A tyrannical regime has a vested interest in ensuring the general populace remain ignorant of its atrocities. This is likely why the United States government has been pursuing Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, so veraciously and why they have been making the life of Bradly Manning a living hell. Manning has plead guilty to “aiding the enemy” (I’m guessing his other option was to face execution) but releasing information about atrocities being committed to the United States government. When you read Manning’s justification for leaking the information it makes you wonder who the United States government considers to be an enemy:
Manning said: “We were obsessed with capturing and killing human targets on lists and ignoring goals and missions. I believed if the public, particularly the American public, could see this it could spark a debate on the military and our foreign policy in general [that] might cause society to reconsider the need to engage in counter-terrorism while ignoring the human situation of the people we engaged with every day.”
It appears as though the United States government considers the people living in the United States to be enemies as they have been fighting the release of any information that makes their actions look less than honorable. I believe it’s important for the people living under a war happy state to understand the true costs of war, which involves death and destruction on both sides of a conflict. When people are punished for revealing atrocities committed by a government you know that government is worried about the ramifications of its actions.