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David McBride: former army lawyer sentenced to five years for stealing and leaking Afghanistan war documents (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/news@aussie.zone

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Complete bullshit. Regimes that punish whistleblowers harder than war criminals reveal themselves as dreaming of tyranny.

The entire trial was cooked, and I'm furious :(

That non parole period is nuts too, pure revenge. What danger does this man represent? If he's out on the streets some war criminals better watch their backs?

edit: I should add, it's also quite frustrating that at the end of all this top brass has had no light shone on them, which was his initial goal on leaking. He thought the SAS was being investigated overmuch as a distraction from leadership failures. I guess we'll never know. A slap on the wrist for the executioners, no systematic investigation, and an inconvenient man in gaol.

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[–] Ilandar@aussie.zone 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Men (and children) did die, though. That's the point.

[–] unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

More than 10 I might add

[–] Ilandar@aussie.zone 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Yes, although I did find it a little ironic that when I went to Wikipedia to check this it specifically mentioned "at least 10" deaths. All human lives are equal, of course, but to me there is an important distinction between the deaths of completely innocent and uninvolved civilians vs the deaths of service men and women to have chosen to involve themselves in a conflict. Western bias makes it easy to overlook this point, but those civilians who were murdered are literally just us in a parallel universe. We owe it to ourselves as much as anyone else to properly investigate these crimes and bring the perpetrators to justice. And if governments and military organisations are unable to do this transparently, then anyone who does (journalists, whistleblowers, etc) should be celebrated and protected.

[–] naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 6 months ago

If we want militaries to be more than murderers for hire then murders by militaries must be taken at least equally as seriously as murders by random citizens.