The Whistleblower who tried to prevent the Iraq War

Just goes to show how human nature & politics are on a slow evolutionary ladder ;)

Here's another favorite...

"The tyrant, who in order to hold his power, suppresses every superiority, does away with good men, forbids education and light, controls every movement of the citizens and, keeping them under a perpetual servitude, wants them to grow accustomed to baseness and cowardice, has his spies everywhere to listen to what is said in the meetings, and spreads dissension and calumny among the citizens and impoverishes them, is obliged to make war in order to keep his subjects occupied and impose on them permanent need of a chief." - Aristotle

Whitenoise,

Nice (and surprising) to see Cicero still can ring some synaptic bells 2000 years later.

The first and best essay I think he ever wrote was on, "Virtue and Advantage."

Painstakingly he demonstrated what every sane business person knows by instinct. Yes, you can cheat a customer and get away with it. But that's a problem because it might tempt you to cheat some more. And then some more. 'Hey! This is easy!' Maybe I should cheat on my wife too!

Then suddenly without warning, word has circulated that you aren't reliable, aren't honest or trustworthy, and you are heading out of business. Democracy in economics.

All the profit made by cheating is trivial compared to the effort to recoup the loss of your good name.

Virtue as Cicero defined it, does not impose severe disadvantage. It is a test of character which provides benefits, seen and unseen.

Seeking advantage in excess, is the lure of crime. Cut some corners here, cut some corners there, bring in defective merchandise, keep your thumb on the scales - and you do profit.

Over time - regardless of all the PR and hype and economic theologizing - it all craps out. And along with it the poisoned social cohesion of a state at war with itself. Ike got it right.

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not traitor, he speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their garments, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared." - Cicero, 42 B.C.

Wall Street Bailed Out and Whistleblowers Left to Drown!

Tell Congress to Enact Meaningful Whistleblower Protections! http://www.whistleblowers.org/

"A time comes when silence is betrayal; we are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation, for those it calls 'enemy." - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act includes some improvements over past whistleblower protection legislation, it remains largely powerless. Critical provisions including access to jury trials in federal courts and protection for national intelligence whistleblowers are not included in the bill.

Without these provisions, federal employee whistleblowers will be forced to bring cases to the Merits Systems Protections Board. The MSPB is an outdated and inadequate system where less than 5% of employees win their whistleblower case. The members of the MSPB are political appointees without proper expertise. We cannot allow more whistleblowers to fall victim to this flawed system.

Take Action! Tell Congress to Enact Meaningful Whistleblower Protections!
http://capwiz.com/whistleblowers/issues/alert/?alertid=11973051&queueid=[capwiz:queue_id]

" Tell people something they know already and they will thank you for it.Tell them something new and they will hate you for it. "

Wreyeter & cantucwearebrothers,

Criticism of the article is spot on. Reworkng a press release isn't journalism - it's second-level marketing.

However the sloppiness of the article is no fault of the subject matter and Ms Gun would be a credit to any institiution which values honesty and integrity. I definitely want to find more about her.

Unfortunately for us all in the invertebrate world of politics laws are designed to protect the most craven of liars. It appears Ms Gun weighed her career against higher standards of personal responsibility and her career concerns stopped interfering - also a sign of developed intelligence. A categotical imperative appeared and that was that..

When you think of all the intermediaries in the last 8 years who had first hand knowledge of how stupidly the place was being managed - but did nothing - it is gratifying that by her actions Ms Gun will be remembered in history - the rest will have done no more than lived as hostages of their own fears.

Quite a lady. Maybe she could replace Lord Black in the Lords...

BTW,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharine_Gun

"On January 31, 2003, she received an e-mail from a United States National Security Agency official named Frank Koza. This e-mail requested aid in a secret and illegal operation to bug the United Nations offices of six nations: Angola, Cameroon, Guinea, Pakistan, Mexico and Chile. These were the six "swing nations" on the UN Security Council that could determine whether the UN approved the invasion of Iraq. The plan clearly violated the Vienna Conventions, which regulate global diplomacy."

What a brave young lady...and yes, she is a hottie! Nevertheless, she risked her life by exposing what was going on....More intelligence operatives, agencies should use their conscious as she did. So many law enforcement people at every level, local, state, national and international are literally brainwashed into thinking they can break the law and not pay attention to human rights, as well as the constitutions of counties, including their own. They too need to stand up, like she did. Great article and I will buy the book. Thanks SeaJade

Apparently what caused her to act was "At the time," she recalled, "all I could think about was that I knew they were trying really hard to legitimize an invasion, and they were willing to use this new intelligence to twist arms, perhaps blackmail delegates, so they could tell the world they had achieved a consensus for war."

I guess they didn't think they had to go into the details in the short space of the article since it had already been covered more fully in the book.

That about sums it up Wreyeter!!

Did anyone actually read this article? There's really no substance to it. It's repetitive and meanders around sputtering evocative phrases, but never reveals what it was that caused Ms. Gun to act. I get it that they're trying to sell books, but this article didn't make me want to buy the book, it just irritated me that I wasted my time reading the article.

Great article.

What a hero, and a hottie.

Excellent article! Thanks.

This is so important...everyone should read this.