And that's what Manning exposed -- though not quickly enough to save those 11 lives.
Pvt. Manning may not have known about the specific memo of the secret meeting of State and BP. It was one in an ocean of cables she released.
But Manning knew this: The truth can save lives. Or, as Manning was brought up to believe: The truth shall set us free.
And if truth sets us free, then official secrets enslave us.
Barack Obama and John Boehner and Mitch McConnell know this. So do
Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and the other candidates for
Secret-Keeper-in-Chief.
Years ago, Daniel Ellsberg told me that he was surprised when Judge Stanley Sporkin dismissed all charges against him although Ellsberg had revealed top-secret military intelligence, the Pentagon Papers. The judge noted that the U.S. was unique among nations in having no "official secrets act," no law against telling the truth to the public.
No more. The brutal 35-year prison sentence for Manning on espionage charges and the continuing manhunt for Edward Snowden makes it clear that the Obama administration considers truth-telling a crime.
As I see it, the State Department officials who withheld BP's blow-out secret are as culpable as the oil company in the deaths of those 11 workers on the Deepwater Horizon. You can say that the men who died on the rig were victims of the corporate-government enslavement of information, martyrs to official secrecy.
Pvt. Manning may not have known about the specific memo of the secret meeting of State and BP. It was one in an ocean of cables she released.
But Manning knew this: The truth can save lives. Or, as Manning was brought up to believe: The truth shall set us free.
And if truth sets us free, then official secrets enslave us.
Years ago, Daniel Ellsberg told me that he was surprised when Judge Stanley Sporkin dismissed all charges against him although Ellsberg had revealed top-secret military intelligence, the Pentagon Papers. The judge noted that the U.S. was unique among nations in having no "official secrets act," no law against telling the truth to the public.
No more. The brutal 35-year prison sentence for Manning on espionage charges and the continuing manhunt for Edward Snowden makes it clear that the Obama administration considers truth-telling a crime.
As I see it, the State Department officials who withheld BP's blow-out secret are as culpable as the oil company in the deaths of those 11 workers on the Deepwater Horizon. You can say that the men who died on the rig were victims of the corporate-government enslavement of information, martyrs to official secrecy.
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