Does It Matter If WikiLeaks Source Is Gay?

The posting of a massive trove of sensitive government documents by Wikileaks is sure to have a profound effect on information policy in the international community, and a previous leak of war-related material--including footage of civilians being gunned down in Iraq--has already caused a stir.

But while some are debating whether the leaks serve the causes of transparency and accountability--and whether those purposes provide adequate justifications for such leaks--others have zeroed in on reports that the suspected source of the leaks is a gay (or possibly transgendered) servicemember. Some have even held up the suspect's reported homosexuality (or gender identity) as proof that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" should not only be retained, but enforcement of the anti-gay law should be more aggressive.

The question of whether to retain or retire the 17-year-old ban on openly gay troops is itself controversial. A Pentagon study on the issue shows that 70% of servicemembers do not feel that repealing the ban would harm the military, and an even larger percentage of the American public--more than three-quarters, according to a recent poll--favor allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly. But GOP lawmakers, led by John McCain, have blocked repeal in the Senate following approval in the House, and with Republicans having gained Senate control in the last election there is doubt that lawmakers will set the ban aside any time soon. The issue may be settled by the courts--in which case, the matter may prove ultimately more polarizing than if lawmakers had repealed the law themselves.

Leaked military and diplomatic information presents grounds for further debate. Is democracy served by secrecy? Has national security been breached by Wikileaks? What of the role played by a young servicemember, purported to be either gay or transgendered? Are gays a security threat to the military? If so, is it because they are gay--or because they are legally barred from open service? Or is the sexuality of a young man described in the media as a talented hacker who subscribes to the hacker ethos that "information wants to be free" beside the point? Do hackers in uniform, rather than gays, pose a hazard to national security? And are proponents of retaining "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" making a valid point when they point to the case--or muddying the waters by seizing on to a high-profile, highly controversial, and opportune media sensation?

A Nov. 29 posting at Accuracy in Media by the site editor, Cliff Kincaid, accused the mainstream media of glossing over the sexual orientation of Pfc. Bradley Manning, the suspected source of the leaked documents that Wikileaks posted. Accuracy in Media took aim at the New York Times and the Washington Post for having neglected to mention that Manning is reportedly gay; the article then praised the International Business Times for its "honest reporting" in asserting that, "Manning is openly gay and has been active in gay rights movements."

The article shifted the focus from the story away from the leaks and onto the issue of the 17-year-old law that bars openly gay Americans from military service, asking, "But how was this possible if the Pentagon had a policy against gay soldiers?" The article went on to report, "Jonah Knox, the pseudonym for a noncommissioned officer and analyst in the United States Army Reserves, pointed out in an [Accuracy in Media] column that, rather than repeal the Pentagon's homosexual exclusion policy, the WikiLeaks scandal demonstrates that the policy and regulations need to be tightened up."

Knox suggested that the military might be in the habit of disregarding part of the law, writing, "[I]t does not surprise me that the Army may never have investigated Manning for his support of the homosexual agenda, for his frequenting of homosexual events and/or establishments because Department of Defense policy does not seem to allow it." Knox added, "However, Department of Defense and Army regulations did allow the Army to investigate Manning based on his declarations of being a homosexual who despised the Army for not fully embracing the homosexual agenda and not acting quickly enough to repeal DADT."

The Accuracy in Media article went on to refer to Manning's alleged open homosexuality as "insubordination and treason" to which his superiors "turned a blind eye".

Kincaid had authored an earlier article at the Post Chronicle in which he advanced the notion that Manning's alleged conduct was an inevitable result of his purported sexuality. In an Aug. 30 op-ed piece, Kincaid wrote, "[N]ew evidence about the destructive nature of the homosexual lifestyle has surfaced in the treason case of gay soldier Bradley Manning."

Kincaid's op-ed lashed out at S. E. Cupp, a conservative author and "occasional guest on the Fox News Channel," who told "Matt Lewis of Politics Daily that 'Conservatism and gay rights are actually natural allies.' She is, ironically, the author of a book, Losing Our Religion, on how 'Judeo-Christian values' are in danger of being 'relegated to the hush-hush subculture unable to operate in the open without fear of retribution and censorship,' " Kincaid wrote, going on to add, "Cupp apparently missed the parts of the Bible that talk about marriage between a man and a woman, and homosexuality being unnatural and sinful."

'Accuracy' and 'Obsession'

Kincaid's "obsession" with Manning as a poster child for retaining DADT was noted at ConWebBlog, where an Aug. 4 posting reported on his writings about Manning and DADT. "Then again, Kincaid considers a guy who thinks the Nazi party began as a 'private homosexual military force' to be reliable, so perhaps his judgment on such issues is less than stellar," the posting said, referring to Scott Lively, an evangelist and co-author of the book The Pink Swastika, which makes the claim that Hitler and most Nazi leaders were gay. The posting went on to call Kincaid's articles "wild, hate-driven speculation. But Kincaid wants to see gays dead, so that's to be expected." The posting provided a link to an earlier report on Kincaid's support for a bill in Uganda that would impose the death penalty on gays.

