The video Collateral Murder? Shows U.S military footage from a 2007 Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad. IN the footage, a group of people on the ground are seen as a threat, and the helicopter crew is cleared to fire upon them. The attack kills several people, including civilians and journalists. Later, a van arrives to help one of the wounded, and the helicopter crew fires again, injuring children inside the van. The video matters morally because it does not just show violence in war, but it also shows how people far from the helicopter were interpreted, targeted, and discussed by those with power over life and death. Chelsea Manning released this footage because she believed the public deserved to see what was being done in its name. The main issue is whether that release was an act of betrayal or an act of loyalty. In this Case Analysis, I will argue that the Ethics of Care shows us that Manning did act out of loyalty to the United States, and that her actions were a moral case of whistleblowing.
Vandekerckhove and Commers help explain why whistleblowing does not have to be understood as disloyalty. Their main concept is “rational loyalty.” Rational loyalty means that loyalty is not owed blindly to the organization, its leaders, or its management chain of command, but instead, loyalty is owed to the organization’s explicit mission, values, goals, and code of conduct. This matters because an organization can act against its own stated values. When that happens, a person may be more loyal by exposing whistleblowing than by hiding it or doing nothing. In this view, whistleblowing can be a loyal act when it tries to correct organizational misbehavior or wrongdoing of its explicitly stated mission.
Applied to Manning, this means the question is not simply whether she disobeyed military secrecy rules, she did. The deeper question is what the United States is supposed to stand for. If the United States claims to value democracy, accountability, human rights, and the rule of law, then hiding footage that raises serious questions of military practices in relation to civilian harm conflicts with those values. Manning’s loyalty was not mainly to a specific commander or agency. Her loyalty was to the public and to the democratic values the government is supposed to serve. From Vandekerckhove and Commer’s perspective, releasing the video can be understood as rational loyalty because Manning disclosed information that she believed identified a gap between the United States explicitly stated values and its actions.
Vandekerckhove and Commers also argue that organizations need institutionalized whistleblowing, which means there should be clear internal procedures that allow people to raise concerns in a safe manner before they whistle blow publicly. This point makes Manning’s case more complicated, because ideally Manning would have used internal channels first. A caring and loyal organization should make those channels trustworthy and protect people who raise concerns. However, in national security contexts, internal reporting can be difficult because secrecy, hierarchy, and fear of punishment may prevent real call to action. If a person reasonably believes the internal channels will not correct the harm, then external disclosure can become a morally stronger path.
The Ethics of Care supports this analysis because it asks us to look at relationships, vulnerability, and responsibility. The people in the video were real people, not some type of simulation or video game. They were human beings with families, bodies, and lives, and the children in the van were especially vulnerable. A care-based analysis requires attention to those who are easiest for powerful institutions to ignore. Manning’s action forced the public to see people who might otherwise have remained invisible. Which heavily influenced the US military to later provide compensation for the children as stated in the video. That is a form of care because it responds to suffering and tries to repair a broken relationship between the government, the military, civilians in war zones, and the public.
At the same time, care ethics does not make the case that simple, Manning also had relationships with fellow service members, and leaking classified material can create risks for those people. A careless leak could endanger soldiers, informants, or future operations. This is the strongest objection to calling her action moral. However, the question here is specifically about the footage in Collateral Murder? The video had major public value because it allowed citizens to judge whether their country’s military’s action matched the values in which the country is rooted in. On balance, the caring response was not to keep the footage hidden forever, it was to let the public confront what happened and demand better accountability.
Oxley and Wittkower also connect loyalty with care. They argue that loyalty is not simply a duty created by a contract, but it is an expression of care and concern in a relationship. This means loyalty cannot be demanded in every situation, and it is not automatically good. People can be loyal to immoral organizations or immoral goals. For loyalty to be appropriate, it must support caring practices and moral flourishing. If the organization’s conduct becomes harmful or uncaring, then a loyal person may need to practice “critical loyalty.” Critical loyalty means trying to reform the organization rather than blindly protecting it.
This concept fits Manning’s case, if Manning had stayed silent only to protect the image of the military that would have been loyalty in weak or morally dangerous sense. It would have protected the institution from embarrassment not caring about the civilians, journalists, and public. Oxley and Wittkower’s view suggest that real loyalty can require difficult action. A person may care about an institution enough to expose its wrongdoing because they want to become better. In that sense, Manning’s release of the footage was not anti-American. It was a painful form of loyalty to what the United States should be.
Using the Ethics of Care, Manning’s loyalty should be judged by the relationships her actions tried to preserve and repair. The United States has a relationship with its citizens, who are supposed to be able to know and evaluate fairly what their government does. It also has a relating relationship with civilians affected by U.S military. When those relationships are damaged by secrecy, denial, or conflict, care requires more than following orders. It requires attention, responsiveness, and the willingness to protect vulnerable people from being erased. Manning’s act helped make those relationships visible again.
Oxley and Wittkower also help explain why some people see Manning as disloyal. If loyalty is understood as obedience to one’s employer or chain of command, then her act looks like betrayal. But care ethics challenges that narrow understanding. Loyalty to a country is not the same as loyalty to every action taken by that country’s government. In fact, a citizen or service member may show deeper loyalty by refusing to participate in silence when the country’s actions conflict with its own values. This is like caring for a friend, sometimes care means intervening and confronting the friend instead of covering up the harm they have caused.
Still, Manning’s case has real moral drawbacks, she did not simply file a complaint inside a normal workplace, she released classified government materials to the public. That raises concerns about process, magnitude, and possible unintended harm. Care ethics takes those concerns seriously because care includes responsibility to all affected parties, including soldiers and coworkers. But those concerns do not outweigh the moral importance of the footage. The video showed possible wrongdoing and lack of care toward vulnerable people Exposing it served the public’s ability to hold the government accountable.
In conclusion, Manning acted out of loyalty to the United States if loyalty means care for the country’s people, value, and moral integrity rather than blind obedience to secrecy. Vandekerckhove and Commers show that whistleblowing can be rational loyalty when it corrects a gap between an organization’s values and its actions. Oxley and Wittkower show that loyalty is morally appropriate only when it expresses care and supports moral reform. Manning’s release of the Collateral Murder? Footage was morally troubling in some ways because classified leaks can create risks. However, in this case, the disclosure revealed serious public concerns about civilian harm and accountability. For that reason, her action was a moral case of whistleblowing.
Work Cited
Al Jazeera English. (2010, April 19). Collateral murder? [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zok8yMxXEwk
Oxley, J., & Wittkower, D.E. (2011). Care and loyalty in the workplace. In M. Sander-Staudt & M. Hamington (Eds.), Applying care ethics to business (pp. 221-244). New York: Springer.
Vandekerckhove, Wim, and M.S.Ronald Commers. “Whistle Blowing and Rational Loyalty.” Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 53, no. 1/2, Aug. 2004, pp. 225–233, https://doi.org/10.1023/b:busi.0000039411.11986.6b.