On April 23, former CIA director General David Petraeus will be sentenced for handing highly classified documents, including defense strategies, security procedures, and the names of covert agents, to his mistress, Paula Broadwell. While standing post as director of the CIA, Petraeus gave Broadwell his notebook containing the classified information as she was writing a biography of Petraeus. Petraeus has now signed a plea deal with the government that will allow him to avoid a trial and jail time and instead stand two years of probation and pay a $40,000 fine.
A clear double standard
This development comes on the heels of two major cases in which whistleblowers have been tortured, confined, chased all over the planet, and denied basic constitutional rights for exposing egregious corruption, war crimes, and the realities of the U.S. occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. When classified documents are made public in the interest of exposing war crimes, torture and the realities of American occupations in the Middle East, the U.S. government systematically hunts down, tortures and indefinitely imprisons the whistleblowers. When leaks come from a top brass, CIA director turned weapons-contracting consultant, the government responds with a slap on the wrist.
In 2009, Chelsea Manning, a transgender Army intelligence analyst known at that time as “Bradley,” had access to classified databases that contained files, videos and government cables exposing numerous bombings and war crimes perpetrated by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. In early 2010, Manning leaked the files to WikiLeaks, making the files public for the world to see just a snapshot of the horrible atrocities committed against the women, men and children of Iraq and Afghanistan.
In response, the government immediately arrested Manning and charged her with 22 offenses, including aiding the enemy, the most serious crime punishable by death. She was held in solitary confinement under torturous conditions until February 2013, when she pleaded guilty to 10 charges. In July 2013, she was convicted of a total of 17 charges and sentenced to 35 years.
Since her arrest, hundreds of thousands of people around the world including the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), March Forward!, Veterans for Peace, and a broad coalition of anti-war organizations, veterans groups and human rights advocacy organizations initiated “Free Manning” protests. In 2011, over 150 veterans from March Forward! and Veterans for Peace along with allies from Code Pink organized a Free Manning demonstration in front of Quantico Base, where Manning was being held, taking the streets and occupying the entrance to the base before being dispersed by riot police. Both Manning and whistleblower Edward Snowden were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Icelandic and Swedish members of parliament in 2014.
Edward Snowden received international attention when in 2013 he released files exposing National Security Agency spying. The files revealed highly classified details on a global surveillance apparatus being run by the NSA. The reports showed surveillance programs unseen in human history, with databases containing millions of e-mails, contact lists, mapping and tracking of cell phones, all while tapping into Google and Yahoo databases to further spy on everyday citizens’ lives. Further, a “black budget” was discovered directly funding private tech industries for the purpose of spying that allotted $52 billion in fiscal year 2013. Moreover, the files exposed that the scale of NSA spying was expanding exponentially, digging into the private lives of virtually every American.
In fear for his life, and rightly so, Snowden fled first to Hong Kong and later ended up in Russia, where he applied for political asylum. Snowden made a total of 21 requests to various countries, but under pressure from the U.S. imperialist machine, almost all were immediately denied. As of now, he has been granted a three-year residency permit in Russia and is free to move about the country.
Government protects war criminals, not whistleblowers
While Manning continues to be caged and Snowden faces the possibility of U.S. agents kidnapping him for extradition, government officials have labeled both “criminals” and “traitors,” and some prominent figures have even called for their deaths.
On one hand, Senator John McCain called Manning a traitor for exposing international war crimes. On the other, he stated, “At a time of grave security challenges around the world, I hope that General Petraeus will continue to provide his outstanding service and leadership to our nation, as he has throughout his distinguished career.”
President Obama said, “We are safer because of the work that Dave Petraeus has done, and my main hope right now is that he and his family are able to move on and that this ends up being a single side note on what has otherwise been an extraordinary career.”
This double standard exists for multiple reasons. First, the nature of the leaks by Manning and Snowden expose war crimes. They expose the U.S. occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan as imperialist occupations in the interest of economic plunder and geo-political hegemony.
Manning and Snowden had the courage to expose the U.S. government, the military industrial complex, and the entire system of capitalism for what it is—a system that sends poor and working people from America half way around the world to fight, kill and die in wars that bring trillions of dollars into the hands of bankers, weapons contractors and resource tycoons.
To protect their interests, these same billionaires have developed the most centralized, mechanized war machine in human history. Furthermore, these same billionaires have developed the most centralized, computerized surveillance and spying programs in history, invading the personal lives of nearly every American in a hunt for dissent, disobedience and possible resistance to their system.
Second, both Manning and Snowden were changed by what they saw within the leaks themselves. The files changed the very way in which they saw U.S. policy, both foreign and domestic. This raised consciousness is what drove them to make the information public. Not only did the leaks touch the lives of millions around the planet, but the very act of leaking the files threw a wrench into the gears of the U.S. imperialist war machine.
On the other hand, Petraeus did not have a shift in consciousness. He did not leak the information to the public with the intention of bringing an end to occupations, war crimes, and imperialism. Instead, Petraeus used his position of power to take advantage of a female journalist looking for a story.
After leaving his post as director of the CIA, Petraeus launched a lucrative career as a security contractor and partner at wealthy private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.—a move that is not uncommon in the “revolving door” of the military-industrial complex.
In the “revolving door,” government officials take private contracting jobs in the financial, military or resource sectors only to return to higher level government positions, and back into higher levels of the private sector. This ensures that the government works directly for the banks, weapons manufactures and resource tycoons.
Double standard really a single standard—a capitalist standard
The fact is that while it may appear there is a double standard, one for those exposing war crimes in contrast to one for those perpetrating war crimes, in reality there is one standard—capitalist exploitation. Whether by taking our jobs to afford larger million-dollar bonuses, or taking our homes when we can’t find a job, whether denying us basic access to education and health care, or sending us to fight, kill and die in imperialist wars abroad, the capitalist class only cares about one thing: profit. From bombing people all over the planet, to racist police terror that haunts the streets of America from Ferguson to Los Angeles, from torturing people in Guantanamo Bay to racist police murdering unarmed youth in the streets, there is nothing the capitalist class and its government will not do to expand their power and increase their profits.
Only by organizing and fighting back can we free Chelsea Manning and welcome Edward Snowden home. Only by building a movement that can directly challenge the entire system, the system of capitalism, can we end imperialism and put the war criminals where they belong: in jail. Whether a student with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, a worker who can’t find a job, or a mother struggling to support a family with no health care, we must unite and fight together. We must fight for a system that puts basic human needs and the rights of all before the profit of the few. We must unite and fight, and we must fight for socialism.
