"This Man's Army"

There are an unbelievable number of preventable, serious breaches of honor and integrity occurring in the military.

Snowden worked at NSA for less than a year and took the job with the intention of leaking information.

In the entire clearance process, not ONE person managed to make him as a fraud.

Manning showed countless signs of being unhinged. Not one person in his chain of command did what was necessary to stop him before it was too late. Not one person who in-processed him made him as a confused and tormented individual. Instead, we handed him a clearance.

The Army is going to try and make this about individuals, but there are critical failures within the Army itself that are going unaddressed. As we speak, there are half a thousand students going through AIT to become Intelligence Analysts. By the end of the year, the majority of them will be handling sensitive information. Nowhere near that proportion of them is actually mentally and/or psychologically qualified to do that job with the attention to detail and gravitas it requires. They are being permitted to do things which they ought not to be because the Army is willing to cut corners to fill the demands of a war that is all-but over.

Manning, Snowden, and Hassan are guilty and deserve punishment. None of what I've said is intended to exonerate them. But let's not forget that the blame for the damage they have done does not rest solely with them.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/this_man_army_jwvZnsKtD2t4M19soRtIXJ