Subversion from the Inside?

How many of you have heard of Wikileaks, the website purportedly dedicated to publishing leaked documents alleging government and corporate misconduct? At first glace such a website has profound democratic implications because quite often our news media (with a few exceptions) is unwilling or unable to fulfill its constitutional watchdog capacity as the Fourth Branch of Government--- an additional check against abusive government power. Nevertheless, it seems that the potentially invaluable public service that such a site could provide has been subverted and hijacked by liberal ideologues.

A prime example of this is a video that I watched a few months ago (and was thoroughly horrified by) that has been launched into the national spotlight recently. The video I refer to is entitled "Collateral Murder". It features slowed down footage of shot from American military helicopters in Iraq of airborne soldiers using their best intelligence to eliminate armed targets on the ground. What these soldiers were not able to confirm from their vantage point is that two Reuters news staff were among the armed Iraqis below, associating with these dangerous individuals. After repeated requests for permission to fire, our soldiers did what they are trained to do: defend themselves and our country against opponents of freedom.

Unfortunately, the editors of that video thoughtlessly editorialized it and cast our boys as murderers. That's to be expected from liberal technocrats. But what is thoroughly disturbing is the original source of the video's leak: an American enlisted soldier, SPC Bradley Manning! Apparently he derived a sense of satisfaction from sullying the name of our brave men and women in uniform, and it took a computer hacker to turn him in. When a computer hacker has more integrity than an enlisted US citizen then you know we have a saboteur in our ranks.

There are other controversial portions of the tape but I want you to watch it for yourself to decide whether its editing is fair or not. Once you see it, give some feedback in the comments section and lets get a discussion going about the implications of such subversive, anti-American tactics.

You can also visit the wikileaks site itself for another version of the tape.

Stand Tall America,


SP