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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.'"
WTF were the Pentagon Papers? Were they pentagonal?
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The other day, Lieberman (who is looooong past his expiration date as a politician. Let's get with the program, Connecticut) was mouthing off on Fox News about how the New York Times should be investigated for espionage for cooperating with Wikileaks and publishing the cables. It's like, has he really never heard of New York Times v United States ? This wasn't that long ago, and it was the same newspaper to boot. And apart from the really right-wing Neocon wingnuts, find me a person today who doesn't think the leak of the Pentagon Papers was ultimately for the best. Why should Wikileaks be any different?
Dislike the Electoral College? Lobby your state to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
Wikipedia article , basically Ellsberg copied a couple of meters of reports stating that there were now way the US could win the Vietnam war.
Yes, and locked up for that. Good riddance, I say. Sex is dangerous, and that's precisely why we have Playstations and D&D.
http://my.firedoglake.com/kirkmurphy/2010/12/04/assanges-chief-accuser-has-her-own-history-with-us-funded-anti-castro-groups-one-of-which-has-cia-ties/
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
Then you should use AMD instead.
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.
But he didn't tell the women he was having a one night stands with that he might have a one night stand with someone else as well! She might not have had a one night stand with him if he had said so! He also said he would call her back and then he didn't!
The Leak is Leaked and every corporations are pressured by the government to take silly actions against Wikileaks. All before we get any analysis of the content. Now it seems that everyone blasting Wikileaks must be for selling boys for sex parties (one of the cover ups documented in the leaks).
Yeah, they called Putin "Batman", and yeah the US has been twisting arms all over the world to get governments to lie to their people. But selling pretty little boys out for sex and covering it up because an American company was involved?
The "Danger" to American Diplomacy is accrued when our diplomats are involved in totally unethical and immoral behaviors. The "Danger" gets paid out when the documentation of such things gets out to the public. If our government wants to protect its diplomatic efforts, then DON'T ACCRUE the risk in the first place. Then you don't have to fear the leaks.
And if Mastercard and Visa (who now look like they want a world safe for the KKK and those that sell "Boys for Sex") would just wait for the Analysis before bowing to pressure, then they might get out of this without looking like fools.
What I can't get my head around is al those people that spend their time complaining that Wikileaks is not careful enough in redacting the documents and is putting lives at risk. I mean talking about a skewed world view... Not one death on the whole planet has been directly or indirectly attributed to any of the Wikileaks revelations. Not one! Not even by US state officials who would have every reason to do so if they could only find one!
Meanwhile, what digging in the wikileaks files has confirmed or revealed (so far) about the US: torture ongoing after Abu Graib, systematic lying to the electorate and the governments of friendly powers, the killing of thousands upon thousands of civilians including women, children, the elderly, even handicapped people by US armed forces, lying about civilian death tolls, the killing in cold blood of enemy forces after they surrendered, systematically turning a blind eye to the use of torture by allied forces, complicity in having allies break their own national laws in order to support the US war effort... do I have to continue?
Seriously people...do you really want to spend your time and energy arguing about the way Wikileaks redacts the leaks?
The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.
Either Assange is subject to US law or he isn't. If he is, he should be protected by the First Amendment. If he isn't, then they have no legal right to prosecute him.
All of the idiots who want to temporarily suspend the law to punish one person always forget that it could be their turn sooner than they think. And, frankly, I'd rather not continue to establish the precedent that the world's most powerful country gets to arrogantly ignore international law and kidnap people to kill or torture them. In fifty years, it could be someone else putting hoods over US citizens who dare to mention the truth in public.
While I don't agree with a lot of what is going on, this automatic assumption that any leak = good on the part of many I also disagree with. I believe the pentagon papers leak was good over all because the public needed to know the information and that needs was enough to outweigh any harm it would cause and just generally breaking the oath and trust to keep information confidential he'd taken. So the reason it was a good thing was the context, what was leaked, and why.
So Wikileaks can very well be seen as different because their information is different. Personally I have thus far not seen a good reason for the leak. All the information I've been pointed to thus far (I don't have the time to go and sift through it myself) has either been things the public already knows (like the fact that there are civilian casualties in a war) or things that the public has no compelling interest to know (like diplomats private conversations about other world leaders). I haven't seen anything that I've said "Yes, the public needed to know this, it is important and shouldn't have been secret."
