By Jon Harris:
In recent years, there have been three cases that have grabbed the nation’s attention involving what many would characterize as treason. Yet that charge, the only crime that is specifically well-defined in the Constitution, does not quite fit, regardless of how much we might think it is appropriate. The common term traitor and the legal term treason are different. With my background in the military, receiving security clearances and charged with the safeguarding of sensitive information, I cannot see these three as anything other than traitors.
There were numerous red flags flying when these three entered government service. There are striking commonalities in their backgrounds, and I think an astute examination of them could have precluded placing them in positions of trust, or where they could do the country harm. If nothing else, our nation ought to draw lessons from this failure. It is of critical importance to weed out those unfit for service before the incidents that will make them famous to some, and infamous to others, can occur.
Number One — Bradley Manning
Army Private Bradley Manning, sentenced to 35 years in prison, was found guilty on 20 counts related to his leaking more than 700,000 classified documents and videos to WikiLeaks. Manning’s leaks likely cost the lives of American military personnel, including Army officers, intelligence agents, foreign contacts, and translators.
“He disclosed details of American military operations, the identities of American military allies, and placed sensitive American diplomatic relationships at risk,” writes National Review’s David French. “We may never know exactly how much damage he did.”
“Ambassadors were forced to resign, [CIA] station chiefs had to be recalled, secret diplomatic cables were revealed,” said one official, recalling some of the fallout. President Obama commuted Manning’s sentence in the last days of his administration despite the protests of Defense Secretary Ash Carter.
A careful review of Private Manning’s background should have sent alarms up any chain of command. How these incidents were ignored is mind-boggling. Manning is a deeply troubled individual who struggled with a desire to be a woman, and often exhibited an explosive temper. There are numerous instances of his mental instability. According to court records, in 2008 Manning was set back in boot camp at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. It took him six months to complete what is normally a ten-week course.
In August 2009 at 10th Mountain Headquarters in Fort Drum, NY, his supervisors referred him to mental health therapy for bizarre behavior. On one occasion, a superior found him screaming in a distressed state. When he arrived in Iraq in October 2009, he made no secret of his homosexuality despite a ban on gays in the military at that time. In December 2009, Manning exploded in rage after being told he lost a day off for being chronically late.
He visited the US on leave in January 2010, and lived as a woman for two days. In April 2010, he emailed his Master Sergeant a photo of himself wearing a blonde woman’s wig and makeup, and described his sexual conflict as “my problem.” That month, he also told a superior officer that the video of a helicopter ground assault looked like the one he had seen on a classified judge advocate’s web page — a tip-off that he was accessing classified sites.
The following month, a supervisor found him curled up in a fetal position. Later that day, Manning punched a female soldier in the face. The public record indicates that in spite of all of these incidents, no one moved to revoke his security clearance until his arrest in May 2010, after a confidential informant reported him to the FBI. (2)
Number Two–Edward Snowden
Edward Snowden, who currently resides in Russia after fleeing the US to avoid prosecution, was an NSA contractor who stole and released information on highly classified surveillance programs. Snowden, a computer whiz kid and high school dropout, felt he knew better than his supervisors, the agencies he worked for, Congress, and the President. This high school dropout decided to tell the world of highly classified programs and procedures that were being utilized by US government intelligence agencies that in his mind were improper. He contended that he was a “whistleblower.”
The problem with that contention is that there are procedures and mechanisms in place to do what Snowden did. Yet he chose to steal the information and flee the country instead. Snowden planned his crime thoroughly. After leaving the CIA, he sought employment with the consulting firm Booz-Allen to gather more data and then release details of NSA’s extensive surveillance activity.
The following is from the official record of the US House of Representative’s Executive Summary of Review of the Unauthorized Disclosures of Former National Security Agency Contractor Edward Snowden.
A close review of Snowden’s official employment records and submissions reveals a pattern of intentional lying. He claimed to have left Army basic training because of broken legs when in fact he washed out because of shin splints. He claimed to have obtained a high school degree equivalent when in fact he never did. He claimed to have worked for the CIA as a senior advisor, which was a gross exaggeration of his entry-level duties as a computer technician. He also doctored his performance evaluations and obtained new positions at NSA by exaggerating his resume and stealing the answers to an employment test. In May 2013, Snowden informed his supervisor that he would be out of the office to receive treatment for his worsening epilepsy. In reality, he was on his way to Hong Kong with stolen secrets.
Snowden has been proven to be a habitual liar about many of the details about his access, education, jobs, and even his salary.
Snowden was charged on June 14, 2013 with the following federal criminal violations: 18 USC 641 – Theft of Government Property, 18 USC 793(d) – Unauthorized Communication of National Defense Information, 18 USC 798(a)(3) – Willful Communication of Classified Communications Intelligence Information to an Unauthorized Person. Each of these charges carries a 10-year prison sentence.
