I’ve got a secret, just a little one, and that’s
such a warm, happy feeling that I’m hugging close to my chest.
Nope, sorry: wild
horses won’t drag it from me.
But since I know you don’t have wild horses, o.k. I will: I’ll share it with you.
And what if I do…who
cares?
Not with my kind of secrets.
But what should we care for the secrets spilled by
the likes of Private Bradley Manning & Edward Snowden and the very people
who undertake such actions?
(it's my blog and I admire Amnesty International, so there! and yes, The Guardian, too
With Manning, the polarisation in the debate seemed
clear cut right from the beginning, and repeated in his court martial in July:
a traitor, not a whistle blower.
Or the
opposite, depending on your stance.
And by fast forwarding to the outcomes of the court
martial, Manning was cleared of the gravest charge….that he aided the enemy,
but he was guilty under the (USA’s) Espionage Act of various other charges brought
against him.
Thus he avoided the death penalty, but is now facing a lifetime of
incarceration.
Traitor? Whistle blower?
Of course Manning took an oath & swore loyalty.
But
is there never an occasion when someone has to forsake that oath?
Does the occasion never arise when an individual is required to assess the expectations demanded of that loyalty?
Is the state the ultimate
authority that you must obey?
Is it too simplistic to quote M K Gandhi ….http://www.gandhiinstitute.org/
’many people especially ignorant people want to punish you for speaking the truth, for being correct, for being you’
The court martial decisions appear to acknowledge
that the massive quantity of ‘leaks’ and the wide scope of content meant that
some of the charges were ‘lesser’ and even ‘transitory’
Steven Aftergood, an expert on government secrecy
at the non-partial Federation of American Scientists, agreed. http://blogs.fas.org/secrecy/author/saftergood/
"The official damage assessments concerning Manning and Wikileaks have not been publicly released, but my sense is that the bulk of the damage is subtle rather than catastrophic," he said.
Much has been made
by the whistle blower faction of
the fact that there was embarrassment caused to the USA. This was predicated on
the fact that the amount and scope of the leaking exposed a very simple truth: that there is no (future) guarantee coming
from the USA.
Namely that they could ensure confidentially to their allies.
Thus
the actions of a whistle blower, not a traitor.
But the counter argument was that embarrassment was
at one end of the spectrum and then went all the way up to the other. You had the actions of a traitor that threatened state
security intelligence, military ops, and diplomacy in general.
I think I’m back to Gandi and others, but really this guy.........
“I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
So if Manning’s crime was to tell us what has taken
place (those video clips, memos, emails) and he is being punished for the act
of telling, who will be punished for the act of doing, for issuing the orders?
Will anyone be punished for undertaking those specific
actions?
The Nuremberg trials were surely built on the basis of it was not
acceptable to say…I was following orders.
And will anyone be punished for condoning, aiding and abetting the actions taken by others: the dictators, the
oppressors, in places such as Tunisia and the Middle East?
After all, my enemies enemy is my friend, or, so what, let them get on it with?
What do
we care! What’s a bit of water boarding now and then?
And then there’s Edward Snowden.
He’s left the
building for sure. But for how long? The duration of the first ‘visa’, Then an
extension? And another and another?
During the stand-off at the OK Corral Airport, the USA said it wouldn’t ground a plane over
a ‘hacker’.
The implications being the USA valued its allies too highly to cause
such a potential diplomatic incident.
Or conversely, it didn’t rate the hacker
highly enough.
Obviously it couldn’t be the latter, and they didn’t
want the former, so the action of grounding the Bolivian President’s plane was
action enough.
It said, oh yes, we will.
Thus
Snowden was effectively trapped in Russia and Russia was forced to act.
But now we’ve come to the point that the USA and
others want us to focus on.
The plight of the individuals.
Their futures, or
lack of.What will happen? Will there be appeals? Will the petition to award Manning the Nobel peace prize gain moment?
Will Snowden mysteriously disappear only to reappear somewhere else, South America perhaps?
They have become the story. Not what they have
exposed; not what they have told us, and what to many, they have confirmed. The
people are now the story
Do we need people who tell the truth?
Who share
their secrets?
Who are prepared to take risks that impact on their futures,
their very lives and that of their families?
Do we need the press, the media, wikileaks even, to
be there to hear, see, read and share the previously hidden, secret
information?
I think we do, though I must admit, my guilty
secret is:
I doubt I would have the moral courage to do what they have done if I ever had such secrets on my conscience.
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