I don't admire what Bradley Manning did, but I don't like the things the Bush Administration did, either. In particular, I did not like what Karl Rove and Company did to Valerie Plame.
For political reasons, for the support of a war many on the right considered justified, they were willing to break the law, and then try and get away with it. Whether you consider right and wrong absolutes or not, the reality is, people have many different ideas about what is right and wrong.
People can and will justify many different things they do on the grounds that they believe it was right. They might justify blackmail on the grounds that the money was for a good cause. And perhaps it was. But if we accept that defense, because we sympathize with a person, what's to stop the next person, who has no such redeeming goal, from making the same defense? The law depends on consistency, and on provable tests of behavior. Bradley Manning, whatever you think about what he did, can be proved to have done it.
The law is about right and wrong, but right and wrong codified consistently to prevent behavior that, in general, we don't want. If we don't like the law, or its uses, then we need to seek out the political power necessary to change it, not simply defy it and expect no negative consequences.
Bradley Manning decided at some point to initiate one of the biggest leaks of classified information in American history. He had been told what the law was.
Was he right to do what he did? I don't think so, I think he was indiscriminate and reckless. At the same time, though, let me argue this as if I agreed with what he did, for the sake of argument. He knew the law when he did it. Was he just so naïve as to think that his good deed would generate some sort of mystical protection?
If he were realistic, he would have understood that at this point, his life was over. He would be going to prison for a long time. If he was a real hero, in my opinion, he should have walked up to the JAG or whoever might have prosecuted his case, and simply given himself up.
"I have done this. I knew it was against the law, but I couldn't do anything else."
Civil disobedience. Rather than defy the law, and become a poster child for lawless behavior he should have admitted from the start that the law would not side with him, and made the sacrifice then and there.
That would be a real example for whistleblowers, a real wake up call for politicians.
But you know what would have been even better? If he had sat down, combed through the files, and only leaked the information that was truly relevant, that he knew wouldn't endanger the secrets the government might be justified in keeping.
Doubtlessly, there are some secrets that ought to be kept secret. Can we protect those secrets, though, if we manage to convince everybody not to punish Manning? If political motivations are enough to shield somebody from the punishment for disclosing state secrets, then things like Rove's exposure of Valerie Wilson can be justified, and we can't punish those responsible. Everything becomes subjective, and our moral authority to prevent the politicization of our national security structure, of who is punished and not punished, goes away.
We cannot politicize laws about state secrecy. If we think it's being overused, rather than rely on whistleblowers, we need to change the system so that the system itself is keyed towards declassifying material that deserves no secrecy. Relying on extralegal means to do this, and then expecting to get away with it, only serves to make our side look like we're unconcerned with the real issues of national security, which in turn works against our ability to systematize and legalize the declassification of information that shouldn't be considered state secrets.
And if something really, really needs to be exposed? Then the people leaking this information should prepare to accept the consequences of their actions.