Title: Loyalty, Secrecy, and Ubuntu: The Case of Chelsea Manning
Introduction
In July 2007, a U.S. Apache helicopter crew opened fire on a group of people in New Baghdad, killing over a dozen Iraqis, including two Reuters journalists, Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. The flight crew mistook camera lenses for RPGs and AK-47s. Minutes later, when an unarmed van pulled up to load the wounded, the pilots requested permission to fire again, destroying the vehicle, killing more civilians, and badly injuring two children inside. The video footage stayed classified until 2010. That was when Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning downloaded the raw file and sent it to WikiLeaks, who published it as “Collateral Murder.” The video sparked a massive global debate about military rules of engagement, civilian deaths, and how soldiers get desensitized to killing. Manning broke her security clearance, making her actions deeply controversial. Still, her decision forced the public to see what happened and ask hard questions about state accountability. In this Case Analysis, I will argue that Ubuntu ethics shows us that Manning did act out of loyalty to the United States and that her actions were a moral case of whistleblowing.
Analysis: Wim Vandekerckhove and Ubuntu Ethics
In his work on whistleblowing ethics, Wim Vandekerckhove challenges the idea that being loyal just means doing whatever your boss or chain of command tells you to do. He introduces the concept of rational loyalty. True loyalty isn’t blind to obedience to a supervisor, a military rank, or an NDA. Instead, rational loyalty means staying committed to the underlying mission, core values, and constitutional principles of the institution you serve. When an organization strays those values or covers wrongdoings, leaking information isn’t betrayal. It’s a rational act of loyalty meant to pull the institution back to its core purpose.
Applying rational loyalty to Chelsea Manning changes how we look at her leak. It wasn’t treason; it was driven by loyalty to the U.S. and its democratic values. Manning saw a huge divide between the principles America claims to represent and the reality of how the war was being fought on the ground. She didn’t leak the footage to tear down the country or put troops in danger. She did it to force the military to answer for failing its own moral standards. At the time, internal channels were hostile to lower-ranking soldiers and usually led to cover-ups. Manning chose external whistleblowing because her rational loyalty belonged to the U.S. Constitution, not to a system hiding its own mistakes.
Bringing in Ubuntu ethics, which comes from the idea that “a person is a person through other persons”, makes this argument even stronger. Ubuntu says morality comes down to shared humanity, caring for others, and recognizing human dignity. When you dehumanize people, you break that shared connection and damage the moral character of the whole community. In the video, you can hear pilots congratulating each other, calling the victims “dead bastards,” and laughing off the injured kids by saying it was their father’s fault for bringing them to a battle. Under Ubuntu, being loyal to your community means keeping it morally healthy. Manning refused to let government secrecy hide that loss of human life, acting out of Ubuntu to protect basic human dignity. While military secrecy matters in active combat, rational loyalty means secrecy shouldn’t be used to cover ethical failures. The video documented an event that was already over, so leaking it served a much higher duty to human rights and public truth.
Analysis: Laura P. Oxley and M. J. Wittkower and Ubuntu Ethics
In their paper on workplace ethics, Laura P. Oxley and M. J. Wittkower offer another useful lens through their concept of critical loyalty. They argue that being loyal to an organization doesn’t mean staying silent when things go wrong. If you actually care about an institution, you don’t let it keep committing unethical acts in secret. Critical loyalty means caring enough to point out flaws so the organization can fix itself and achieve genuine moral flourishing. Manning used her position as an analyst to break an unfair information monopoly. The military held total control over the story surrounding the airstrike, keeping the public blind to reality. Her leak handed citizens the facts they needed to hold their government accountable.
Pairing critical loyalty with Ubuntu ethics highlights why stepping in was the right moral choice. Ubuntu places a huge emphasis on Batho Pele (“People First”) and radical truth-telling to keep human relationships intact. Hiding state-sanctioned violence breaks trust between a government and its citizens, while damaging our shared bond as human beings across borders. Manning didn’t leak files out of anger or for personal gain. She risked her career, her freedom, and her entire future to expose a clear case of unprovoked violence where unarmed rescuers were gunned down. Silence in the face of harm isn’t loyalty, it’s complicity. Manning’s decision was a clear act of critical loyalty because she put human dignity and truth ahead of protecting an institution’s reputation.
Conclusion
Chelsea Manning’s choice to leak the 2007 Baghdad airstrike video remains controversial, but through Vandekerckhove, Oxley and Wittkower, and Ubuntu ethics, it stands as a moral act of whistleblowing rooted in genuine loyalty. Vandekerckhove’s rational loyalty proves that loyalty shouldn’t mean staying quiet when orders violate core values, while Oxley and Wittkower’s critical loyalty show that true care for an institution requires calling out its failures. Ubuntu connects both ideas by reminding us that our humanity is tied to everyone else’s. We can’t ignore harm done to others without eroding our own moral foundation. There are valid concerns about leaking classified files and the potential risks to operational security. But in this case, the footage involved a past event, and its release gave the public information about an incident that raised severe questions about civilian deaths and military oversight. Loyalty shouldn’t mean protecting an institution from accountability at all costs, and Manning’s choice ultimately prioritized human dignity over complete state secrecy.