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One rather important moral concern about WikiLeak’s leak of information about the war in Afghanistan is whether this leak will result in people being killed. The main concern is that the Taliban has made it clear that it will be going through all the documents looking for the names of those who have helped Americans. They intend, of course, to kill those people.
The most obvious and probably the most plausible view regarding the ethics of the situation is that it would be morally wrong for WikiLeaks to leak documents containing such names. This can be argued for on the grounds that the actions of the folks at WikiLeaks would play a role in the death of other people and playing a role in the deaths of other seems to be clearly wrong. It can also be argued for on the grounds that the folks at WikiLeaks made it clear that they regard themselves as obligated to not cause such deaths. As such, a fatal leak of this sort would violate their own apparent moral standards.
Of course, there are cases in which leaking information that causes deaths is seen as not being bad. For example, the United States is rather busy trying to get information about terrorists, the Taliban and other enemies in order to kill them. Obviously, folks in the government and the military would be fine with such leaks.
Naturally, the folks in the Taliban regard the leaks that help them in the same way. This then pushes the moral debate back a bit, from the ethics of leaking to the moral status of those who use such leaks to their advantage.
As I see it, the United States has a clear moral edge over the Taliban. This is not so say that the United States is morally pure. Far from it. However, a comparison between the United States and the Taliban will show that the Taliban is considerably more evil. To use but one area of concern, one has but to consider how the Taliban treats women to get a clear picture of the evil committed by the Taliban. In contrast, the United States advocates the view that women are people and should be treated accordingly.
It must be noted that from the perspective of the Taliban, they are in the right (and on God’s side) and the United States is in the wrong. As such, the folks in the Taliban no doubt would regard any leaking of such names to be a good action. They, no doubt, would also regard the murder of those they regard as collaborators as just actions. In this they would be mistaken.
