[whistleblowers] and the art of not ratting

You know, the staff reaction to the ban on biscuits at the FCO is not as spurious as it seems. It's a very good indicator. Two little anecdotes:

1. My mate relates a story of when he was doing a commando course. One of the men was known as a snitch and had turned in a fellow soldier to an officer. On this occasion, the alleged snitch was struggling to keep his handhold on a rope over a river, another came along, said, 'This is for Jones,' and observers say he tried to help the snitch but it was no use and the snitch lost his grip and fell into the river.

2. In Russia, no one likes anyone being above themselves and there's a tradition of the drivers being just as good as the Minister. One driver had this bad and did a number on me, delaying my return to a client and creating various other minor problems. I was angry and was going to deal with him but one of the ministry staff asked me to step aside and let him deal with it - keep it in the ranks, so to speak. I'm not a wise person but on that day I'm so glad I took his advice. Not only did they deal with that driver in their own way, but my stocks went up within the ministry which had seen me, until then, as an interloper quite above himself, which of course, I had been.

I plead guilty to 'doing a Jones' myself recently and at the time, I hadn't seen it in that light. When it was pointed out to me, I was horrified because I seriously hadn't seen myself that way. These sorts of sensitivities are important of course, often far more important than the big issues at stake and if you alienate your peer group and support base, you're only making a rod for your own back. Accidents start to happen, little incidents, one's protective envelope somehow tears and problems ensue.

Against that is the Burkean 'All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.' Such as a crooked cop and the whistleblower. So when does the whistleblower become a snitch and what differentiates them?

That's tough.

Ellsberg was a case in point. His legacy was that he alerted the American people to what their government was up to with their expendable lives. That earned Kissinger's 'the most dangerous man in America who has to be stopped at all costs' and for good measure, he was called a pervert.

If you accept Ellsberg, in hindsight, of having done right, what about Vanunu? What about Vlasov? The latter, in my Russian friend's book, was a total traitor.

All I'm asking is - where does one draw the line? At what point does a whistleblower become a snitch?

Some explanations

I didn't want to lengthen this post but some feedback suggests that not all know some of these characters above.

Basically, Vanunu spilt the beans on Israel having nuclear capability and Israel took great exception to that. So the question is - was he a whistleblower or a traitor?

Vlasov was the Soviet general in WW2 whose army was surrounded by the Germans. Knowing they'd be slaughtered, he surrendered but did more - he joined the Germans with his army to march on Moscow. The reason he gave was that he knew that Stalin didn't give a toss about the people and was prepared to sacrifice millions and millions of his countrymen for his own ambitions in Europe. To this day, the average Russian still sees him as a traitor.

Ellsberg - more people are familiar with. He gave the Pentagon Papers to the NYT, which basically showed that the stated reason for being in Vietnam - the domino theory, was bollocks and it was just a power game. Kissinger and Co. took this wedge between the people and its government as evidence of aid and succour to the enemy.

There's an excellent article here on the subject.