In the past few weeks, President Barack Obama has made clear that he wants to earn a spot in the history books. After witnessing the election of a Republican majority Nov. 8, Obama has pulled the gloves off in an effort to earn that spot.
After all, his Obamacare plan, the massive undertaking he campaigned on, is already being dismantled at this moment by the Republican party, even as they still fail to produce a replacement plan. He promised to close Guantanamo Bay, and eight years later the prison remains open. His claims of working to solve the Iraq and Afghanistan wars has ended in a Middle East haunted by ISIS.
With Trump taking charge and the Republican’s controlling both Chambers of Congress, all manner of changes are certain as he signed an Executive order to make changes to FHA-backed mortgages, meaning that millions of Americans will be affected. Investors however, may look to consult a real estate investing calculator should flipping opportunities arise in the wake of the changes.
So in his lame duck days, he’s closed a Russian embassy and deported 35 accused spies, as well as imposing sanctions on the country; he’s ended the Wet Foot-Dry Foot policy that allowed Cubans fleeing the dictatorship legal residency if they land on U.S. soil; he’s declared a number of civil rights landmarks as national monuments; and this week, he’s pardoned General James Cartwright and commuted Chelsea Manning’s prison sentence.
The news of Manning’s impending release has been met with celebration, elation and even disbelief among her supporters, who have spent seven years campaigning for her sentence to be commuted or pardoned.
A former U.S. soldier, Manning was convicted in 2010 of 20 charges of espionage after leaking over 750,000 highly classified documents to WikiLeaks. She was sentenced to 35 years in prison for revealing the U.S. government’s shameful role in killing civilians in Iraq.
Her conviction and sentence has long represented a crime against justice for Manning supporters, who feel that her role as a whistleblower in the U.S. army’s war crimes should be commended, not punished. The government’s response to the information Manning leaked was little more than punishing someone who recognized their superiors did wrong.
Obama could have stepped in at any point to commute Manning’s sentence. However, throughout his presidency he maintained the line of thinking that Manning threatened national security, and deserved imprisonment. To release her now, and further to declare that her release date will be May 17, rather than immediately, feels like an insincere attention grabber. It’s certainly a reversal of the stance he’s taken for the past eight years.
Indeed, even his explanation in a press conference refused to admit that there was anything wrong with keeping Manning imprisoned: “I feel very comfortable that justice has been served and that a message has still been sent that when it comes to our national security, that wherever possible, we need folks who may have legitimate concerns about the actions of government or their superiors or the agencies in which they work that they try to work through the established channels,” Obama said Thursday.
The justification rings hollow for many, as hundreds of thousands of documents detailing war crimes and the attack of civilians doesn’t suggest that established channels would be receptive to such concerns. Manning prioritized the need to share information with the world about what precisely the army was doing in Iraq, rather than giving the United States another chance to cover it up.
Obama’s decision to commute Manning’s sentence is little more than an effort to be the one recognized for doing that. He’s even left several months in between the announcement and the release for President-elect Donald Trump to step in and halt it. It’s a poor last ditch move.