The courage is in leaking them with a name attached to the leaker or distributor. Bradley Manning is an example of what happens to people who leak stuff the State doesn't want leaked. Of course Assange seems more in it for the show than the leaks, which may in the end be the best strategy for most attention to the leaks themselves (along with attention to Assange), but it would have been a much easier and safer execution if it had been done anonymously. (It might not have received any attention though.)
>>> "The courage is in leaking them with a name attached to the leaker or distributor."
Which Bradley Manning did not do.
>>> "Bradley Manning is an example of what happens to people who leak stuff the State doesn't want leaked."
Yes... Bradley Manning is a perfect example of what happens when you illegally releases hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables, violating oaths you swore to your country. You go to jail. For a long time. What is your point?
And I'm sorry, but as the family member of someone who has been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan for over 100 combat missions, and the recipient of a bronze star (with valor).... I have a different definition of what exactly "courage" is.
I suppose I should have said leaking at all has some quantity of courage attached to it, since you're messing with a government entity that pretty much by definition is more powerful than the individual and whose members are just as self-preserving as any other humans. A lot of people sure regard Deep Throat as courageous. Do you just consider him a criminal? It takes more courage to not even try being anonymous about it, though I think the leaker is categorically more courageous than the publisher, so I wouldn't say Assange is more courageous than Manning.
My point about Manning is that he could form an idea about what would happen to him if he got caught doing what he considered the right thing. Similarly, Assange could form an idea of what harassment and possibly jail time he'd have to go through by controlling the first distribution channel. Typically people consider taking such known risks courageous, with foolishness often tagging along.
> Different strokes for different folks............
Well yes, I could argue that participating in the US military at all within the last decade is a display of complete cowardice--character cowardice, moral cowardice, and intellectual cowardice. I could argue that courage is just foolishness, that they're not separate things but the same thing, and that medals award stupidity. There are many ways to disagree on the nature of courage, what's your point with toting out your family? Just to display one of the ways? Fair enough.
In fact, it's rather easy in this information age.