That can be true, but you can't really have your cake and eat it too though, no? If the process is robust enough for serious internal affairs and someone skips requesting mast, which they can do all the way up to the President, then the next question is "why?". She could've even gone to a Congressperson with this and it'd have afforded her protections. Instead, she went to WikiLeaks.
You’re assuming that anyone in the government cares about what she was surfacing. That’s why whistleblowers go to the press, because the power structures that be don’t care.
Yeah, I don't really accept that kind of logic. That's the kind of stuff that says Jan 6 is okay because the government is that untrustable. In Snowden's case, sure, but in Manning's case her testimony also highlights that intel analysts had been building a case against the helicopter crew for a while.
I am personally fine with whistleblowers going to the press if they are more comfortable. The systems in the government, and especially the military, are very harsh and unforgiving to mistakes and unpreparedness. It's hard to whistleblow properly to the government, and so if there is an important topic that needs to be surfaced, then as far as I am concerned I would prefer people do whatever is necessary for their own safety and security to do so.
I respect your stance as well, but disagree that it's always the best. A messy situation like the Manning stuff had numerous avenues of approach and none were great.
