Snowden calls for whistleblower shield after claims by new Pentagon source

[shadowmayor]

33. Old Veteran

Why am I never surprised to see folks calling out those who speak truth to power as traitors? And all too often, they are veterans. Well trained I might add. The first thing (or one of them) taught in basic training is a soldier's obligation NOT to follow an illegal order. Easier said than done when on a battlefield. But when it comes to OPS and TOC orders etc. there's a general genuflection to the powers that be. I suppose that telling the truth about the My Lai massacre was inappropriate? And who the fuck gets the pleasure of stamping all this shit Top Secret? A bunch of go-along to get-along types. Unbelievable. The fact that Rumsfeld, or Cheney, or Wolfowitz gets to determine what is secret or top secret makes my skin crawl. And the suck-up Generals running the entire goddamned show are even worse. If the American public were to know the whole truth about the criminal activities (like the formation of the Office of Special Plans) leading up to the Iraq War and the absolute crimes against humanity we committed once we invaded that country, heads would roll. Of course, suppressing the truth is always the first defense. The way the military acts is much like the Catholic church hiding the rape of boys because it might be "harmful" to the institution. The DoD is possibly the thinnest skinned entity in our government, and there's no shortage of "patriotic" people to carry the torch. Watching a helicopter crew slaughter a group of Iraqis and sticking around to blast the folks that come to help them is something every American should be required to watch. Spent 2005 or OIF3 in Abu Ghraib prison and I can say with complete certainty that a vast majority of people have no friggin' clue what we were doing to the Iraqi population and nor do they care. And god forbid somebody tries to tell the truth. The pictures of torture that have been released are the Disney version of what America was doing to a group who had "committed" the egregious crime of living in a country we decided to invade. What in the hell did the people of Iraq ever do to the people of the United States?