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She says elsewhere in that testimony that the reports in which civilians were killed, raped, and sexual assaults mostly had to do with the police and military o
by kodah 3y ago
She says elsewhere in that testimony that the reports in which civilians were killed, raped, and sexual assaults mostly had to do with the police and military of the host countries (Iraq and Afghanistan). This lines up with my experience as well; we were repeatedly advised to stay out of the locals business, or how they run their judicial system is up to them. This same judicial system is how you have multi-time trigger men and bomb makers that somehow left Kabul unphased after leaving their courts.
> "I'm unhappy so let's make a grand move" than "let's get revenge on the military for my unhappiness."
I don't really see a difference between the two besides intent. Intent isn't really something that matters in today's world.
What I would've liked to have seen is if she joined the service members trying to whistleblow on ineffective and dangerous ROEs, the lies told by the Obama administration about the success of the Iraqi and Afghani police and military, etc... Instead, she released just enough vague and sensational stuff to spur conspiracy theories.
To be clear, I understand the frustration that inspired Chelsea to do what she did, but I think how you do these things both affords (or removes) protections, and matters a great deal more if you're actually trying to make a difference. That along side the content of what's released; in the case of Snowden there absolutely wasn't anyone to appeal to. In Chelsea's case there certainly was.
- kelnos 3y ago> I don't really see a difference between the two besides intent. Intent isn't really something that matters in today's world. You can't have it both ways, though. In your original post, you said, "Second, she was releasing documents because she was angry that she was deployed." Clearly you believed her intent to be a big part of the reason why she shouldn't be considered a whistleblower. And in this thread we've learned your "first" (she released nothing new) is also not really the case, and your "third" (she didn't try to use official whistleblowing channels first) is murky, in that she probably felt that the people behind the whistleblowing channels already knew about the things she was going to blow the whistle on, and had a vested interest in keeping them secret. So I don't really see your objection here? It feels more along the lines of "if I were in her position I would have done things differently", which, fine, I think that's probably true of many people in many situations, but so what?
- kodah 3y agoEvading official channels of whistleblowing, including using her Congressperson if she didn't want to request mast, is my main grievance there. I still argue that the information is not net-new. The helicopter gunship video was said to have disappeared, yet she released it. The facts around the situation didn't change materially though. The 15k civilians that died weren't added to the death toll as far as I've read, they just now had attribution. I don't think her intent had much to do with anything; she still evaded using official channels and released confidential information including informants and people operating under cover (HumInt) that put peoples lives at risk.