just a meat market.
None of
this excuses Manning’s betrayal of his country. But the Army and the
intelligence community need to do some soul-searching.
The
other enabler that helped make Manning the disaster he became is our
patriotism-trashing, dumb-it-way-down culture.
Want to
find the root of the reflexive anti-Americanism and irresponsibility that
propelled Manning, Snowden and others to betray their country? Start with the
removal of serious history study from our classrooms.
What
are kids taught about our country now? They learn about our “collective guilt”
for slavery — but not about the hundreds of thousands of Americans who died
ending it. They learn about the “crime” of dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki — but not about the Bataan Death March. Guadalcanal? The Bulge?
Nah. But they learn about the internment of Japanese-Americans — a regrettable
mistake, but not the Holocaust.
In
short, kids are programmed to feel ashamed of the United States of America.
Young men such as Manning (who, yes, also attended school in peevishly
anti-American Wales for several years) or Snowden make fateful decisions in a
mental and moral near-vacuum littered with anti-American garbage.
And
think of all the Hollywood films, television series and talk shows preaching
endlessly that the real bad guys are the Feds (or the US Marines — thanks,
James Cameron).
Undoubtedly,
Manning and Snowden are troubled souls. But they’re also narcissistic,
dishonest and malicious. The fact that each has defenders only validates the
points made above: In pop culture and the classroom, America’s a menace.
It’s a
shame that Col. Lind, the judge, couldn’t render a much broader verdict.