No, in other words, she worked directly with a group funded by the CIA.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
"Daniel Ellsberg, who released the pentagon papers in 1971, has written an editorial on the subject..."
The editorial was written by Michael Ellsberg, not Daniel Ellsberg, though it quotes Daniel Ellsberg.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Assange accused of having consexual sex?
Yes. The formal charge is consensual sex contrary to the condom laws of Sweden. Previous charges of non-consensual sex have been dropped.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
Assange is going to come out of this a hero. The "rape charge" is already falling apart. The press is now mostly supporting Assange. Give it a week, and there will be calls for resignations of some Government officials.
Some of his opponents are already in trouble. One of the "commentators" calling for calling for Assange to be killed is now the subject of a complaint that he was inciting to commit murder.
Meanwhile, Wikileaks remains online, and response times are good.
The New York Times, after publishing the Pentagon Papers, did not have its bank accounts frozen. Their legal defense was able to proceed without losing their defense fund.
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
All you have to do is look at how that post was modded to know why you don't see opposing opinions on the matter (unless you browse at -1).
There are some valid points on both sides, and my personal beliefs on the matter tend run in line with Wikileaks. However, anything brought up here that may look at this with any negative light on Wikileaks are usually censored with mod points (and, based on my experience, met with anti-American insults).
Actually, this smells of a 100% typical CIA op. It is the same organization that planned to topple the Cuban regime by chemically shaving Castro. Can you get any more stupid than that?
You should not believe Tom Clancy's books so much, you know. In reality, Jack Ryan never shot anyone in London, and the only non-GS job he's ever had was his brief appointment as a Secretary of the Treasury, where he was instrumental in helping Lehman Brothers sink.
While his dumber subordinates were covering for Madoff.
Wow, interesting early comments. I remember the Pentagon Papers release (their release caused Nixon to go into a paranoid overdrive that resulted in Watergate) and the blowback it caused due to the government's lies.
Frankly, the more secrets they release, the more transparent national leaders' lies will be to the public. That's not to say that's good or bad, it just is.
As for being a traitor to America or Russia or the banking system, riiiiiight.
Some of the cables shed light on why closing down Guantanamo is so hard. The US has some captured Kuwaitis, and Kuwait doesn't want them back. Kuwaiti Minister of Interior Shaykh Jaber al-Khalid Al Sabah: "If they are rotten, they are rotten and the best thing to do is get rid of them. You picked them up in Afghanistan; you should drop them off in Afghanistan, in the middle of the war zone." About a group of Iranian drug smugglers the US had captured after their boat foundered, he said "God meant to punish them with death and you saved them. Why?"
That was the Seventies. This is the 21st Century. Back then people rioted, now they keep their heads down. Nowadays, Ellsberg would be silenced, nobody would print his story, and he would have an international arrest warrant issued against him for, huh, farting without authorization. Welcome to the Age of the Wimp.
Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.
Go see for yourself!
Ellsberge and Assange are two peas in a pod. Why would anybody be surprised by this? This merits a front page story here?
Unless there's a /. page 2 I haven't noticed, isn't every story a "front page story"?
I can see some merit here - the "good leak" guy saying "you know, the only difference between me and him is that history hasn't moved on far enough for him to become a hero too."
I wish there was a +1 - holy fucking shit moderation. Every time I think my opinion of the US government can not get any worse, something else comes up. What's next? Am I going to find out they've been abducting little girls from daycare and shipping abroad as sex slaves to fund human mind control research?
Don't answer that, I'll wait for the Wiki Leak.
There really is no limit at all to human depravity.
I think where Wikileaks loses sympathy is with the release of diplomatic cables that have no other purpose than to release them. It's one thing to release information of wrong-doing. It's another altogether to release materials simply because you have them and can. It's disappointing that a) Ellsberg would equate the two and b) that Wikileaks is attempting to justify it.
For that reason I'm against Wikileaks. I don't consider them a journalistic organization. The NYT wouldn't ever say, "Look if you go after our reporter we'll release even more information!" They would take a stand or not take a stand. So Wikileaks really throws any media protection they may have had out the window. They've moved into a retaliatory mode. I'm not sure this doesn't make their actions combative and therefore a legitimate threat.
