Have they cut it off yet? The penis attached to traitorous transsexual Chelsea Manning, I mean. How else to explain the level of feverish disturbance necessary for the former Private Bradley to pen an op-ed saying we should “let ISIS succeed” in its mission to destroy half the Middle East, murdering, raping and torturing anyone in its way. 

There’s no doubt that dealing with ISIS, the Islamic State or whatever those barbarian nutcases are calling themselves this week will be a delicate political balancing act, requiring a combination of deep sociological, historical and religious understanding combined with military action where necessary. 

But Manning, let’s be clear, wasn’t a senior army officer, or even a senior intelligence figure, with access to a wide range of data and asked to give his opinion on complex military and political matters. Manning has in fact very little grasp of nuanced global politics from his cell in Fort Leavenworth, despite his vomit-inducing bragging about his “experience as an all-source analyst in Iraq.”

Manning shows no understanding of the subtle demands of the situation, or of the nature of ISIS (almost as though he’d been living in a cave the last few years!). For example, he says ISIS has “origins in the insurgency of the United States occupation of Iraq,” which (a) neatly blames the US for everything – how predictable! – and (b) is factually wrong, since it ignores ISIS’ true aetiology in the Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad group, as far back as 1999.

“Avoiding direct action with Isis can be successful,” Manning continues. “For instance, in 2009 and 2010, Isis attacked civilians in suicide and car bombings in downtown Baghdad to try and provoke American intervention and sectarian unrest.” OK, yeah, sure: let’s leave them to slaughter Christians and Yazidis and even other Muslims and just…. what, Bradley? Hope for the best? 

Manning suggests “containment” followed by a fingers-crossed, wait-and-see, “oh c’mon guys they won’t survive for long if they’ve only got Iraq and Syria, surely” strategy. This analysis has all the sophistication of a twelve-year-old school child asked to devise a solution to the Hundred Years’ War. Only the Guardian would publish such bilge, by, let’s remember, a convicted traitor, currently languishing in prison. 

Manning, is of course, suffering from a lamentable psychiatric disorder. Normally, we help people like that by giving them access to doctors and drugs. What we don’t do is provide them bylines in a major international newspaper in which they can sketch out bizarre opinion pieces about geopolitical affairs, weakening the case for possibly necessary military intervention among ordinary members of the public. Why does the Guardian think it knows better? 

We all know the answer to that one: any enemy of the American state must automatically be A Good Guy – hence that newspaper’s odious sucking up to the obviously unhinged Julian Assange and its love affair with Edward Snowden. But, sooner or later, these heroic freedom fighters always end up disgracing themselves, whether it’s Snowden selling out to Russia or Assange getting caught up in rape allegations.

Left-wing newspapers, and credulous internet supporters, see nothing wrong with putting national security in the hands of these damaged and morally compromised individuals. 

I don’t believe everything the government tells me, and I know it snoops on me more than it should, but do I trust the NSA more than I trust a loopy alleged rapist, Putin’s bitch or a psychologically fragile, gender-bending convicted traitor? You bet I do. 

American taxpayers must be spitting tacks at having to cater to the extravagant healthcare demands and languorous incarceration conditions of the conceited, damaged and dangerous Bradley Manning. And the Guardian should be ashamed of providing him with a platform with which to indulge his delusions.