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. Both reactions treat the move as a win for the leaking of state secrets. 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. 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. "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.

Source: Huffington Post January 21, 2017 22:48 UTC