Despite what is sometimes argued, fighting wars is not a crime. But it is against the law for weapons-bearers to target large areas indiscriminately without regard for potential collateral damage. Instead, they are required to carefully choose only legitimate military targets.

In my view, the same standard could be applied to whistle-blowing advocacy groups: organizations like Wikileaks should engage in precision targeting of legitimate military foul-ups, rather than indiscriminate bombshells aimed at the entire military-industrial complex; and most importantly, they should aim to minimize collateral damage.

At Foreign Policy, I argue if Wikileaks were to follow such standards in disseminating future information, it could go far to regain its credibility as a champion of rather than threat to human security:

Criticisms aside, WikiLeaks adds real value to the international regime governing the behavior of soldiers in wartime by promoting precisely the sort of accountability that the Geneva Conventions require but military culture tends to discourage.

Imagine if WikiLeaks specialized only in receiving and publicizing reports of specific war crimes submitted by troops in the field. Instead of dumping 90,000 documents into the public domain and letting the chips fall where they may, the organization would serve as a conduit through which to reveal specific events that militaries might otherwise be tempted to cover up. Such a mechanism would ensure that specific war crimes allegations were made public and properly investigated without undue risk to whistle-blowers. That access point of information would encourage governments to take a stronger lead in investigating and punishing transgressions in the first place — a requirement under treaty law — potentially deterring future atrocities.

In short, the value of whistle-blowing should not be discounted – as Marc Thiessen has done – simply because it can do harm when done irresponsibly. Indeed a more targeted whistle-blowing architecture of the type Wikileaks has pioneered could be an indispensable element of 21st century security sector reform.

Read the entire thing here.

[cross-posted at Current Intelligence]