Breanna’s supervisor suspected he would spy
Seriously, WT actual F? Former Army Specialist Jihrleah Showman testified at Breanna Manning’s court martial that she suspected he would become a spy and reported that to her supervisors according to the Tribune;
There were other telltale signs. He complained someone was eavesdropping on his conversations, and “he indicated he was very paranoid,” she said.
Once, she said, she pointed to the U.S. flag decal on the shoulder of her Army uniform and he responded that “the flag meant nothing to him and that he did not believe himself to have allegiance to this country or its people.” He told her he joined the Army to earn money for college and to learn more about computers, she said.
[…]
She said she had been awakened and told to report back to the unit to investigate why Manning was still there.
Once she arrived, they shouted, a table tumbled and he hit her in the face, she said. On the ground, she wrestled him into submission. “He should never had messed with me,” said Showman, who used to play football. “Back then, I had 15-inch biceps.”
Yeah, and he had a 15-inch waist. I can’t wait to hear how his commander explains why he didn’t do something about Manning.
Category: Shitbags
@41: Hondo (back to substance), that annoyed me also when I read that. I have a Secret clearance (which never gets used, but beside the point). If I get a DUI, or some minor misdemeanor charge (e.g., disorderly conduct, anything in Psul’s catalog of run-ins with the po-po, etc.), I have a lot of ‘splaining to do or I could in theory lose my clearance and my job. How the eff do you tell your supervisor and CoC you have no loyalty to the United States, and keep a TOP Secret clearance? It boggles me that a CoC could be so grossly derelict in its duty. They need to be court martialed, not quietly shown the door.
@51 The level of incompetence in that chain of command is mounting. Was his Article 15 before or after he stole the files? If it was before, he should never have been let back into the SCIF. When you have UCMJ pending you don’t get to do anything, let alone get access to a Top Secret area. He should never have deployed as has already been covered. As for his stealing the files, he did it by putting a fake music CD into his computer and pretending to rock out while doing the deed. Those computers aren’t allowed to have music put in them and any removable media is supposed to be under tight control. The moment someone saw him do that, the CD should have been confiscated.
#52 JWT
One of the things that’s tricky to understand about the sequence of events is that Manning evidently told Assange that he wanted a delay between the time stuff was given to Wikileaks and the time Wikileaks released it; this was because Manning wanted to make it more difficult to trace the material to the source.
While almost all of the material was given to Wikileaks in January-February of 2010, Assange opted for the dramatic impact of releasing parts of it over time, most of it months after Manning was arrested in May, in order to keep himself and Wikileaks in the spotlight.
Personally, I’m not sure how much retribution is called for to punish those in the chain-of-command at FOB Hammer, because Manning’s entire time in the Army was one long slow-motion train wreck from the start. A lot of people were involved in passing him on to somebody else. Also, although retribution can fix the blame, and act as something of a deterrent, it doesn’t fix the deeper problem of what to do so that another Manning doesn’t happen again.
@52 – Good point on the removable media. I’ve been wondering about that. I know DHS computers are allowed to have CDs, but no new software, and ABSOLUTELY no thumb drives that are not encrypted. I can’t imagine DoD’s stuff is less secure.
I suspect no one saw him put the fake Lady Gaga CD because no one wanted to deal with him. He was a problem, a pain in the ass, and after Workman engaged the chain of command and they didn’t back her up, well, who could blame everyone else? Why waste the energy to try to report or discipline someone when you know it’s not going to go anywhere? I’ve seen this syndrome before. People closed their eyes to his continuing disintegration because the chain of command demonstrated by its (in)action that nothing would be done. That story arc feels right to me.
Overall, Bradley = $h!tbag.