Nope. It was the ***** who killed Manny.
You've seen Guy Standeven in something because the man was in everything.

Kind of silly to think Barnes did it - He would've had to silently slit his throat, hump him 1000 yards up river, tie him to the post, and then hump back 1000 yards to the rest of the platoon. When would he have time to do this?

Extremely unlikely that Barnes killed him. A moment's inattention in a guerrilla war and your enemy may get you. Barnes had no need to create such an artificial situation to "harden" his men. The war would do that.
"Chicken soup - with a beep straw."

Well I haven't read the other responses to your moms take on this but I will say this, I am going to have to watch this again tonight and pay special attention to that scene. This sort of post is why I like these boards, not to debate but share ideas. Not sure if I'll agree with you and your mom but it's definitely and interesting idea! Thanks for sharing. I'll try to remember to post after I see it again.

No Barnes did not kill Manny. He had to supervise his platoon. But Barnes noticed something that most viewers or at least the comments on this thread have not: there were no "military age males ( except the mentally challenged man ) in the village. Why? because they were killing Manny and Barnes knew it. That's when he flipped out and went berserk. He was, in his own mind, giving the villagers exactly what they deserved. Oliver Stone doesn't spell it out for the audience but it's something combat veterans notice.

Late reply but I agree with what you said with regard to Barnes. He is clearly a psychopath who will be ok to you as long as you go along with everything he says and does.
The moment you disagree or challenge someone like that you will more than likely be dealt with swiftly and in an unpleasant fashion, that is why Elias ends up dead. He had become a problem to Barnes and when the opportunity presented itself Barnes took him out, being a psychopath killing Elias was logical to him and the obvious way of solving that problem.
Barnes did not kill Manny, thats ridiculous. The whole point of that part of the movie after Manny's death was to show how the war had pushed some of these men to the absolute limit and they snapped, mainly through fear I'd say although that is no excuse for killing innocent people.
The part where Chris sees Barnes smoking after the two guys have been blown up is very interesting. He looks shaken and sad even if he is a psycho, the whole experience of the war had clearly had a very negative effect on him.
It smells like a Spin Doctors concert in here.

Served 2 tours in the sh!t-hole known as Iraq, infantry. Not some fobbit. Was there in 2004 when the insurgency exploded and then again during the surge in 2007 when we went from Camp Victory and Liberty to COPs in southern Baghdad.
War changes people. It dehumanizes you. I believe Barnes was simply a product of his environment. Stone said Barnes had already served 3 tours and was shot and injured numerous times. He came to believe it was his war and it was personal. The simple fact is, to survive in a war zone you have to become a maniac. The damn problem in Vietnam was the same we faced in Iraq, we had no idea who was a friendly and who was an enemy. You keep losing guys and hardly ever see the enemy and you know the people know who and where these insurgents are and yet they don't tell you. You become suspicious of everyone which inevitably leads to hating them and viewing them less than human. Better one of them die than us.
I frequently saw things that disgusted me that some of our fellow soldiers did. Killing unarmed civilians, dogs, destroying peoples property act. But no matter what, we all cared about each other no matter if we got along or not because when the sh!t hits the fan, and my god it hit the fan damn near everyday, we were all we had. Barnes simply got lost in the war but he did care about the troops in his click deeply.
Yeah, Barnes was a maniac but everyone in a war is a maniac to one degree or another. Almost a decade later I still can't sleep well at all, my hands shake, I have terrible nightmares when I do sleep. I constantly wonder why it was my buddy who died and not me. We were sitting a foot apart and the sniper chose him, not me. Why? Getting to set on the right side of the Humvee one day, which was not my usual spot, and an IED hit and badly wounded everyone but me and another spec. I would not wish war on anyone.
Wow, I did not realize I wrote this much. Talking about movies for some reason calms me down, weird.
Haters gonna hate

Sorry, Stone himself says Barnes cares deeply about the men under his command that were on his side and not Elias. In the directors commentary again Stone says himself Barnes is in that little hut sitting there because he cared for those men.
He most certainly did not give the wrong coordinates for the artillery. In fact he cusses the LT for getting so many of his own men killed and injured with bad coordinates. He is furious and immediately calls for them to check their fire to stop them. Stone makes one thing clear in the commentary, and that is Barnes deeply believes in the war and cares for his men. He wanted to kill Elias simply because he believes the "we break down, the machine breaks down" quote. Elias in his view was doing that very thing.
I suggest you listen to the commentary with him and Dale Dye, its fascinating.
That's why we get incorrect "psychoanalysis". Stone knew guys like that, and believed in them, living a delusion. That's how maniacs like Barnes get by, because too many idiots like Stone swallow their "I care for my men, so I kill them" lie.
I suggest you get out in the real world instead of listening to grunts who listen to quacks.
I've known too many maniacs like Barnes. And some who believed they were just "rough around the edges" didn't survive to tell the truth, but some did. And some were always fooled and just lucky they didn't get hurt bad.
The reason this is fact is because there is no motivation for people like Barnes except pure evil. These maniacs will lie and get the gullible to rationalize, because people want to think well of "rough" guys, but it is what it is.
Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!

