Soldier in Leaks Case Says He’s Been Punished Enough

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/30/us/wikileaks-suspect-bradley-manning-describes-confinement.html?_r=0

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Nov 30, 2012 at 9:38 AM
Subject: re: Soldier in Leaks Case Says He’s Been Punished Enough
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  Since our debacle in SouthEast asian, the U.S. military has labored long and hard to insure that our news media would never again "bring the war into our livingrooms".  The response is obvious and misguided.  The U.S. military is an arm of the U.S. government and--as such--is answerable to the will of the people. We need to know what's being done in our name, on our tax dollars, at the expense of our sons' and daughters' blood. There will always be tactical forward-looking details (e.g. troop movements) that must be kept secret even from the American public for a time during war.  But the "battlefield video file" that he is pleading guilty to leaking is exactly the sort of document that--belatedly--ended the madness in Vietnam.  If it is a crime for us to see that, we no longer have civilian oversight of the military.

Barry Haskell Levine