hi clo,
in my view, there is a moral obligation to challenge the law if the law is immoral. how a person does so is up to them.
as yet, i don't know all that much about bergdahl. thanks for the link. i have heard that he wrote a few emails that described his disappointment. he sounded to me like a moral guy. perhaps his sense of humour was dark.
but i think he deserted and ought to be tried for it. that is one means by which one challenges the status quo. loyalty is complicated and interesting. i agree that he signed up for the army and therefore he is bound to answer its charges against him. just as in the end snowden must do so - if the form of illegality he is charged with is appropriate and responsive to the fact that, once revealed, the us government has conceded that what it was doing needed to be changed. snowden was right. ipso facto, his disclosures ought not to be criminal.
if, in contrast to his original belief, bergdahl's case is that the us was smug and murderous in afghanistan, i can understand why he might want to extricate himself. i don't know whether he is right about the us military and its behaviour. but i wonder how easy it is to exit a war which you discover is not what it seems.
as regards snowden's emails, he is unlikely to have copies of them and the nsa won't share the ones which are inconvenient to their case against him.
| 