You know how we talk in hindsight about how unjustified it was for SS soldiers in concentration camps to say "I was just following orders," or "I was just doing my job."
It is incongruous, then, that as a society we continue to punish and ignore those who stand up and say "no" to similar circumstances.
Here's a brief overview from Exhibit A:
Appearing in an Alexandria, Virginia, courtroom, the 33-year-old Hale told U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady that he believed it “was necessary to dispel the lie that drone warfare keeps us safe, that our lives are worth more than theirs.”
“I am here because I stole something that was never mine to take — precious human life,” Hale said. “I couldn’t keep living in a world in which people pretend that things weren’t happening that were. Please, your honor, forgive me for taking papers instead of human lives.”
U.S. drone operations abroad since 2004 have killed as many as 2,200 children and multiple U.S. citizens, [but] U.S. military has a practice of labeling all individuals killed in such operations as “enemies killed in action” unless proven otherwise.
“Hale was also charged with disclosing a secret rule book detailing the parallel judicial system for watchlisting people and categorizing them as known or suspected terrorists without needing to prove they did anything wrong. Under these rules, people, including U.S. citizens, can be barred from flying or detained in airports and at borders while being denied the ability to challenge government declarations about them. The disclosure of the watchlisting rule book led to dozens of legal actions and important court victories for the protection of civil liberties.”
“With drone warfare, sometimes nine out of 10 people killed are innocent,” Hale said on Tuesday. “You have to kill part of your conscience to do your job.”
Hale’s defense lawyers said that he had “felt extraordinary guilt for having been complicit in what he viewed as unjustifiable killings” through his involvement in the drone program and argued that his disclosures were compelled by a sense of moral duty
“According to Hale, what he did was legally wrong but morally right.”
Hale is a descendant of Nathan Hale, the American patriot who was hanged by the British for stealing documents in 1776. Addressing the court Tuesday, Hale quoted the words often attributed to his famed ancestor: “My only regret is that I have but one life to give to my country, whether here or in prison.”
“I believe that it is wrong to kill,” Hale said, “but it is especially wrong to kill the defenseless.”
America would do well to make Daniel Hale's name lauded nationwide, but most will likely never know of him.
Exhibit B could be Edward Snowden, who lives in exile as a wanted criminal. Why? For exposing evidence that the NSA was illegally spying on US citizens. Where are the criminal charges against the NSA? Why only against Snowden?
Exhibit C could be Julian Assange who's been detained or in prison since 2012, currently under maximum-security conditions, despite having never been convicted.
It could go on and on.
