Okay, Strife, look, I can understand why you don't like the guy.
But look at it from my perspective - You're organization lies to me, deceives me, takes my money and then uses it to act in ways directly contrary to my best interests, while killing loads of people and leading to the deaths of countrymen and friends.
I understand obedience is useful for a soldier, and why the army would want obedience above morality - it clearly doesn't give a shit about morality, since the soldiers responsible for a wide variety of atrocities that reflected poorly on them were given nothing but a slap on the wrist. It aids and abets criminals the world over, tarnishing the image of my nation and endangering the lives of those I care about.
I understand why you don't like Manning - he's launched an attack on your organization from the inside, and broken the bonds of trust.
What you need to understand is why we do - because he's not on your side. He chose loyalty to the American people over loyalty to the military. It is a hard choice, and I understand why he needs to be punished in order to keep your organization operating. It's the reason he plead guilty to 10 charges.
But from my perspective, from the perspective of an American citizen, you are serving in an armed organization intent on operating in the interests of those who seek to harm this country. You are working for traitors, and your obedience is not a fucking excuse for the evil you enable. Manning (unlike Snowden), is most definitely a traitor - but he is a traitor who has acted in my best interests, and by god if there's anything I can do to support him I will, and I wish there was more like him. Not just because I care about me, but because I care about you.
Manning was a terrible soldier. But he was a good man. We've got far more of a shortage of the second than we do of the first.