How do you know is or isn't important at the time? Some minor paper that at first glance appears totally trivial could provide the one piece of information that adds the context necessary to understand something much larger.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/213720
Wednesday, 24 June 2009, 11:37
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KABUL 001651
SIPDIS
DEPARTMENT FOR SRAP, SCA/A, INL, EUR/RPM
STATE PASS TO NSC FOR WOOD
OSD FOR FLOURNOY
CENTCOM FOR CG CJTF-82, POLAD, JICENT
KABUL FOR COS USFOR-A
EO 12958 DECL: 06/23/2019
TAGS PREL, PGOV, MARR, MASS, AF
SUBJECT: 06/23/09 MEETING, ASSISTANT AMB MUSSOMELI AND MOI
MINISTER ATMAR: KUNDUZ DYNCORP PROBLEM, TRANSPORT FOR PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES AND OTHER TOPICS
REF: KABUL 1480
Classified By: POLMIL COUNSELOR ROBERT CLARKE FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND ( D)
1. (C) SUMMARY: Assistant Ambassador Mussomeli discussed a range of issues with Minister of Interior (MoI) Hanif Atmar on June 23. On the Kunduz Regional Training Center (RTC) DynCorp event of April 11 (reftel), Atmar reiterated his insistence that the U.S. try to quash any news article on the incident or circulation of a video connected with it. He continued to predict that publicity would "endanger lives." He disclosed that he has arrested two Afghan police and nine other Afghans as part of an MoI investigation into Afghans who facilitated this crime of "purchasing a service from a child." He pressed for CSTC-A to be given full control over the police training program, including contractors. Mussomeli counseled that an overreaction by the Afghan goverment (GIRoA) would only increase chances for the greater publicity the MoI is trying to forestall.
2. (C) On armored vehicles and air transport for presidential candidates, Atmar pitched strongly to have the GIRoA decide which candidates were under threat and to retain control of allocation of these assets. He agreed with the principle of a level playing field for candidates but argued that "direct support by foreigners" demonstrated a lack of confidence in GIRoA. If GIRoA failed to be fair, international assets and plans in reserve could be used. On another elections-related issue, Atmar claimed that two Helmand would-be provincial candidates (and key Karzai supporters) disqualified under DIAG rules had actually possessed weapons as part of a GIRoA contract to provide security for contractors.
3. (C) Atmar also was enthusiastic about working out arrangements with the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB) in RC-South to partner with the Afghan Border Police (ABP) on training and joint operations to extend GIRoA governance south. He is considering giving BG">BG Melham, a highly regarded Afghan officer, responsibility for ABP in Nimruz and Helmand provinces. END SUMMARY.
KUNDUZ RTC DYNCORP UPDATE
4. (C) On June 23, Assistant Ambassador Mussomeli met with MOI Minister Hanif Atmar on a number of issues, beginning with the April 11 Kunduz RTC DynCorp investigation. Amb Mussomeli opened that the incident deeply upset us and we took strong steps in response. An investigation is on-going, disciplinary actions were taken against DynCorp leaders in Afghanistan, we are also aware of proposals for new procedures, such as stationing a military officer at RTCs, that have been introduced for consideration. (Note: Placing military officers to oversee contractor operations at RTCs is not legally possible under the currentDynCorp contract.) Beyond remedial actions taken, we still hope the matter will not be blown out of proportion, an outcome which would not be good for either the U.S. or Afghanistan. A widely-anticipated newspaper article on the Kunduz scandal has not appeared but, if there is too much noise that may prompt the journalist to publish.
5. (C) Atmar said he insisted the journalist be told that publication would endanger lives. His request was that the U.S. quash the article and release of the video. Amb Mussomeli responded that going to the journalist would give her the sense that there is a more terrible story to report. Atmar then disclosed the arrest of two Afghan National Police (ANP) an
The Vietnam war was, strategically, about stretching it out to siphon Soviet assets
How many Soviet combat troops were there in Vietnam again? Oh right, zero. The soviets provided limited support, but Hannoi wasn't such a fan of the Soviets, so it was very limited. The U.S.'s grand strategic vision was to commit half its fighting force and political capital to a theater with almost no Soviet involvement? How does this not qualify as a loss? At best it would be an egregious miscalculation...
The military defeat didn't happen until after the US and allied forces withdrew and Congress reneged on promised support to South Vietnam
"allied forces withdrew", yes, this is what happens when you are loosing a war and decide to stop fighting it. The fact that there was a political element changes nothing. People like to say the U.S. didn't loose military. Who the hell cares? This isn't college football, there is ostensibly a reason/objective for waging war, achieving it is winning. Failing to achieve the objective (or never having one) means you lost.
