The subtle significance of freeing ‘traitor’ Chelsea Manning

A lot has been said about how the proposed actions of the new US president will affect the world. Little attention, though, may have been given to the significance of one of outgoing President Barack Obama’s final acts as supreme leader of the most powerful country. He invoked executive powers to set free a highly controversial convict – Chelsea Manning – who was sentenced to 35 years in jail for leaking a massive amount of state secrets. In the process, Obama confounded everyone inside and outside the United States, not least the “spy” community.
Commuting sentences for drug or murder convicts may be clear-cut clemency; reducing penalties for people like Manning is anything but that. In making his decision, Obama overrode high-level national security opinions, which were firmly in favour of harsh punishment. Senior Republican politicians slammed him for being soft on the high-profile “traitor”. The Manning case is obviously a politically motivated clemency that is having repercussions across the globe.
Jailing Manning was an action carried out under the name of “national security” and much of America accepted it or was even pleased with it. But the punishment also flew in the face of an essential part of democracy, a political system championed by Washington. Democracy is supposed to tolerate, if not fully support, the freedom of information. America has been dubbed a hypocrite when it comes to protecting freedom of information, largely due to its treatment of Manning and another world-renowned “traitor” – Edward Snowden.
The information leaked by Snowden and Manning was publicised by Wikileaks, an extreme anti-secrecy organisation and a big thorn in the side of the United States. It has been proven time and again that content exposed by Wikileaks can only embarrass the US government at most because the country is too powerful for either allies or enemies to do much else about the information. In other words, if the US needs to change the way its government functions following the massive leaks, it’s because of its red-faced self, not legal or military action by related outsiders.
The “secrets” leaked by Manning included the killing of innocent Muslims in an Apache helicopter attack and how intelligence officials assessed Guantanamo detainees being held without trial. She also let out numerous military records from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
So, should someone be penalised for telling the world that innocent people were killed and some suspects were detained without trial? Shouldn’t the acts of killing and the detaining of people without trials be more wrong? That the “secrets” could “endanger American lives” is an argument relying on something yet to take place, as opposed to the innocent deaths and detention without trials being a fait accompli. 
But will Obama’s action encourage copycats? This question certainly was pondered over by the former president and it will hound him for a very long time. National politics is also a factor, because Obama reduced Manning’s sentence in his final days as president when he could have done it earlier, and because leakage of “secrets” can target his party’s key rival, new President Donald Trump.
The bottom line is that espionage is a game. This means players can win or lose. It also means everyone can lose face at one time or another. The big question, therefore, is this: Who do you punish when you play and slip in the game – yourself, or anyone but yourself?
America has lost face a few times, and it has chosen to punish “someone else”. 
Obama’s move suggested a change that appears subtle today, as clemency doesn’t mean Manning is not guilty, but can grow increasingly significant in the future.