The act of whistleblowing by individuals such as Army private Bradley Manning, who was sentenced today to 35 years in prison, and intelligence analyst Edward Snowden, whose actions have stripped him of U.S. citizenship and have left him stateless in Russia, have polarized many beliefs on morality and courage.
On one hand, Manning and Snowden are viewed as cowardly traitors, who deserve far more than their current punishments for putting national security at risk. Then again, there are individuals such as Christopher Yates, a British Army officer who took a thoughtful approach to why we want to hide the ugliness of war, and worse yet, punish those who want to expose war’s evil truths.
In an op-ed in The Guardian, Yates wrote candidly on whistleblowing from his perspective gained while serving in Iraq: “I vaguely hoped that one day, someone would say something. I just didn’t want that person to be me. That bar was too high for my moral courage to clear.”
Daniel Ellsberg, the former U.S. military analyst who famously leaked the Pentagon Papers, gives a grim picture of the war not just on WikiLeaks, but on all whistleblowing. Since assuming office, Ellsberg says, Obama has brought five indictments against whistleblowers– nearly twice as many as all the previous presidents combined.
Ellsberg: Obama Has Declared War on Whistleblowers from Churchill Club on FORA.tv
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