Tuesday 26 October 2010

When to look for a whistle

Wikileaks has been in the news because it is the website that released almost 400,000 classified US documents about the war in Iraq. Hilary Clinton criticised them and said that this information put US soldiers lives at risk. That can't be good so why would anyone publish such information? Would you publish it? There comes a time when anyone would act if they felt it was the right thing to do. In this case Julian Assange, the founder of the website said he wanted to reveal the "truth" (my inverted commas) about the conflict. His truth included evidence of torture that had been ignored.

Last week I watched the film The Dambusters as well as a documentary on 617 squadron. You probably know the story that on the 16th May 1943, 19 aircraft set out to destroy three dams in Germany's Ruhr valley. In all films like this the British are the heroes and the Germans are the evil enemy. According to the documentary the effects of the bouncing bombs were devastating and their use would now be illegal under the Geneva Conventions. If you can't tell the difference between the goodies and the baddies then it is time to blow a whistle.

I am not criticising the 617 squadron as their actions were not against the Geneva Conventions at the time. However if your army takes part in torture and knows they are torturing then I would look for a whistle.

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