In the case of Chelsea Manning and her release of over 750,000 classified or sensitive government documents including the “collateral murder” Apache video. I believe she did not act out of loyalty to the United States and acted immorally and against what we expect of an American service member. She likely caused more harm than good, and she was convicted by a jury of her peers for violating the law. In the case of the video, this was a bit tough for me to relive as I was there when it happened. In fact, there are many videos of hundreds of engagements just like this that people don’t realize exist. People don’t understand the complexities of combat or specific battles. If they knew they would object a heck of a lot more than they do when the United States decides to take that last step of sending sons and daughters to war. In this Case Analysis I will argue that ethics of care shows us that Manning did not act out of loyalty the United States, and that her actions were an immoral case of whistleblowing.

The ethics of care tells us that relationships, empathy, and compassion are the framework for moral reasoning and ethical decision making. It centers on the understanding that humans are interdependent beings that is based more on an emotional component as opposed to an impartial objective component like Utilitarianism. Ethics of care acts on special obligations to show partiality to those we have close relationships to. Ethics of care can also go beyond personal relationships in situations such as connections to social services and government organizations. It fosters the mutual flourishing of both people and government causing them to work together form an interdepending relationship where both parties benefit.

The “collateral murder” video was not fun to watch, my hands shook on the keyboard just to put this into words. I have not seen that version with both Assange and the military analyst taking two separate sides. I would say that both really don’t know what they are talking about, and both have likely never been in actual combat. War is not a gentleman’s endeavor; it requires repression of some of our most basic morals and requires you to bring the most savage tendencies of the human psyche to complete the ultimate goal, to survive and go home. It’s important to note that during that time in the war we had just lost 2 Apache helicopters in our unit. One on January 28th, 2007, and one on February 2nd, 2007. The one in January was in my unit 4-227th Attack Reconnaissance Battalion (ARB) with pilots Mark Resh and Cornell Chao losing their lives to enemy fire. The one on February 2, just days later, was 1-227th ARB “Crazy Horse” the unit in the video, and our sister battalion. We lost pilots Keith Yoakum and Jason Defrenn. I went to flight school with Defreen and Resh, Defreen was the guy that showed me around Germany when I first got there in 2003. This was our second tour to Iraq together. So, to say this is some kind of video game is a disgusting comment when these guys leave behind wives, children, and parents. This may be what it seems like, but you are looking at a recording of one source, built by the lowest bidder, that doesn’t put into context the 2 helicopters flying together and talking together on a mission. Seeing things with their own eyes that may not be on the video. Sweating and eyes watering from toxic smoke in the skies having just lost their buddies from attacks from the ground, months on end with hundreds of hours flying in the sky, knowing that they could be hit at any time from any direction. It certainly never felt like a game to me. It was life and death. Another thing to note is that it was not uncommon for the enemy to have cameras with them to film the shootdown of American helicopters to collect the bounty placed on our heads during that time. Journalists were well informed of this and knew that embedding themselves with the enemy could be a death sentence.

Manning, an intel analyst, the lowest in the intel services, had no context to this video, she did not get the daily intel brief, she had no idea about the dangers of the location or the hundreds that were killed or maimed in the region in the last 24 hours. Intel is highly compartmentalized, and she was not able to have a tactical opinion about an Apache engagement. Also, positive identification is not required to be proven with film evidence. It can be just from the pilot’s own eyes. That’s why we do 4 hours of sworn statements with lawyers and leadership in addition to video review after each engagement. Again, she would not be able to have context which makes her release reckless and against the morals and values she should have with her fellow service members.

In the paper by Vandekerckhove, he talks about loyalty and whistleblowing. He talks about rational loyalty as a concept of having loyalty based on the values and mission of the organization you are loyal to and if that organization acts in conflict of those values that there is a requirement to blow the whistle. In Manning’s case, she has a duty of loyalty, it’s one of the first things you learn in basic training. It’s because of this loyalty that we, as new or low-level members of the military, must go on ‘trust’ because we don’t have all the information. She also should have known that she doesn’t have all the information to provide context to what she released. She may have thought that the military conflicted with its mission and values and felt compelled to act. Unfortunately, she was not in a position to make that determination. Personally, I think she felt outcast by her lack of gender identity and possibly because of the way she was treated in the military, she might have felt compelled to retaliate against the military at the time. Feeling ostracized from an organization that you love dissolves all loyalty in that organization. In this case she had no ethics of care and was disloyal to the military.

In Oxley and Wittkower’s paper they talk about loyalty of care. A concept that would go above and beyond your oath of office to the military. It would include the members you serve with and learned to care for the unit you are in. This is why the military is big on “esprit de corps” we have unit flags and insignia designed to inspire enthusiasm, loyalty, and honor in the group. We take oaths to protect the constitution and protect our fellow countryman. Releasing documents, you know nothing about conflicts with that oath. There are pilots in that video who are still alive, years later. We hear their voices, we know who they are, they must live with the damage of this release for the rest of their lives. She knowingly put service members at risk with arrogance and ignorance of her position.

In conclusion, I think Manning went against her oath and duties in her position in the military. Now, it’s not lost on me that I was not her, and I was not in her mind. I can only talk about my opinion and apply my own knowledge of the event. She was not in a position to have all the facts and somehow lost her loyalty or care for her country and the members she served with. Also, the sheer amount of intel released presents a real lack of care of what was being disclosed. I doubt she had read everything; she just threw it out there to the public. There are other avenues to pursue when you think an order or directive is unlawful. If she had any loyalty at all she would have followed the process that is laid out first before a total document dump to WikiLeaks. War is very complex and so few of our citizens know what is involved. You have seconds to make decisions right or wrong. People make mistakes and guess what, it’s common to have collateral damage. The best we can do is to make sure that we take great care before unleashing our military to a conflict. When it comes to the people in the fight. There are no winners or losers. Just the broken on both sides.