Wikileaks, Change and the Chain of Command

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ca1HsC6MH0

It's taken quite a bit of time but things are still being extracted from the Wikileaks releases. Much of the information has proven mundane but some of it is very instructive especially if collated with other available information.

At this point there are few who doubt that the orders for torture and 'dirty war' in Iraq went right to the top. The information derived from the 'leaks' concerning James Steele removes any doubt.

I would argue public deception, torture and misinformation are fundamental to the nature of war and are nothing new. These things have occurred in all previous wars. The difference was we didn't have real journalism until about fifty years ago.

War is essentially law-less and words like integrity and honour have no possible meaning in that context.

The international community has attempted to create protocols for warfare. It has completely failed. Something along similar lines was attempted during the Middle Ages. It didn't work then either.

But here's the problem for the soldier in the field. If he sees something that is clearly illegal, what is his duty? This question has haunted the world since Nuremberg.

Of course the official answer is to utilize the Chain of Command. But anyone who has been in the military will (if sane) quickly acknowledge this to be something of a joke. It doesn't work. This is why the government has established so many different types of extra-bureaucratic and thus supposedly independent inspection offices. It's the only way to investigate crimes.

It's sort of the fox guarding the hen house, but their own bureaucratic interests drive them to produce results. Sadly, being results driven rather than truth driven can often mean that the full story is rarely told and exposes such bureaucracies to corruption.

Unfortunately with regard to Wikileaks we have to refer to the very disturbed Bradley Manning. His deep problems in many ways discredit him and sadly are a distraction. The focus tends to be on his freakishness rather than the real issue. He came across the 'Collateral Murder' video and faced a moral dilemma. The Chain of Command would have squashed the issue. So he chose to leak it. Once he crossed the line, he chose to leak a lot more and may have lost some credibility in doing so.

In bureaucracies of power, the greatest sin is to compromise the system. Truth has no value in such worlds or in the minds of those who run them.

These stories are both revealing and interesting. Mr. Steele is one of these characters straight out of a Hollywood film, an unofficial player that people in power turn to in order to accomplish dirty tasks.

Whether or not Democracy is the best type of government for it to function there must be transparency. In this case, the issue is basically part of the past. Nothing will come of this, but there are things to learn and consider.

So we don't get fooled again? Don't kid yourself. For the most part people learn nothing from history.

The FOX media machine continues to insist the mainstream media is Leftist and yet if you actually follow Left wing news outlets like 'Democracy Now' you'll realize how absurd this charge is. The main news outlets are in the end much like FOX. They are creatures of the corporate state and have no interest in reporting the real stories.

The Left is completely disgusted with Obama. From wiretapping to Wikileaks his administration has emulated Bush and in some cases surpassed him. He is seeking to eliminate independent journalism that uncovers the lies, evils and hypocrisies of the American Empire.

He ran on a platform of change. The world was so upset by the Neo-Conservative agenda that they were desperate to find a voice that would counter it. There has been no change. Was Obama being deceitful, was he frightened or did he choose to preserve his own life and safety by toeing the line? I don't know, but nothing has changed.

As one man put it: Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.