Might get down-voted, but I don't think Chelsea Manning is a hero.
Do I think she is an evil traitor? Also no, but I don't understand the worship of some of these very morally grey personalities.
Do I think she is an evil traitor? Also no, but I don't understand the worship of some of these very morally grey personalities.
Recent events have changed my opinion of WikiLeaks, but not of Manning, who took an enormous risk to reveal crimes committed by the military.
I have always been, and will remain, a fan of the truth being exposed.
Promoting conspiracy theories about satanic rituals, pizzagate, the seth rich lies, and clinton-organized child kidnappings is not in any way exposing something resembling truth. They promoted conspiracy theories criticizing that the Panama Papers release was a George Soros-funded conspiracy to target Russia and the former USSR.
None of these claims had evidence attached to them. Leaks of truth are valuable, but I have lost all faith that wikileaks publishes in a non-partisan "truth for truth's sake" mission, rather, I think they have specific targets in mind and publish whatever it takes to harm those targets and help others.
They heavily edited the "Collateral Murder" video to make it appear to be murder in the first degree. The entirety of the video shows it to be negligent homocide.
Wikileaks is well-known for omitting information about countries with which it is ideologically aligned. Though this is normal and logical, Wikileaks is being disingenuous when it describes its ideals as such.
Additionally, Assange groomed Chelsea to give up the information. It wasn't just a case of simple whistleblowing. It was more consistent with an intelligence operation with Chelsea as an asset. Again, there isn't anything inherently wrong with that, it is just inconsistent with the narrative of Wikileaks just being a repository for voluntary leaks.
A lot of established institutions and companies talk a big game, but they aren't serious about effecting real social change. They do little things at the margins, then go on PR campaigns about how they changed the world.
I find it kind of bizarre whoever made the decision to award the Fellow title didn't anticipate immediate, massive backlash. Or maybe they did and now Harvard's internal decision-making process about this will change.
I don't think Manning is a hero or the devil either. I just think he's a guy that did some stuff and made a bad choice for his own personal reasons. Don't we all do that, to one degree or another, with unfortunate frequency?
I largely agree with you, but it's not fair to suggest that the gender change was a publicity stunt.
The alternative, positive framing is that she sacrificed a secure career to stop endemic corruption, war crimes, and violations of human rights described in the files she had access to. The cables and other files she leaked contained evidence of torture, of collusion, of abuses of power, and other atrocities, and bringing those into the public has hopefully reduced the rate at which those terrible things happen. On an individual level, rather than recognizing that she needed whistleblower protection, the government tortured and imprisoned her. Fortunately, a significant part of her sentence was commuted, but she still spent most of a decade in prison.
She has helped to prevent terrible crimes from continuing, and personally suffered for it. That's heroic and meritorious.
1. The tortures and rapes Manning exposed were committed by Iraqi soldiers and police, which was business as usual under Sadam, and it is naive to think we could jump in and stop that ingrained behavior right away.
2. Soldiers trying to escape a deadly situation with guns blazing is hardly new to Afghanistan.
3. I don't see a problem with the U.S. targeting the leadership of the U.N. with intelligence campaigns.
Are any of these things really big meritorious revelations? I mean we knew about the Iraqi torture and rape before Bush ever declared war on them, didn't we?
One thing you seem to be glossing over is that Manning wanted out of the military anyway. He was upset about being shipped to Iraq and it is reasonable to posit that his leak was much more self-serving than heroic.