Bradley Manning...

Much digital ink is being spent on the topic of Bradley Manning, but let me just put in my two cents.

1. Bradley Manning is a political prisoner, that much is pretty clear to me. Of course, that's just, like, my opinion, man.
2. From what we've been told, he did not give any help to the "enemy," except to the extent that the enemy is us. Let's assume he did give classified military information to Wikileaks. The stated mission of Wikileaks is to expose the truth, not to give anyone a military advantage. (in fact, quite the opposite. They believe that information needs to be shared in order to prevent abuses). It may be that someone in the military was put at increased risk by some of the information that Manning transferred. Then again, that may be purely guesswork. The most striking thing we did learn was that the US military was revealed to be killing civilans and laughing about it.
3. Any assumption that Manning's actions gave someone (some "enemy", which we haven't yet defined in a way that satisfactorily justifies all the loss of life and expense of two wars) a military advantage over us therefore contains the further assumption that the US military should be able to kill civilians and keep it hidden. What that says to me is that he mainly embarrassed the brass and let the American people know that we're not always noble, ethical, humane, or right. As if Abu Ghraib didn't tell us that already.
4. His treatment in detention had better conform to the Geneva Conventions, or else we're sending a pretty bad message to the rest of the world.
5. His reported treatment in detention sounds like torture to me. At least psychologically. If he was suicidal, this kind of treatment certainly doesn't appear to serve the purpose of making him less so.
6. Obama's acquiescence on this is instructive, in that it indicates the extent to which the military still wields a big stick in this government.
7. All of this is extremely unsettling when it comes to our country and its conduct. And it should make us extremely ashamed. Especially when a State Department official has the courage to call it what it is, and then has to be fired for it. Although I suppose we should be glad he wasn't "disappeared" instead.

All of this is just my armchair opinionating. But I would like to think I'm not stupid, and I've seen enough in my years on this planet to think I'm not likely to be too far off the mark.