Posted on 09/14/2006 8:41:56 AM PDT by wjersey
When Daniel Ellsberg, the defense analyst, leaked the Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971, it created one of the most significant newspaper stories -- and battles -- of the century. One thing it did not do was prevent the Vietnam War, although it may have shortened it. Now he is calling on officials within the government to leak "the Pentagon Paper of the Middle East" to modern reporters, to short-circuit another possible war.
Ellsberg's challenge is found in the October issue of Harper's magazine, to appear next week. E&P has obtained an advance copy.
The article is titled, "The Next War," with the conflict in question a possible face-off between the U.S. and Iran. Ellsberg, based on unconfirmed reporting by Seymour Hersh and others, believes there is a "hidden crisis," with government insiders aware of "serious plans for war with Iran" while "congress and the public remain largely in the dark."
His remedy: "Conscientious insiders" need to leak hard evidence to the press and public, while risking their current and future employment, as he did in the early 1970s.
But Ellsberg is hardly the hero of his own story. While proud of what he did, he faults himself for waiting far too long in thed 1960s. If he had leaked in 1964, it might have halted the entire enterprise in its tracks, he feels. In the same way, he hails former Clinton and Bush terrorism expert Richard Clarke for blowing the whistle on trumped-up evidence used to support the invasion of Iraq -- but as in his case, this came after the Iraq adventure had already come to fruition.
Indeed, Ellsberg had called for insiders, such as Clarke, to come forward before the Iraq invasion, in a January 2003 interview with E&P.
Now, in the Harper's article, therefore, he declares: "Assuming Hersh’s so-far anonymous sources mean what they say—that this is, as one puts it, 'a juggernaut that has to be stopped'—I believe it is time for one or more of them to go beyond fragmentary leaks unaccompanied by documents.
"That means doing what no other active official or consultant has ever done in a timely way: what neither Richard Clarke nor I nor anyone else thought of doing until we were no longer officials, no longer had access to current documents, after bombs had fallen and thousands had died, years into a war. It means going outside executive channels, as officials with contemporary access, to expose the president’s lies and oppose his war policy publicly before the war, with unequivocal evidence from inside. Simply resigning in silence does not meet moral or political responsibilities of officials rightly 'appalled' by the thrust of secret policy. I hope that one or more such persons will make the sober decision—accepting sacrifice of clearance and career, and risk of prison—to disclose comprehensive files that convey, irrefutably, official, secret estimates of costs and prospects and dangers of the military plans being considered.
"What needs disclosure is the full internal controversy, the secret critiques as well as the arguments and claims of advocates of war and nuclear 'options'—the Pentagon Papers of the Middle East....
"The personal risks of doing this are very great. Yet they are not as great as the risks of bodies and lives we are asking daily of over 130,000 young Americans— with many yet to join them— in an unjust war. Our country has urgent need for comparable courage, moral and civil courage, from its public servants. They owe us the truth before the next war begins."
Ellsberg's most recent book is "Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers."
Did I mention capitulation?
I actually meant "capitulating", of course (spell chequer is you're freind). Next time you want to capitulate, rent a room, ok?
In a word, yes.
Regardless of how the war started, it was a war that needed to be fought, all Ellesberg did was ultimately to lead to the Khmer Rouge killing two million in the Cambodian Killing Fields.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg
Iraq is nothing like Vietnam. Dan's like another Dan: a washed-up, lefty loser.
He'll go to his grave mumbling, "Vietnam, Vietnam . . ."
"One bullet,one collaborator."
I want to echo your sentiment.
It can't.
Carolyn
It was a rhetorical question. I knew you'd been around for a long time. I saw your other posts and I know what you mean. Just struck a bad chord with me.
"Something that could potentionally prevent, shorten or end a war...is not good?"
I didn't say you said surrender, I just wondered if surrender met your criteria.
Ignorance is bliss.
Regardless of how the war started, it was a war that needed to be fought, all Ellesberg did was ultimately to lead to the Khmer Rouge killing two million in the Cambodian Killing Fields.
What I learned from the Pentagon Papers: we went into Vietnam with a mission that was at best vaguely described (and, for the most part, wasn't described at all), with no strategy at all, or even a concept of what would be a winning strategy, and no idea of how to tell if we were winning or not. Left with that sort of political non-guidance, the military set themselves up to fight the kind of war they preferred--logistically massive conventional forces--without any real regard for whether those forces would be strategically relevant. Once there, we attempted to improvise ad hoc solutions to strategic problems without considering any factors beside our own convenience--and sought to impose them by force on a population and a country that we were supposedly trying to keep free and develop into a self-governing democracy. I think it's fair to describe those conditions as a gross miscarriage of statecraft.
War is far too important to be left to the generals--which, in turn, means that the politicians had better have SOME idea of what they want done, and how it should be done, before they tell the generals "don't just stand there, do something!"
Yes, that war needed to be fought. But it needed to be fought competently. We were competent at the tactical level--but so was the enemy. We won battles because of superior firepower--but because that firepower turned out to be strategically irrelevant, victory at the tactical level didn't turn into war-winning objectives being met, and thus did not lead to strategic victory.
And by the time of the Pentagon Papers getting published, there was no popular support for continuing the war. That had been exhausted by Johnson's mishandling of the war and public opinion about the war from 1965 to 1969. Ellsberg didn't cause the killing fields in 1971--Johnson and MacNamara did in 1964.
marking for later read
I respect your opinion and agree on many points, but that being said, Ellesberg should not be looked upon as a hero by anyone, he is still a traitor.
As Clemenceau said, "War is a series of calamaties that result in victory."
And yes Vietnam was a battle lost in a larger scope war that we ultimately did win, precisely because we showed the Soviets that they were not going to be able to expand their influence without paying a heavy price, a price in the end, they were not willing to pay. All that in spite of the cluster f--k LBJ and McNamara made out of the war.
OK
Nope
Reported in E & P, friend of pinkos everywhere.
The problem with Vietnam was that the "debate" was conducted behind closed doors, in secure conference rooms, and the proceedings were (wrongly, IMHO) stamped "TOP SECRET."
The only things that thrive in an environment of complete secrecy are mendacity and incompetence. The Founding Fathers gave us a republic--the question was whether or not we would keep it. Decisions of whether or not to commit the country to war should be accompanied by vigorous public debate, with all available data laid on the table. To do otherwise is to make America into an oligarchy based on one's security clearance, which is about as far from the Founding Fathers' intent as you could get.
Had the Pentagon Papers material been discussed in the public domain in 1964, I am convinced that (a) we still would've gone to Vietnam, because it was obviously the right thing to do, and (b) we wouldn't have done the ineffective things that we did, because the average citizen would've looked at the (non-)plan and said to their representatives, "This 'plan' makes no frickin' sense, send Bobby Strange back to the drawing board and have him get it right."
Kewl. I'll try to stop shooting from the hip then.
It's a lot more accurate if you use both hands.
If we didn't have war plans for Iran...now THAT would be suicidal. If someone chose to leak such plans...THAT would be treasonous. Ellsberg suggests National sucide.
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