Our blogs about
America's Wars
War on Iraq
War on Drugs
War on Afghanistan
War on Columbia
War on Philippines
War on Venezuela

MORE
Matrix Masters
Blogs
World Events
Katrina's Aftermath
US News
Bush Crime Family News
Science & Health
Earth News
Free Speech
News from Africa
News from Palestine
Bill of Rights Under Attack

Support Bloggers' Rights!

Lorenzo's
Random Musings
. . . about Chaos,
Reason, and Hope

 

It is time to take risks ... Ellsberg's call for leaked documents
(The Guardian, December 10, 2002)
In 1971, former marine Daniel Ellsberg leaked documents that exposed US government lies and helped end the Vietnam war. He tells Duncan Campbell why he did it, and why he is calling on today's officials to do the same to the Bush regime - and prevent a war in Iraq. . . . Ellsberg photocopied what were to become known as the Pentagon papers, and then tried to persuade politicians to release them and alert the country. When that failed, he gave them to the New York Times. . . . a burglary of Ellsberg's psychoanalyst's office was authorised in the hope of finding information that might discredit him or, when publicised, drive him to suicide. The Watergate burglars, Gordon Liddy and Howard Hunt, carried it out. A team of heavies was recruited to break Ellsberg's legs. His phone was tapped. It also emerged, during his trial in 1973, that the judge had earlier been offered the post of director of the FBI, a job he coveted. . . . Once these plots became known, the judge had to abandon the trial and acquit Ellsberg. The Pentagon papers also helped to so discredit the war that they became one of the key factors in the US's final withdrawal and Nixon's humiliating resignation. Ellsberg became a counter-cultural hero. . . . "One of the key differences is that the military now are clearly against this, which was not the case with Vietnam." . . . He lists "oil, oil and oil" as the main reasons for the present war plans. He also anticipates an "incident" that will be used as a rationale for the first US strike, just as the Gulf of Tonkin incident - a supposed attack on a US destroyer - precipitated deeper US military action in Vietnam. "Bush will want to claim, just as Johnson did, that he was immediately protecting American troops." . . . "I believe Rumsfeld, Cheney and Wolfowitz are using our own troops as bait. There will be deaths, and they know that." . . . Ellsberg has noted that there have been frequent leaks about the war plans in recent weeks. "There is great dissent and that is clearly the major reason for the leaking. It is clear that the administration is filled with people who believe this is reckless, unnecessary, foolish ... I am using every opportunity to say to people in the government who are in the position that I was then, and who know that their president is lying us into a wrongful and reckless war, to do what I wish I had done in 1964-65: to go to Congress and the press with documents and tell the truth. That would be a risk but there are times when big risks are worth that to save a lot of lives." . . . his book [see our recommended books section] contains some still unclassified secrets - one about a dialogue between Johnson and the then Canadian prime minister, Lester Pearson, in which nuclear war was discussed as an option in Vietnam. He is challenging attorney general John Ashcroft to prosecute him for breaking the law. . . . You cannot be a democracy in foreign affairs and have the amount of secrecy unchallenged that we have in America or you have in Britain. It's not just a joke, it's something that has to be resisted and changed."

posted by Lorenzo 11:15 AM