...I'm okay with being REALITY-based.




Wednesday, February 25, 2004
      ( 10:24 AM )
 
HoooRAH!

Katharine Gun has been cleared of all charges. If you remember, last winter while the US was trying to get its war on, the London Observer printed an article that revealed that the US was spying and tapping its "allies" in the UN to try to find ways to manipulate them into supporting the Iraq War. Gun leaked an email to the Observer that proved this was happening. She couldn't stand by and let the war happen when she knew it was being forced on the UN. Of course she was sacked from her job. But the prosecution decided to drop the charges today because there was no way they could try her without jeopardizing the secrets of the US and the UK - and revealing that what she leaked was absolutely true, and because no jury would convict her:

But BBC political correspondent Guto Harri said a
government spokesperson insisted the decision
to drop the case was taken before the demand
for documents was made.

The same spokesperson suggested the case might
have been dropped as Mrs Gun planned to argue
she leaked the e-mail to save lives from being lost
in a war, something that could persuade a jury and
would lead to the reputation of the Official Secrets
Act being damaged.

Our correspondent said this suggested the
government had made a political calculation that a
random selection of a dozen jurors would be likely
to be so instinctively anti-war than an acquittal
would be likely.

Ms. Gun has been through a year of hell while the British government decided what they were going to do with her. They can't just have government employees thinking they can blow the whistle when they see dirty tricks being conducted. Otherwise the whole Official Secrets Act would be in jeopardy (along with the basic operations of the governments both in the UK and the US).

Dan Ellsberg, of Pentagon Papers fame, had a thoughtful commentary on NPR this morning commending Ms. Gun for acting quickly. He said that had he not waited 6 years to reveal what he knew, thousands of lives would have been saved. He has been told that the Congress would never have passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution had they known the content of the Pentagon Papers when Ellsberg first found them in 1968. He believes Ms. Gun did what she had to do, and he urged other whistleblowers not to be afraid to come forward, especially if it could mean saving lives.

Of course, the underlying issue of this entire story, the fact that the US was playing dirty tricks on its allies in the UN, has never been investigated, pursued or prosecuted in the United States. In fact, this story got little to no play at all in the states. So on top of lying outright to us about the weapons and nuclear materials in Iraq, our government was also spying on our allies to find ways to coerce them into supporting this illegal and immoral war.

But don't pay attention to that: Gays are getting married everywhere! Aaaahh!!

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