Written by C:
Is anyone so bereft of intellect and memory to believe that the national security of the United States is at stake, and not that their gunboat policy has taken a torpedo on the port side and they are mad as heck, because they were having a ball with their unimpeded, unquestioned, covert & shameful operations? They have been doing it since before young Manning's parents were born. Nay, perhaps his grandparents; before my time anyway. But I recall some. Enough! Mossadek Lumumba, the Shah, Allende, Castro, Rhee, Guatemala and all the Central American banana plantations .If ever the United States are pushed against the wall and become out and out Nazis it will be like a breath of fresh air for a change for anyone that has endured such hypocrisy as Vietnam, Iraq etc .
Like one of the characters in Waking Life says, laziness is the most common human trait, fear then reinforces the bleating majority to rededicate itself to their first trait, keep grazing as long as the grazing is good and let the dirty work go unseen.
In a democracy freedom is the index of the passivity that the institution has been able to cultivate in its constituents .. We need more people like Noam, Julian and especially Bradley.
I no longer have the energy and passion that the subject deserves and would set ablaze the spirit of a Zola, or modestly my own heart a few decades ago. Yet what I can gather and pass on I will , and this is the conviction that since any army will unavoidably include within its ranks elements of low moral character and even outright trigger-happy murdering psychopaths, and so that such behavior should never elicit a policy of laissez faire it would be hoped that other elements of good character and high ethics would not only be present but indeed be encouraged and rewarded to police and curb such extreme misbehavior and brutalities. In the case of this young soldier and without a doubt in many other cases, this is not at all so. In fact whistle blowing, in even minor combat situations is taboo and hardly ever happens. When it does happen it is dealt with with the utmost severity. The problem lies in an illegal and immoral practice of inculcating a sense of fellowship that goes beyond any social criterion of bondage and then, what tops it all, is that the soldier is forced to swear an oath of allegiance to the corps and the nation whom it is sworn to serve and protect, that not only does not reflect the moral standard which the individual may have successfully adopted in his civil life, but in fact prohibits any reference or considerations to it. . A soldier who has sworn an oath of allegiance to his comrades and his nation has ipso facto compromised his humanity and his higher ethics. A young man may have taken the oath convinced that the oath to his regiment , flag and constitution was tantamount to an oath to the greatest ideals of man, may alas soon find out to be anything but that. Knowing this to be true now, he is faced with a grim choice, to denigrate his humanity by betraying what he considers the best possible definition of his existence and purpose or betray the group to which he has in good faith sworn allegiance. The choice he is presented with is either to obey the dictates of his conscience or to betray his group facing group retaliation and court martial. In sum an oath that does not reflect the highest aspiration of man is no better than an oath to a criminal organization and cannot in any ways be considered legal and binding. What could cause this protocol to lose its nefarious influence? The regimentation of more young men capable of making crucial distinctions! And who, upon consideration, would have the fortitude to risk adversity in order to be among those who actually resisted; those who remained more loyal than loyal, those who contributed to the ideals that had inspired them in the first place.
I hope there are a lot of legal, social and philosophical great minds at work on this event. that like the Vietnam war on TV implicates in various degrees all of us into the cloacal turpitude when national interests are placed above all other considerations.
“There is no substitute for victory!” Claimed proudly president Reagan. If so- alas! the accurate and proper measure of this ape, is still, the size of his stick.
To conclude, I believe that no oath of allegiance that compels a member to behave against his higher personal and civil ethics can be regarded as legal or binding. If the member has behaved against his association but in the interest of a higher public aspiration his conduct should be regarded as exemplary! Another urgent consideration is our subdued attitude to those who we elect to govern., which being elected by the people are ultimately accountable at every stage of their term and at every level and branch to the electorate and must be compelled to justify all their activities covert or public. According to the scenes I viewed it is difficult for me to conceive that it isn't the army, its officers and the government that is not standing in judgment. If the people are willing to let the government proceed with its own interests and agendas in mind, in a loose interpretation of what constitute a threat and what is in the public best interest to know or not to know, it will not be only the Bradleys and the Assanges that will pay for such abuses of interpretation of power and the obscene policies they promote, but every one, every where.
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