Posted on 09/27/2004 2:02:11 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
EUGENE — The man who leaked the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War called for government insiders to provide similar classified documents about the war in Iraq.
Daniel Ellsberg, 73, said federal insiders owe a "higher allegiance'' to the Constitution, the public and U.S. soldiers in Iraq than to their government bosses. He acknowledges that whistle-blowers risk personal setbacks, such as losing their jobs, but urged them to act nonetheless.
"I'm asking them to ask themselves whether their highest duty to this country really consists in keeping secrets of an administration that has acted like this ... in protecting lies, untruths that are costing many lives; or whether they don't have a duty to those troops who are over there to frankly get them out of what many people in the government understand to be hopeless,'' Ellsberg said.
(Ellsberg is scheduled to speak in Corvallis tonight along with media critic Norman Solomon. Their talk will be at 7 p.m. at the LaSells Stewart Center, 875 S.W. 26th St. on the Oregon State University campus.)
Ellsberg provided a lukewarm endorsement of Senator John Kerry for president when he addressed an audience at Lane Community College on Saturday.
He urged a vote for Kerry despite any misgivings about Kerry's vote to support the invasion of Iraq.
Ellsberg said the Bush administration has had the worst foreign policy decision-making of any administration since Lyndon Johnson.
The U.S. invasion of Iraq has destabilized the Middle East and made Americans more vulnerable to terrorist attacks at home, Ellsberg said.
"The invasion of Iraq greatly strengthened al-Qaeda, which is in fact a significant threat to this country. It's increased their recruiting and I think that's true every week we continue our occupation,'' Ellsberg said.
But he said he was encouraged by Kerry's recent criticism of the Iraq war spurred by a CIA report that shows a stalemate as the best possible scenario and a protracted escalated war with more civilian and military casualties as the worst scenario.
Ellsberg was a special assistant to the assistant secretary of defense during the Vietnam War. He later served two years in Vietnam.
The document that came to be called the Pentagon Papers was a 7,000-page study of the U.S. decision-making in Vietnam that was classified top secret. They revealed the knowledge, early on, that the war would not likely be won and that continuing the war would lead to many more casualties than was admitted publicly. Further, the study showed a deep cynicism toward the public and a disregard for the loss of life and injury suffered by soldiers and civilians.
In 1969, as an employee of Rand Corporation, Ellsberg photocopied the classified study and released it to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and later 20 different newspapers. The New York Times began publishing them in 1971.
He was later indicted on espionage, theft, and conspiracy charges related to the release of the documents. Ellsberg's trial on 12 felony counts was dismissed in 1973 when John Dean, former counsel to President Nixon, told federal prosecutors and then Congress that White House staff had ordered a break-in at the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist. The White House hoped to discredit Ellsberg with information from his psychiatrist's file, but once the break-in was revealed, Ellsberg's case was thrown out on grounds of government misconduct.
"The U.S. invasion of Iraq has destabilized the Middle East and made Americans more vulnerable to terrorist attacks at home, Ellsberg said."
So let's say we never invaded Iraq. Right now Saddam would be working on his WMD program as would Libya. So that would be two more nations developing WMD. Now there are two less and we are at the doorstep of the other two, Iran and Syria.
I think we are doing pretty good despite what Mr. Ellsberg thinks.
As usual, the Liberals are wrong.
I love people like Ellsburg's reasoning. To wit Al-Qaeda is a severe threat to our country, so therefore we shouldn't be fighting them in Iraq. But these clowns further contradict themselves. First they say that fighting terrorists is legitimate (if they're not in Iraq), but then they claim by fighting them we are creating more of them so maybe we shouldn't fight them. How does Ellsburg know that we didn't create more terrorists when we ousted the Taliban? Why would toppling Hussein create more terrorists than getting rid of the Taliban a government that sponsored terrorist orgs like Al-Qaeda? And is he saying that if you perceive a threat to your country, don't react to it because you might make more enemies? Ellsburg's "logic" escapes me.
It's coming to the big push. All of the Traitors, Communist Socialist from the 1930's up to today are coming out to win for themselves a place in history by publicly taking over the democrat party of the U.S.
From these days forward, if the U.S. is to remain a free country the citizens will have to fight harder, organize more, and donate money for that purpose. The fight for freedom is now in the U.S. not in a foreign country. The U.S. may later have to go outside of it's borders for money to remain free and to fight these Communist Socialist that has become so powerful here in the U.S.A.
All of the cockroaches of your generation are crawling out of their hiding spaces. Thank you, John Kerry.
Does anybody have a giant can of RAID?
It makes me shake my head when people say communism is dead.
Iraq is a magnet for terrorists and our well equipped miltary is fighting them in Iraq and elsewhere and not here.I say that's the right way.
AND look at the map. Bush is surrounding them.
Israel
Afghanistan
Lybia
Iraq
Pakistan
India
That's not surprising given that media coverage of Vietnam was universally NEGATIVE. At that point, folks had been led to believe that the Tet Offensive was successful for the NVA, when it was exactly the opposite. CBS and Walter Cronkite (the most trusted newsman in the US, HAH) led this effort. Too bad the Pajama Warriors were not in force back then!
Veterans who were villified will finally get their due; I think many Vietnam vets can't WAIT to vote against Kerry, the weasel.
This raises a legitimate issue. Where should our civil servants place their loyalty and thus dictate their behavior particuarly when it involves national security issues? The government even when they engage in coverups and fibbing to the American public? At what point is it wrong for a person to keep his mouth shut even when faced with govt deception aka Waco/Kosovo/ect?
I think a lot of people are going to reflect and reconsider their stance on Vietnam.
Lots of times public servants don't know the entire story.
And those that do? And what of those that know enough to determine what is being told to the American public is false?
I guess if they want to, they can go to the media.
Hopefully, they will consider the big picture.
That sort of excuse making "look at the big picture" was precisely what the NOW nags preached during Bubba's impeachment and sexual harrasment trial. Now if anything should be condemned as being wrong, its that sort of ostrucfication. Or are you arguing that personal political preferences should determine one's level of truthfulness?
Oh, would that I could...
This guy needs to be arrested for treason!
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