, Columnist
Manning’s Crime: Stealing the Dirty Secrets of War
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A military judge did the right thing -- amazingly -- by acquitting Pfc. Bradley Manning on the charge of aiding the enemy in the biggest leak of classified documents in U.S. history.
The charge -- traditionally punishable by death or life in solitary -- had been hammered home by Manning’s prosecutor. “He was a traitor,” said Maj. Ashden Fein, “a traitor who understood the value of compromised information in the hands of the enemy and took deliberate steps to ensure that they, along with the world, received it.”