Serving with my unit 2nd battalion 16th infantry in New Baghdad Iraq, I vividly remember the moment in 2007, when our Battalion Commander walked into the room and announced our new rules of engagement:

“Listen up, new battalion SOP (standing operating procedure) from now on: Anytime your convoy gets hit by an IED, I want 360 degree rotational fire. You kill every [expletive] in the street!”

We weren’t trained extensively to recognize an unlawful order, or how to report one. But many of us could not believe what we had just been told to do. Those of us who knew it was morally wrong struggled to figure out a way to avoid shooting innocent civilians, while also dodging repercussions from the non-commissioned officers who enforced the policy. In such situations, we determined to fire our weapons, but into rooftops or abandoned vehicles, giving the impression that we were following procedure.

On April 5, 2010 American citizens and people around the world got a taste of the fruits of this standing operating procedure when WikiLeaks released the now-famous Collateral Murder video. This video showed the horrific and wholly unnecessary killing of unarmed Iraqi civilians and Reuters journalists.

I was part of the unit that was responsible for this atrocity. In the video, I can be seen attempting to carry wounded children to safety in the aftermath.

The video released by WikiLeaks belongs in the public record. Covering up this incident is a matter deserving of criminal inquiry. Whoever revealed it is an American hero in my book.

(Source: azspot)

When we broke the Manning story in June 2010, we judged, after discussions with Manning’s friends and family, that the logs included sensitive personal information with no bearing on WikiLeaks, and it would serve no purpose to publish them. In coming to this position, we weighed Manning’s privacy interest against news value and relevance, a standard journalistic balancing test embodied in the ethics guidelines of the Society of Professional Journalists.

We also exercised what we felt was due caution to avoid inadvertently revealing sensitive military information in the midst of a complex, breaking news story. (We have been satisfied for some time that there is nothing of military importance in the unpublished logs.)

We stand by that decision and our reasoning, but we now believe that independent reporting elsewhere has tipped the scale in favor of publishing. By all evidence, Manning is a figure of historic importance. Inasmuch as the conversations shed light on the personal pressures in Manning’s life at the time of his arrest, publishing the logs serves a valid news interest, and at this point we believe it will cause little additional harm to Manning’s privacy.