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Pentagon Papers Ellsberg Supports Wikileaks
wierd_w writes "Daniel Ellsberg says: 'Every attack now made on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange was made against me and the release of the Pentagon Papers at the time.' Due to the recent debates over the pros and cons between the wikileaks releases and those of the historic 'Pentagon papers,' Daniel Ellsberg, who released the pentagon papers in 1971, has written an editorial on the subject declaring that he rejects the mantra of 'Pentagon Papers good; WikiLeaks material bad,' and that further 'That's just a cover for people who don't want to admit that they oppose any and all exposure of even the most misguided, secretive foreign policy. The truth is that every attack now made on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange was made against me and the release of the Pentagon Papers at the time.'"
Go ahead and post one. Who keeps you from doing it?
Freedom of speech swings all ways, it also means that you may post here something that people might not like. I would like to see it! Give me ONE good reason why Wikileaks is wrong in what it's doing. So far nobody manged to convince me, but I would very much enjoy reading a good reason why Wikileaks should cease to exist.
I do think that Wikileaks did a great service to the world, but I do not benefit from listening to opinions that match mine. People telling me that I'm right do not give me any meaningful input. I already "know" that I'm right. People are always in the assumption that they're right. But to be "more right", I need more input. More input allows me to adjust my position, to test that input against my existing input and either verify or falsify my point of view. Welcome to science. It works for opinions, too!
Only an input that challenges my point of view and presents me with an antithesis can offer me more insight. So please do. I would be happy to hear it!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
No, but there was this:
Ellsberg later claimed that after his trial ended, Watergate prosecutor William H. Merrill informed him of an aborted plot by Liddy and the "plumbers" to have 12 Cuban-Americans who had previously worked for the CIA to "totally incapacitate" Ellsberg as he appeared at a public rally, though it is unclear whether that meant to assassinate Ellsberg or merely to hospitalize him.[24][25] In his autobiography, Liddy describes an "Ellsberg neutralization proposal" originating from Howard Hunt, which involved drugging Ellsberg with LSD, by dissolving it in his soup, at a fund-raising dinner in Washington in order to "have Ellsberg incoherent by the time he was to speak" and thus "make him appear a near burnt-out drug case" and "discredit him". The plot involved waiters from the Miami Cuban community. According to Liddy, when the plan was finally approved, "there was no longer enough lead time to get the Cuban waiters up from their Miami hotels and into place in the Washington Hotel where the dinner was to take place" and the plan was "put into abeyance pending another opportunity".
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
From wikipedia:
"In another example, a memo from the Defense Department under the Johnson Administration listed the reasons for American persistence:
* 70% - To avoid a humiliating U.S. defeat.
* 20% - To keep [South Vietnam] (and the adjacent) territory from Chinese hands.
* 10% - To permit the people [of South Vietnam] to enjoy a better, freer way of life.
* ALSO - To emerge from the crisis without unacceptable taint from methods used.
* NOT - To 'help a friend'[3][9]"
- If the leadership of one of the world's two super powers is continuing a war with no end it sight, simply to avoid humiliation, its pretty easy to get the impression that they are loosing.
- If after 4 years of war military leadership says that it will take 2x-3x current troop levels to win, one could conclude that there isn't much optimism for the current strategies chances.
These are perfectly reasonable interpretations of the the book. You should read it.
Of course the fact that leadership decided to quit the field after determining the war was un-winnable given the available resources should be enough to persuade anyone.