Agree 100%. No way did Barnes kill Manny. As twisted as he was, he still had genuine compassion for his men who had just died, and he was simply reacting to that, and it was in a wartime setting/situation. His reactions are coming from a place that many of us will(hopefully)never know.

Sorry, Stone himself says Barnes cares deeply about the men under his command that were on his side and not Elias. In the directors commentary again Stone says himself Barnes is in that little hut sitting there because he cared for those men.
He most certainly did not give the wrong coordinates for the artillery. In fact he cusses the LT for getting so many of his own men killed and injured with bad coordinates. He is furious and immediately calls for them to check their fire to stop them. Stone makes one thing clear in the commentary, and that is Barnes deeply believes in the war and cares for his men. He wanted to kill Elias simply because he believes the "we break down, the machine breaks down" quote. Elias in his view was doing that very thing.
I suggest you listen to the commentary with him and Dale Dye, its fascinating.
Haters gonna hate

The answers pro and con are off the mark. The ones who think Barnes wasn't a psychopathic killer are way too nave.
However, Barnes, being a control freak psychopath, a homicidal maniac, was only interested in creating scenarios of death for anyone he could, in a power game we see with many rich kids today who play internet games.
Barnes is the maniac who thinks he has strategy, style, and inspiration, even though he has zero of each. He was only out to abuse power. He cheats his men at cards, and he cheats them in their lives.
He would not "kill" Many himself, but he definitely would ensure a situation where Manny would be killed. It is very likely he even saw who did it, and allowed it, even likelier he told Manny he "had his back" and let him hang out to dry.
It's most likely that the exchange of looks is Barnes wondering if Taylor also saw the killing.
Don't believe for a second that Barnes "cared" for his men. If there wasn't a war, he would find another reason to destroy or kill whomever he could. It was his way of feeling in control. If he was a construction worker in the states, he would sabotage a scaffold, replace a tool, anything to possibly cause someone else to die or get hurt. The incident with the "friendly fire". The lieutenant was under his thumb, and there is no doubt he gave the lieutenant the very coordinates to kill his own men, and the lieutenant is even more afraid of him after that.
Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!

I didn't think Barnes kill Manny. I think Manny was just killed and mutilated by a NVA and that's just that. Nothing else.
Welcome to my Nightmare- Freddy Krueger

I'm going to pretend you and your mom haven't even seen Platoon,I oughta have you horse whipped asking a stupid question You need to rewatch the movie, maybe I can take your mom out while you watch it?

In reading these comments I find that anyone thinks that Barnes killed Manny ludicrous. No way did he do that, and anyone thinks otherwise is delusional.

I hope so!

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1. The Vietnamese would most certainly take out an American soldier 50 meters from his platoon. The fact that the Americans butchered a village drove more and more people to see the Americans as the bad guys and would help hosted people to fight against them. The Vietnamese would have no samn problem with losing those supplies. They were fighting a political war as well as militarily. They never planned on winning the war militarily. They just had to inflict casualties and fight as long as they could. They were willing to fight till the last man as they viewed the war as another 1st world country trying to invade and subject them to slaves.
2. The VC killed Manny, oliver stone himself said the same thing happened to a guy he knew in vietnam . The VC even wrote a message and put it around his neck.
3. Barnes was not out to just murder people. He believed in the war. Killing the villagers was a natural reaction that many real life soldiers did as well. The 3 deaths of his troops, and Stone himself said Barnes deeply cared for those on his side of the platoon, along with finding the supplies simply boiled over into murder. Barnes did not set out that day to murder civillains.
   Haters gonna hate

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Probably since hes not on guard duty remember? Manny is.
To get Manny distracted, all Barnes need to do is offer him a cig and stabby stabby.

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Try asking yourself this question: who has more freedom? the guy on watch or the guy claiming to be at the bunker to fool people like you into thinking you're not a nut? pun intended.

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Civvie casualties are high because usually a village gets artillery prep & the NVA were very quick to make sure civilians were in the mix where they could amush allied units from bunkers in the village. It does build mistrust-like the cops in shytty parts of town (& trying to track down people with a history of firing at police) tend to be more trigger happy: shoot first ask questions later.'
All that being said, that's always been a feature of guerrilla wars. Yet in spite of all that, more civilians died AFTER the war because in true commie fashion the North Viets & their erstwhile allies/clients like the Khmer Rouge & Pathet Lao just couldn't resist 'liquidating class enemies';
Still, usually NVA would operate in the hills & jungles away from populated areas because they were nearer to their sanctuaries & basecamps, near or over the border.
Why can't you wretched prey creatures understand that the Universe doesn't owe you anything!?