Number Three –Private First Class Bowe Bergdahl
In June 2009, Bergdahl walked off from his platoon while on guard duty, going absent without leave. The Army sent out search teams for him in the following weeks, and in the course of those operations, at least six soldiers died according to Army personnel accounts. Staff Sergeant Clayton Bowen, Private First Class Morris Walker, Staff Sergeant Kurt Curtiss, Staff Sergeant Michael Murphrey, Second Lieutenant Darryn Andrews, and Private First Class Matthew Michael Martinek were all killed in the effort to find Bergdahl.
After walking away from his post, Bergdahl was captured by the Taliban and held for five years. In May of 2014, the US traded five high-level detainees held at the detention facility in Guantanamo, Cuba in exchange for Bergdahl’s release. The first was Mohammad Nabi Omari, one of the most significant former Taliban leaders detained at Guantánamo, with operational ties to anti-coalition militia groups, including Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and the Haqqani network. Another, Mullah Norullah Noori was considered one of the most significant former Taliban officials at the prison. Both Noori and a third detainee exchanged, Mullah Mohammad Fazl, a former Taliban deputy defense minister, were accused of having commanded forces that killed thousands of Shiite Muslims, a minority in Afghanistan before the Taliban were toppled in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks. The fourth detainee was Abdul Haq Wasiq, a top Taliban intelligence official. The fifth, Khirullah Said Wali Khairkhwa, was a former minister of the interior and provincial governor.
Bowe Bergdahl was a different sort of kid who grew up off the grid and surrounded with books. He was raised in a cabin in Idaho’s Wood River Valley, a sparse and rugged corner of the American west. Bowe Bergdahl never owned or drove a car. He and his sister were homeschooled by their father, Bob Bergdahl, an intense woodsman who trained them to shoot and survive in the wild. Bob built a simple cabin that eventually housed about 5,000 books, but for years had no phone. Additionally, Bob Bergdahl was accused of stalking two twins, and of being a peeping tom, according to police records.
In his early 20s, Bowe moved from job to job and worked as a crew member on a large sailboat. He also trained as a ballet dancer shortly before the Army while working as a barista in Hailey, Idaho. Bergdahl began taking classes at the Sun Valley Ballet School and later moved in with his dance instructor. “I don’t think he understood really what he was going to do,” said his older sister, Sky Bergdahl.
Bergdahl’s father had strong views about the US mission in Afghanistan and claimed that his son did as well. US counterinsurgency doctrine was, according to his father, “a biometric data-gathering device. Send the rabbits out there to get I.E.D’d so you can figure out who to kill at night. How ethical.”
Three years before Bowe Bergdahl disappeared from his small military outpost in eastern Afghanistan, he enlisted in the Coast Guard and left after 26 days for psychological reasons. He was given an uncategorized discharge. That should have been a bright red flag, yet it was ignored.
Interestingly, Bowe Bergdahl was stationed at the same FOB, Sharana, where I was a contractor. There are reports Bergdahl contends FOB Sharana was a terrible and depressing place. As far as I am concerned, FOB Sharana was the best assignment I had in my three years in Afghanistan.
Bowe Bergdahl faces one count of desertion under Article 85 and misbehavior before the enemy and abandonment of his unit under Article 99. The punishment under Article 85 can carry a maximum sentence that includes dishonorable discharge, demotion to E-1 status, forfeiture of pay and a possible five years’ incarceration. The punishment under Article 99 is similar only with a possible maximum incarceration for life.
Red Flags Ignored
If you look at these three traitors, and yes that is what I consider them, some indicators should have been caught long before these three went off the deep end. All were unfit for military service. Manning was going to be washed out of basic training but was retained for some reason that we do not know. Snowden washed out of the Army for shin splints, and Bergdahl washed out of the Coast Guard for mental issues before he joined the Army.
All three had mental problems. They had problems in school in their youth as well. While Bergdahl did not attend school, he was home schooled and lived in an isolated environment. Snowden dropped out of school in the tenth grade and never completed any other schooling, degrees, or certificates, although he claims he did. Manning was small, non-athletic, and had few if any friends in school. He stayed to himself and lived on his computer. Gender identity was an issue early in his life.
It also seems all three of the subjects had anger issues and hot tempers that at times were uncontrolled. In hindsight, the red flags were flying. In fact, they are so glaring that one can only surmise those warning signs were ignored. All three had unrealistic opinions of themselves, and each decided they alone knew better than anyone else. All three violated their oaths, their duties, and the law. All three are responsible for untold harm to the United States. They are all in part responsible for deaths of soldiers, intelligence personnel, or contacts.
They all swore an oath – to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic, to bear true faith and allegiance to the same, to obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over them.
These three failed miserably.
Jon Harris is an OpsLens contributor and former Army NCO, civilian law enforcement officer, and defense contractor with over 30 years in the law enforcement community. He holds a B.S. in Government and Politics and an M.S. in Criminal Justice.
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