This past week, WikiLeaks released over 70,000 classified documents about the war in Afghanistan, after giving three major news outlets time to sift through and interpret them for consumption by the broader public. The leaks in this case may or may not have come from the top as Mr. Reston suggested, but regardless of their source one must ask if the culture of leaking that pervades public service is in itself a danger to the successful conduct of government. Although leaking vessels may very well provide a better window into their internal workings and thus better news coverage, the very existence of the leak confirms that the structure has been breached and is in danger. Thinking through the implications of this event, which was brushed aside in an unusually quick manner by both politicians and the press, requires that one try to balance several issues simultaneously. Namely, these are the right to speak freely, the right of the public to know what is being done by the government in their name, the right of the service personnel and their civilian counterparts to be free from fear of retribution, and the right of the Afghans to know what is going on in their own country.
The right to speak freely is at the heart of representative constitutional government and is closely related to the “public’s right to know.” The question is where the boundaries of these rights lie, and the answer tends to be in the eye of the beholder. In this instance however, a very clear legal boundary has already been established by the fact that the documents that were released were still considered classified. Whether or not the action was morally right, the leaker is guilty of a crime. Just as we learn as kids that “two wrongs don’t make a right,” we must ask whether it is right to commit a crime to expose what you think may be other crimes in a time of war. This is where the topic can quickly become heated because in some respects it is hard to argue that any war is devoid of some level of war crimes and other unintended consequences like civilian deaths. Conducting war has historically required a degree of wilful ignorance about its messier aspects. Conversely, if people who witness wrong-doing are not willing to speak against it, do they themselves not commit wrong and become complicit witnesses. Perhaps if the full terror of war was exposed it would be entered into with more trepidation. The lack of any massive military engagements in the Cold War era, for instance, could support this notion since the political leaders of the late 1940s to the mid 1960s were mostly people who had direct experience of World War II in one way or another.
Soldiers who have direct experience of war have traditionally been applauded by society as its protectors, but the experience of the Vietnam War veterans proves that this is not always the case. After the release of the Pentagon Papers, which documented not only a pattern of lies from politicians about their intentions to keep fighting to a minimum, but also catalogued various atrocities committed by soldiers in prosecuting the war, there was widespread protest and rioting, and returning soldiers were sometimes cursed and spat upon. This experience was so traumatic for the United States that every conflict since has seen a concentrated public effort to thank troops for their service with parades, discounts at various businesses, and other perks. In the case of the Wikileaks papers, the threat appears to be aimed elsewhere as the Taliban are publically stating their intention to hunt down any informers and NATO collaborators named in the documents. Here again is a painful dilemma. As long as threats to peace remain, the most valuable asset a government can have is reliable, detailed intelligence that allows for the right threats to be neutralized before they can become significant. If the US government cannot even protect its own documents, how can it protect the people who put their very lives on the line to infiltrate and report on those groups that are actively seeking its defeat?
Finally, it must be asked whether the Wikileaks release will positively impact the people of Afghanistan. For all the sacrifices of the NATO countries and their troops, there are undoubtedly countless more suffered by the Afghans who have to endure the daily threat of violence from extremists along with the threat of accidentally being caught up in the violence of the war through the misfortune of simply looking like or living near someone in al-Qaeda or the Taliban. This very question is what is now being debated between Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and the Pentagon, both of whom claim the other party has blood on his/their hands. The answer to this question is of the utmost importance and yet it is not at all clear how many lives have been put at risk by the papers’ release or if they will achieve their stated intent of shaming the United States into withdrawal.
Ultimately, it is impossible to know with certainty which path forward poses the least amount of risk and death for both Afghanistan and the NATO countries fighting there to protect its government along with their own. This is why the decision by Wikileaks to release the documents and the decision of the media to publish them and contextualise them can not be simply swept aside with the turning of the news cycle. The fact that it is in the interest of both the media and political leaders to move on from the discomfort this topic causes as expeditiously as possible does not mean that it is in the public’s interest to do so. At issue are questions more fundamental than whether civilians are dying, war crimes being committed or lives being endangered. Rather what is at stake is the bargain by which the public willingly limits its rights to know everything the government does so that the government is best able to defend its very existence. Let us hope that any future wannabe Daniel Ellsburgs (the leaker of the Pentagon Papers) undertake their publication of potentially deadly revelations with the utmost caution and humility, rather than with the obnoxious pride and self-righteousness so prominently on display in the interviews given by Wikileaks’ Mr. Assange.
Posted on August 5, 2010
comments