I'm sorry, but I don't see how being willing to torture one's prisoners constitutes "moral courage." In fact, it would be the opposite action, to restrain from such behavior, that would be courageous, because the impulse would be to do anything to get information one thought was important. And so, it is more proper to say that moral courage is a Marine Lieutenant jumping in between an Iraqi prisoner and the Iraqi soldiers, the latter of whom are trying to beat the detainee to death.
While the measures may have been deemed legal, the recourse to such acts of coercion was neither moral nor courageous. And into the calculus of lives lost and saved, you must add the number of new terrorists created because of such actions. How many American soldiers and Marines lost their lives to enemies who joined the fray because of this brutal course? To what extent were the objectives in Iraq and Afghanistan harmed by this stain upon the American reputation?
As for Assange, the situation is what we make of it. But if the information is of such importance that its release will put folks in danger than we ought to pin a medal on the soldier who leaked it because he's alerted the apparatus to the fact that it is not properly safeguarding our secrets. If such sensitive information is susceptible to the form theft utilized then we are well and truly doomed, Assange and WikiLeaks notwithstanding.
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