President Obama's decision to commute the bulk of Chelsea Manning's sentence for leaking classified military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks has been met with predictable outrage by hawks, and jubilation by the likes of WikiLeaks. Sen. Tom Cotton, who served in the Army in Iraq and Afghanistan, lambasted the move, saying, "We ought not treat a traitor like a martyr." WikiLeaks declared "VICTORY" in a tweet. Both reactions treat the move as a win for the leaking of state secrets. It is not. Obama's decision to commute Manning's sentence is a victory for decency, proportionality and empathy at a time when all three are in distressingly short supply.
One needn't support leaking of classified information to be glad to see the former Army intelligence analyst, known previously as Bradley Manning, set free. The soldier's leak of three-quarters of a million classified documents to WikiLeaks may indeed have been reckless and put lives at risk, but it was an act of conscience committed to help the United States, not hurt it. Manning did not quietly leak secrets to an enemy or seek financial reward. In compensation for the leak, she received only a 35-year prison sentence, including months on end in abusive solitary confinement in the now-shuttered brig at Quantico Marine Base in Virginia.
For better or worse, Manning leaked information to you, the American people, that you might have a clearer understanding of the opaque worlds of war and international diplomacy. And the leaks did uncover information that should not have been kept secret, revealing, for example, a far higher civilian death toll in the Iraq and Afghan wars than U.S. officials had publicly acknowledged, and a cavalier attitude from U.S. authorities toward torture and worse committed by the Iraqis and defense contractors.
At the time, Manning's leaks were by far the largest ever. As I wrote in my book on the incident, PRIVATE: Bradley Manning, WikiLeaks and the Biggest Exposure of Official Secrets in American History, the event, which was unprecedented in scale, marked the collision of three countervailing trends: more draconian secrecy after 9-11; an increase in the sheer amount of information produced in the digital age; and the spread of an ethos of transparency and openness encouraged by the culture of the Internet. A result of overarching impersonal forces as much as the actions of any one person, Manning's leaks, I wrote, were "the beginning of the information age exploding upon itself."With hindsight we can see that the government's response, handing down a prison sentence far longer than any earlier whistleblower had received, was clearly an overreaction. The sky has not fallen. On the whole, America and its allies are alive and well. As Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, "Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is it awkward? Yes. Consequences for U.S. foreign policy? I think fairly modest." In reducing the total total time Manning will have spent behind bars from 35 years to seven, Obama has simply acknowledged the reality that a 35-year prison sentence was too long. The commutation isn't a pardon. As White House spokesperson Josh Earnest said of the news, "Chelsea Manning is somebody who went through the military criminal justice process, was exposed to due process, was found guilty, was sentenced for her crimes, and she acknowledged wrongdoing." Manning broke the law, has acknowledged that and been punished for it. The president hasn't endorsed leaks.
At a time when basic decency is under assault in our politics and culture, when our president-elect's Twitter tantrums portend a coming administration with no sense of propriety or proportionality, when it often feels as though all semblance of understanding has vanished between the splintered factions of our society, in one of his final acts in office President Obama has struck a parting blow on behalf of decency, proportionality and empathy. We should appreciate this act of mercy for what it is, and steel ourselves for a coming era when values like decency and empathy will need defending more than ever.