NYT Profile of Bradley Manning (he is gay)

[dsc]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/09/us/09manning.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

He spent part of his childhood with his father in the arid plains of central Oklahoma, where classmates made fun of him for being a geek. He spent another part with his mother in a small, remote corner of southwest Wales, where classmates made fun of him for being gay.

Then he joined the Army, where, friends said, his social life was defined by the need to conceal his sexuality under “don’t ask, don’t tell” and he wasted brainpower fetching coffee for officers.

But it was around two years ago, when Pfc. Bradley Manning came here to visit a man he had fallen in love with, that he finally seemed to have found a place where he fit in, part of a social circle that included politically motivated computer hackers and his boyfriend, a self-described drag queen. So when his military career seemed headed nowhere good, Private Manning, 22, turned increasingly to those friends for moral support.

And now some of those friends say they wonder whether his desperation for acceptance — or delusions of grandeur — may have led him to disclose the largest trove of government secrets since the Pentagon Papers.

end of quote

I guess we now have to be prepared for the gay is traitor meme to be all the rage. This profile is a nightmare for those working on DADT.

[Skink]

1. Does he play football and does he threaten to retire each year?

[EFerrari]

2. Before you buy into any of it, check it.

Remember what the NYTs and the WaHo and the AP did to Bruce Ivins. The machine has an agenda and that doesn't comport with good report. My .02.

[Smarmie Doofus]

3. LOVE THIS KID.

Who else but a gay soldier is going to have the moral sense to recognize undiluted EVIL ( take another look at the helicopter murder of the reuters journalists) and the intestinal fortitude to put his life on the line by DOING something about it?




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>>>And now some of those friends say they wonder whether his desperation for acceptance — or delusions of grandeur — may have led him to disclose the largest trove of government secrets since the Pentagon Papers.>>>

This part is nonsense. Was it 'delusions of grandeur' that made him challenge the high school teachers in class while growing up in East Jeezus , Okl. ?


>>>>>I guess we now have to be prepared for the gay is traitor meme to be all the rage. This profile is a nightmare for those working on DADT.>>>

Interesting point. Part of the reason homophobic attitudes tend to persist in more authoritarian organizations is that homosexuality by definition challenges the conventional wisdom and threatens the established order. The complexity lies in the fact that the established order in this case is manifestly evil and the conventional wisdom... although it may be conventional ..... is in no way "wise".

What they call "traitor" , I call whistleblower.