Inside the Belly of the Beltway Beast

Three and a half days ago Col. Denise Lind sentenced Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning to 35 years imprisonment for releasing information to the public, which exposed war crimes, massive wrongdoing and knowledge of deep-seated corruption of regimes our government long supported. There was of course the famous Apache Helicopter video from Baghdad, dubbed "Collateral Murder," but there was also State Department cables such as the one about the severely corrupt ruling family in Tunisia which helped spark the Arab Spring, as well as information on Guantanamo prisoners, most of whom are still being held in this gulag despite being cleared for release, and more accurate civilian casualty counts from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq than had ever previously been released. Much of this information was indeed embarrassing to the U.S. government, but no one was directly harmed by the releases, despite the prosecution's best efforts (even in closed door sessions from what Manning&#