What fascinates me as ex military is how "little" civilians understand about their military. (Yes, it is a military that belongs to the people). Concerning Manning, there is a chorus of lawyers, journalists, adinfinitum who want to make sense of a system they f..king don't have a clue about.
Those who don't "get it," want to look at a courts martial like they would a civilian trial. Bullshit. Military justice (and that is a misnomer) is no military justice in the sense that most think of justice in court. There is a bullshit trial but rarely and I mean rarely is anyone found innocent. I would love to see the stats. There are three levels of courts martial: (1) General, (2) Special, and (3) Summary. I haven't even heard these different types mentioned. Manning's trial was a "general." A "special" is for lessor crimes and a summery is usually smaller offences, before a judge.
In Manning's case, his lawyer has been about worthless: made stupid decisions. In front of only a judge, for one. She is a military lawyer for God's sake. In a military courts martial, you have a prosecutor but the judge is like having two prosecutors. F..k, what kind of justice is that? The judge is subject to the same system as the rest of the military for her promotions, assignments, etc. There is an automatic conflict of interest. Why in the hell is this not pointed out? Answer, civilians don't understand the system.
Courts Martial have a system of investigation called an article 32 which results in "bring the guilty bastard in." It is a procedure that is stacked against the Bradley Manning's of the military and civilians are clueless about it. THE MILITARY COURT SYSTEM NEEDS REFORM.
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