I’ve got to go on record as being violently opposed to this, and I am totally baffled by it.

Chelsea (AKA Bradley) Manning, the transgender US soldier who was sentenced to 35 years in prison for leaking secret US military communications data to Wikileaks has had her sentence commuted by President Obama.

I simply do not understand this. The official reason for this commutation is Manning has already served 7 years, and has expressed remorse and admitted guilt. (Unlike Edward Snowden, who is hiding out in Moscow, snarking away under Putin’s protection after selling out his country.) Also, Manning’s sentence has supposedly been commuted to be more in line with other’s sentences for similar crimes.

Still, I don’t agree. This woman was a traitor, not a whistle-blower, and her crimes compromised the identities and lives of informants working for US Forces in Afghanistan. Those leaks could get our friends killed.

I am totally at a loss to understand this.