Bradley Manning is innocent, according to Judge Colonel Denise Lind, of aiding the enemy.
With this verdict, truly horrible consequences for freedom of speech are averted.
Nevertheless, according to the invaluable Alexa O’Brien, Manning still faces a maximum 136 years for the 20 (out of 22) charges on which he was found guilty. [corrected total number of charges/guilty verdicts]
When Manning plead guilty in February to 10 lesser charges (Lind accepted 2 of those pleas), he said he hoped his leaks “could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan.” For that, the government accused him of being a traitor.
Lind agreed with the government on almost every other issue but that one. And for his efforts, Manning may well spend the rest of his life in prison.
Update: Here’s my longer take at Salon. Note this bit:
There is one more significant detail in Lind’s ruling today. In addition to aiding the enemy, the one other charge she found Manning innocent of involved leaking a video of a civilian massacre in Garani, Afghanstan. While Manning admitted accessing the video, the government insisted he had leaked it months before Manning admitted to accessing the video (and before forensic evidence showed he had). This claim — one Lind said they did not prove — was key to their claims that Manning had planned to leak to WikiLeaks from the start of his deployment to Iraq.