Catherine,

In reading your response it seems like you’re asking for a finished product to be provided before the production line has even been built.

Bradley Manning said: “everything started slipping after that… i saw things differently” That sounds like the beginning of a process, not the culmination of it. Perhaps there were no records of the event left. Perhaps he could recall the event, but not the particulars. After all, when he’s chatting with Lamo, he’s removed from that original set of actions and thoughts by some distance. Naturally, one might make one’s conversion as a particular time (which you evidently would prefer.)

But he seems not to be doing that. Manning seems instead to be saying “as I look back I think this is where I maybe started to feel like something had gone wrong. After pondering and watching more I eventually camr to the conclusion ….”

I dunno how you think, but that pattern would follow my conversion experiences pretty much to the period. I seldom arrive convinced and ready for action when I first see something that makes re-think a cherished belief (America first, last and always, for instance, we are always the good guys.) That belief would require some wearing down over time. There’s very little, I imagine, after the sort of indoctrination that most of us go through, that could/would make an abrupt change in our thinking and acting. Why would bradley Manning be different?