Pfc. Bradley Manning
Speaking of spies, I’m not at all happy with Pfc. Bradley Manning and how he revealed classified information to Wikileaks. Wikileaks, not connected in any way to Wikipedia, is a site purporting to expose secrets.
While I deplore the Iraqi shooting incident revealed in the video Manning had posted to Wikileaks, I cannot get around the fact that Manning broke his oath to protect and safeguard classified information. Manning could have handled this in a way that did not expose classified information but the chose not to.
Manning is rumored to be going through gender identity issues. While the Army isn’t exactly welcoming of that behavior, it is still no excuse to reveal secrets.
In this case, the “classification” of the video seems more to me like an excuse. What information was revealed by this “leak” that has any business being secret?
As someone with access to classified information, that was no concern of Bradley Manning. End of story. He broke the law, plain and simple.
As I understand it, we’re not talking about whether it was illegal or not; we’re talking about whether it was the right thing to do.
Sometimes, doing the right thing requires breaking the law.
Manning and I differ on what “the right thing” is. Manning seems to have done what he did out of spite, not because he felt compelled to do so out of his convictions.
Manning doesn’t compare to Russell Tice, who blew the whistle on wiretapping by the Bush administration that was clearly illegal. I respect Tice but I do not respect Manning.
(P.S., and thanks for visiting! I appreciate the debate.)
At first I was going to say “that’s a valid argument, if it’s true” — but actually, I’m not sure the motivations matter. The question is, I think, twofold: (1) exactly what classified information did he leak, and (2) what harm does this information have the potential to cause?
I would assert that we can judge the rightness or wrongness of his actions entirely by looking at those two questions.
Also, on the matter of oaths: while it appears that he violated his oath to protect classified information, it also appears that he was also faithfully following his oath to protect the US and its citizens. I would argue that the latter should take precedence.
(Always glad to poke my face in when Someone Is Wrong On The Internet! (-;)