""And if he had, he would have been charged, faced a court martial and been found guilty,""

Yeah, Right!

The only reason there is any discussion at all is that the attempt to brush the affair under the carpet was circumvented by a pfc with a sense of right and wrong, who now faces the court martial which by rights should be trying the trigger happy killer.

But for pfc Manning, we wouldn't even know about it, so your assertions as to likely punishment don't exactly convince.

Don T.