David McBride: former army lawyer sentenced to five years for stealing and leaking Afghanistan war documents (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/news@aussie.zone

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Complete bullshit. Regimes that punish whistleblowers harder than war criminals reveal themselves as dreaming of tyranny.

The entire trial was cooked, and I'm furious :(

That non parole period is nuts too, pure revenge. What danger does this man represent? If he's out on the streets some war criminals better watch their backs?

edit: I should add, it's also quite frustrating that at the end of all this top brass has had no light shone on them, which was his initial goal on leaking. He thought the SAS was being investigated overmuch as a distraction from leadership failures. I guess we'll never know. A slap on the wrist for the executioners, no systematic investigation, and an inconvenient man in gaol.

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[-] Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone 3 points 11 months ago

I think leaking military secrets is as good as treason.

Down vote me all you like.

I also recognise it's a slippery slope that will lead to criminal investigations etc being leaked and punished just as hard to keep a politician or police officer safe.

The difference is the military is here to protect everyone, the police are here to protect those in power.

[-] livus@kbin.social 9 points 11 months ago

Not going to downvote you, partly because I only downvote spam and partly because kbin doesn't federate downvotes so I can't even see downvotes from you and vice versa.

But I fundamentally disagree. One of the lessons of Nuremberg was that obeying orders isn't a good enough reason to commit war crimes.

One of the corollaries to that, for me, is that obeying rules isn't a good enough reason to be complicit in covering up war crimes either.

If a secret is a crime it's more treasonous to keep it a secret, because the people of our nations haven't voted to leave the Geneva Conventions and go out and commit war crimes.

[-] Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone 2 points 11 months ago

I just don't think we can live in such a black and white world.

I wish we could.

I'm not saying you're wrong in any point though, I think i you're entirely right. Just it's all an impossible situation.

[-] Wirlocke 9 points 11 months ago

I'd say believing that leaking military secrets is treasonous no matter what's being leaked is a more black and white opinion than believing the responsibility is on the individuals involved to determine if keeping the secret is unjust.