Much of the wrongdoing that Manning exposed hasn’t been dealt with nearly as harshly as he has. American troops killing civilians, including women and children, and then calling in an airstrike to destroy evidence; the video of an American Apache helicopter gunship shooting civilians, including two Reuters reporters; American military authorities failing to investigate reports of torture and murder by Iraqi police; and a “black unit” in Afghanistan tasked to perform extrajudicial assassinations of Taliban sympathizers that killed as many as 373 civilians. What has happened to those responsible for these acts? In most cases, not much. For example, no charges have been brought against the U.S. military personnel who were in the Apache helicopter when it opened fire in Baghdad, in July, 2007—an incident that my colleague Raffi Khatchadourian wrote about at length in his 2010 article on Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. “When a soldier who shared information with the press and public is punished far more harshly than others who tortured prisoners and killed civilians, something is seriously wrong with our justice system,” the A.C.L.U.’s Ben Wizner said in a statement. Could anybody disagree with that? .....
Posted on: Thu, 22 Aug 2013 01:52:22 +0000
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