A Nov. 29 op-ed at the Lincoln-Tribune by Jim Kouri adopted a less accusatory tone in examining the relationship between Manning's reported homosexuality and his arguably treasonous actions. Calling Manning a "disgruntled soldier," Kouri cited British newspaper The Telegraph as having reported that Manning is openly gay, and that he had suffered a breakup with a same-sex romantic partner.

Kouri's article noted that Manning faces a court-martial for his suspected role in the leaking of the sensitive material to Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, who himself has recently been smeared with charges of (straight) sexual impropriety. Manning, Kouri's article noted, posted a message at this Facebook page that said he was "beyond frustrated with people and society at large."

Early reports on Manning following a leak of sensitive material concerning the war in Iraq last summer said that the 22-year-old Army intelligence officer was facing discharge for an unspecified "adjustment disorder," and noted that Manning himself allegedly wrote that he was in the midst of a personal "transition." These reports gave rise to speculation that Manning might be transgendered. The confusion surrounding Manning's sexuality and gender identity was heightened by the Telegraph claiming that Manning had been mulling gender reassignment.

The British press has taken an interest in the story. Manning has a British mother, and lived with her for a time in Wales. Media sources report that Manning then lived with his father in America--until his father discovered that Manning was gay, at which point he tossed the young man out of his house. It was at that point that Manning joined the Army, according to reports. Manning was assigned to work in military intelligence and sent to a posting near Baghdad. Media reports have outlined how, while stationed there, Manning felt increasingly disaffected.

Wired.com posted a June 6 story on Manning's eventual arrest, noting that Manning had allegedly leaked footage of a helicopter attack that killed a number of civilians in Baghdad in 2007, including two journalists.

It was that footage that seemed to have tipped Manning into the world of leaks and whistle blowing. But Manning didn't stop with the leaked footage of the helicopter attack. He also allegedly provided Wikileaks with another video showing an attack in Afghanistan, as well as with an Army document that assessed the level of threat Wikileaks posed to national security. Manning is also the chief suspect is the recently-released cache of around 260,000 communiqu�s among U.S. diplomats and staff that reportedly has the potential to wreak serious harm to relations between the United States and a number of other countries.

Manning took credit for the leaks in correspondence with a former computer hacker, claiming that the immense number of filched diplomatic communiqu�s would create a sensation once they were posted online.

"Hillary Clinton, and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning, and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format, to the public," Manning allegedly wrote to Adrian Lamo, a hacker who was convicted on felony charges stemming from a 2004 hack on the New York Times, reported Salon.com on June 18. The Salon.com article noted that Lamo and Wired.com writer Kevin Poulsen--who also has in the past been convicted on hacking charges--have had a long association, and called Lamo an "extremely untrustworthy source."

The article also suggested that Manning's arrest provided the U.S. government with something it seems to have wanted for some time: a way to pursue and prosecute Wikileaks, which since 2006 has operated with caution in order not to open itself to liability of criminal charges. The article cited the very Army document that had assessed Wikileaks as a national security threat--and which had been leaked by Manning to Wikileaks.

"Web sites such as Wikileaks.org have trust as their most important center of gravity by protecting the anonymity and identity of the insider, leaker, and whistleblower," a reprinted portion of the leaked document read. "Successful identification, prosecution, termination of employment, and exposure of persons leaking the information by the governments and businesses affected by the information posted to Wikileaks.org would damage and potentially destroy this center of gravity and deter others from taking similar actions."

One Bad Apple?

But from the start of the Manning/Wikileaks saga, while anti-gay pundits held Manning up as an example of the necessity for excluding openly gay individuals from the ranks of the armed forces, others in the blogging community took a closer look at whether certain personal characteristics of alleged wrongdoers speak to the larger communities to which they belong--whether racial, ethnic, or sexual.

"If a man robs a bank, the question of his sexual preferences is hardly germane to the central issue of his criminal behavior," an Aug. 8 Examiner article noted. "Contrariwise, if the crook is a transvestite and robs the bank while wearing feminine garb, then his sexual fetish becomes an important factor in the story.

"To most readers, sex is an interesting subject," the article continued. "Members of the gay and lesbian activist community speak of little else." Added the article, "When the sexual behavior of individuals is central to the basic story, journalists who gloss over the topic--in a cowardly attempt to avoid offending readers' sensibilities--are telling only half-truths. Some would consider these half-truths worse than outright lies." The article then went on to cite Manning's reported homosexuality/transgenderism. "The significance of this revelation is that Manning, based on published reports, was a public homosexual activist for at least over a year," the article said. "During this time he apparently came up with the idea of downloading and releasing the classified information to WikiLeaks as a way to get back at the United States military over its policy regarding homosexuality."

