Quote Originally Posted by Thorne View Post
Yes, they should be required to stop or report that activity. Manning, though, went to the press instead of using the chain of command. Mainly because the chain of command was occupied by those responsible for the behavior he was reporting on! It's the old Catch 22, unfortunately. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
That's the trouble really: he wasn't "whistle-blowing", just dumping a vast cache of the secrets he was able to get hold of. He didn't pick out actual wrongdoing, he didn't go to someone in authority - he just dumped a pile of stuff on the Internet. Even if the whole military chain of command was "compromised", there are other avenues: the Inspector General, DoD reporting lines, his Congresscritters... mad Australian rape suspects aren't exactly the first port of call for genuine whistleblowing. Indeed, most of the secret documents he published weren't even military, let alone related to his own chain of command - at most, they were sometimes embarrassing to the US and its allies.