The war in Afghanistan has been dragging on for nearly a decade and today more than ever the debate of whether the war was necessary continues. Some Americans view the war as a great cause to eradicate foreign enemies who wish harm against our country. Others view the war as unjust and un-winnable.
At the forefront of that argument is Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks.org, a website designed at exposing corruption in governments around the world. Assange is very much against the war and is determined to do anything he can to end it, even if it includes undermining government leadership and possibly harming military operations in the Middle East.
This past week, WikiLeaks.org released 91,000 classified military and government documents that were obtained illegally in an effort to end the war and inform citizens of classified information.
This is incredibly disturbing information because the disclosure of classified documents means there are members of the government or military who are going behind the backs of our country's leadership in order to release the information to the public. This completely undermines the chain of command and creates a serious problem of trust within our government agencies. The perpetrators should be punished to the full extent of the law.
The war is still going on. Our men and women in the military are still in harm's way. Releasing these documents could very easily cause an increased danger for those who are overseas. There is information in this country that is meant to be and needs to be classified, including military operations. During a war, the last thing a country needs is for the operations to be destroyed from within through a complete breakdown in chain of command.
If documents of tactical strategies and future plans are released, those trying to kill our men and women might find ways to do it. It weakens the idea of a defense system. If every citizen knew every move our military had made, is making, or is going to make, the information could very easily fall into the wrong hands and send even more Americans home in body bags.
Whether the WikiLeaks.org documents disclose information of such nature, the fact they were leaked may be what causes the most harm as it exposes huge problems in our ability to trust the people within our defense system.
I'm not here to say in order to be American one has to support every war that we're involved in. Someone who is against the war has every right and reason to protest and use their First Amendment right to express his or her opposition. It's healthy democracy at work.
However, there are some in our country who believe that all citizens are entitled to all government information at anytime so we may do with it as we please. Carrying this attitude could lead to great trouble within our government and our country as a whole especially if the information is leaked illegally. When people don't follow the chain of command others get put in danger. As someone who has family and friends in the military, I am personally angered someone would do such a thing.
It is the job of those who we elected to use the classified information to make decisions such as whether or not to end a war or to continue it. We have elected these people and we should leave the information in their hands and trust and hope that they represent us. If they do not, then it is our responsibility to vote for those who will.
One may cite the Freedom of the Press and journalistic responsibility as reasons these documents should be released to the public, however, there is a fine line that should not be approached. These documents released by WikiLeaks.org do not represent journalistic responsibility. They only show a problem of trust within our defense system.
Yes, journalists are supposed to report the news. Yet if it is something that could cause more harm than good, the question of how the documents were obtained must be called into question. If it is illegally obtained, it should be off-limits.
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