Anti-gay religious site WorldNetDaily pounced on the story with an Aug. 10 op-ed by Lewis Kinsolving headlined, "A 'gay' private with blood on his hands?" Kinsolving's op-ed cited British newspaper the Daily Telegraph as having reported, "Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the leakers might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldiers, or that of an Afghan family, because, he said, the leaked documents included the names of Afghan informants."

"If all of this very serious trouble can be caused by just one promiscuous homosexual private first class, what on earth would be the effect on the U.S. Army of sergeants and captains and colonels who, after the repeal of 'dont ask, don't tell [sic],' could announce their homosexual orientation in the barracks? " the WorldNetDaily article wondered--despite there being nothing in the media reports to indicate that Manning was especially "promiscuous," and without noting that Mullen himself is an advocate of setting aside the ban on openly gay servicemembers, and moreover without acknowledging that Britain had set aside its own exclusion policies that barred gays from military service in 2000, without any major problems resulting.

The level of damage done by the release of the diplomatic documents is also in question. "Although their contents are often startling and troubling, the cables are unlikely to gratify conspiracy theorists," reported British newspaper The Guardian on Nov. 28. "They do not contain evidence of assassination plots, CIA bribery or such criminal enterprises as the Iran-Contra scandal in the Reagan years, when anti-Nicaraguan guerrillas were covertly financed."

Beyond the question of Manning's sexuality--and the question of whether any security concerns of the sort pointed up by Mannings' alleged actions would be resolved, rather than heightened, by the retirement of DADT--there remains debate on whether such leaks are a matter of treason, or, rather, of principle. Daniel Ellsberg, famed for having provided the New York Times with the so-called "Pentagon Papers," a trove of sensitive documents pertaining to Vietnam, told the Huffington Post that Mannings' "motives are similar to mine: shortening a war and saving lives, same as mine 40 years ago," according to a Nov. 30 Canadian Press story.

Added Ellsberg, "He said the information needed to be known, and was wrongfully withheld. He said he was willing to take personal risk, and expected to go to jail. I don't know of anyone else to express that to risk. Why not take personal risk?"

The Canadian Press story noted that Manning could be sentenced to 52 years in prison if found guilty at his court-martial. At least one U.S. congressman, Republican of Michigan Mike Rogers, has stated that Manning should be put to death for having committed treason against the United States.

Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern seemingly disagreed, stating publicly that, Manning "was not afraid to face the unknown, not afraid to resist the seduction of conformity, not afraid to follow his conscience, and not afraid, most important for us today ... to give us the wherewithal so that we can have enough information to follow our own consciences."

But is Manning's sexuality relevant to his purported actions? Would similar actions undertaken by a heterosexual soldier have excited similar responses? And would Manning have undertaken the actions he allegedly took had he not been under the strain of serving in a military that is required by law to expel openly gay and lesbian troops?

Friends of Manning's hinted at some of those questions when speaking with the New York Times for an Aug. 8 article. Said Daniel J. Clark, whom Manning reportedly knew from time spent with a boyfriend in Cambridge, Mass., "I would always try to make clear to Brad that he had a promising future ahead of him. But when you're young and you're in his situation, it's hard to tell yourself things are going to get better, especially in Brad's case, because in his past, things didn't always get better."

Jacqueline Radford, a neighbor of Manning's family in Crescent, Okla., told the Times, "I've always tried to be supportive of him because of his home life," Ms. Radford said. "I know it was bad, to where he was left to his own, had to fend for himself."

The article noted that during his days at a local school, Manning declined to complete schoolwork that pertained to religion. He refused to include a reference to God when reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. And he was not afraid to stand up to his teachers: as one former classmate told the New York Times, "He would get upset, slam books on the desk if people wouldn't listen to him or understand his point of view. He would get really mad, and the teacher would say, 'O.K., Bradley, get out.' "

Life in Wales with his mother during high school was also tough, the Times article said, because of classmates' suspicions regarding Manning's sexuality. A former schoolmate, Rowan John--himself openly gay as a teen--told the Times, "It was probably the worst experience anybody could go through. Being different like me, or Bradley, in the middle of nowhere is like going back in time to the Dark Ages."

But whatever his sexuality or gender identity, one aspect of Manning's personality that seemed apparent to employers and acquaintances alike was his ability as a computer programmer--and as a hacker. The New York Times noted that even as a child, Manning was talented at hacking and writing programs. Moreover, the Times noted, hackers hold to a "philosophy that information should be free and accessible to all. And Private Manning had access to some of the most secret information on the planet." Indeed, as The Guardian reported, Manning told Lamo, "Information should be free. It belongs in the public domain." Moreover, Manning reportedly referred to Assange and Wikileaks as "freedom of information activists," the Guardian said.

"I want people to see the truth... because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public," the young intelligence officer told Lamo, an AFP article about Manning reported. The AFP article called Manning "a hero to anti-war activists and a villain to government officials". Without doubt, both camps include their share of gay and transgendered Americans.