WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Bradley Manning Is Guilty, But Of What?

Since 9/11, the US has been operating in legal gray areas. Whether the issue is Guantanamo, NSA surveillance of American citizens, or the use of drones to kill foreign militants in Pakistan or Yemen, we’ve had to deal with a lot of issues that existing law doesn’t cover adequately. The Bush administration, ironically, had a better excuse for freelancing than the Obama administration has now. In the early years after 9/11, the situation was still so new, and the most important thing was to act quickly and assertively to come to grips with a threat of uncertain scale. Today we have a much better idea about what the terror threat to the homeland does and does not mean, what kind of tools are needed to fight it, and what kind of tradeoffs US citizens can be expected to make. It’s clearly time for Congress draft some laws to give the Executive Branch better guidance—and, yes, better oversight—in managing these threats. . . .

It’s abundantly clear that our failure to develop an appropriate legal and oversight process for necessary acts of self defense has become a serious liability, undermining the legitimacy of policies and practices that, despite the occasional, worrying abuses, still have an important role to play in ensuring the security of peaceful people across the world.

And, as I’ve said, the most damning thing to come out of the Bradley Manning affair is that we put people like Bradley Manning in such sensitive positions.