You called him a traitor. I said he wasn't since he has not been convicted of anything. Do you disagree?
Traitors are people that haven't been convicted? Who knew?
To be fair, I think that conviction is not needed to be something.
If a person murders another, he's a murderer the moment he does it, not only after conviction. However, it's proper for the media to call him an alleged murderer.
If Manning were a traitor, I'd say he's one now, before conviction, though the media should call him an alleged traitor.
I don't think he's a traitor for reasons other than the lack of conviction, though I don't think he'll be convicted of treason, because he's not guilty of it.
IMO, treason involves the intent to help a force outside your country to gain advantage against your country, in a serious manner (if we just define it more loosely, many of our citizens and politicians who serve foreign interests could be called guilty of treason. Remember those Republican congressmen who sided with foreign auto makers, voting for the US auto industry to be allowed to be destroyed?)
Further, all kinds of 'mistaken' opinions could qualify - war supporters love to trot out the accusation for war opponents. Are Presidents who get us into bad wars guilty of treason for helping cause the killing of Americans? Was Gerald Ford guilty of treason for illegally authorizing Indonesia to violate US law and use US weapons ignoring restrictions, to invade their neighbor?
I think Richard Nixon was guilty of treason for pressuring the South Vietnamese to reject an LBJ peace initiative, to help him win the presidency (peace hurt him).
I have no indictation Manning's intent was to harm the US, helping an enemy this way.
In fact, he did not leak the information to anyone intending harm to the US.
He specifically leaked it - or it ended up at - an organization who specifically would make attempts to filter out any information that put people in danger.
One that contacted major media to assist in helping to filter out dangerous information, and even to offer the US government to offer input.
That's not the action of a 'traitor'. It's a crime insofar as it being a crime to release classified documents, however excessive their classification.
And despite the good they might do from informing US citizens to helping bring democracy to middle eastern countries more than our policies have for decades.
But releasing such documents to that type of group is not treason, at all.