"war is the continuation of politics by other means." This isn't some hippy revisionist history theory. Its Von Claus, the grand daddy of western military theory and the Prussian says we lost.
Every government on the planet is calling for Wikileaks to shut down. It seems like they are twisting the legal system, and that we are being governed by immoral, corrupt bastards who will break any law, twist any fact, in their effort to smear anyone who dares speak the truth.
Under that standard, and under the belief that Tom Jefferson said that a corrupt government has no authority, I see that Wikileaks has no option but to use any and all means to defend itself. The governments will piss on their own laws and due process to crush Wikileaks; therefore Wikileaks is perfectly justified in trying to destroy the governments' credibility by publishing every bit of damaging info that they can.
Anyone who thinks that any truly dangerous information that Wikileaks has isn't already in the hands of our enemies is living in a dream world. Wikileaks' greatest "crime" is revealing that the massive security appartus of the state has no idea what the hell it is doing and is useless against anyone with a brain. It's a money & freedom consuming monster that does more harm than good to the society it purports to protect.
... who try to put conditions to freedoms. like '.... if you arent doing x' or '........ if you arent for y'.
....'.
....
are there ANY conditions, prefixes or suffixes regarding the freedoms in bill of rights, human rights declaration, or the first amendments of american constitution ?
are there ANYthing that says 'you have freedom of x IF
there arent.
leave aside that, on top of this, it says GOD GIVEN and INALIENABLE rights there. this means, the rights are inalienable. inalienable means inalienable, period - no conditions of national secrets, or trade secrets, or other kind of prefixes or suffixes to the amendment.
if something is inalienable, there can be no excuse made to make it otherwise.
yet we see a lot of people around internet now, in forums, trying to justify hampering of these inalienable freedoms with various excuses. 'national security' 'government property', 'your intent'.
there is no wordage like 'national security', 'government property', 'intent' in the documents that determine the modern civil principles and rights we have today. they are called rights, because they ARE inalienable, natural rights of people.
arguing otherwise, is betraying to these principles and papers. they include declaration of human rights, bill of rights, and various constitutions including the american constitution. what's appalling is, doing this call them 'patriotic'. since when going against one's own country's founding principles, leave aside constitution, has become patriotic
Read radical news here
The NYT wouldn't ever say, "Look if you go after our reporter we'll release even more information!" They would take a stand or not take a stand. So Wikileaks really throws any media protection they may have had out the window. They've moved into a retaliatory mode. I'm not sure this doesn't make their actions combative and therefore a legitimate threat.
The NYT has much more resources and people than Wikileaks does.
Put yourself in their shoes:
I have all this juicy information that I think the public should know about. I want to comb through, redact, and release the info (with the help of large news orgs like NYT), but I'm scared that I may get disappeared before I've had the chance. I've distributed an encrypted copy of the info for which the key will be released if I'm dead to make sure the info can't be suppressed, and to reduce the benefit of killing me in the first place.
When Lenin and his crowd of happy murderers took over Russia during WW1, the various Revolutionaries who started running the Russian foreign Service started publishing ALL of the Tsar's Diplomatic files.
As the Tsar had been talking with everyone in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, his diplomats had sent home thousands of reports - polite and impolite, about all sides of the War, and how it all started.
The diplomatic cr%p hit the fan, and outraged people and governments everywhere; it was one of the reasons President Wilson announced his policy of "Open Agreements, Openly Agreed to" as part of his peace plans.
We've been here before, and we'll be here again. Diplomacy is about haggling with people you'd prefer to shoot, which results in agreements that everyone hates, but can't live without.
In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
-George Orwell
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Unless there's a /. page 2 I haven't noticed, isn't every story a "front page story"?
Check out the Sections on the left of the main page. There are stories in there that don't make it to the main page. Not all that many, but they're there.
No, he is quite correct. Every government in the world is corrupt, not only that but every government that has ever existed was corrupt. The only difference between them is the degree of corruption. Anyone who believes otherwise is a naive dolt who has no business outside of a kindergarten.
Why is this so? It is very simple: governments are nothing but collections of people with power over others. In this analysis it is irrelevant what basis that power is derived from - be it hereditary despotism or democratic media circus or something else entirely - it matters not. That is because people are imperfect and corruptible to various degrees irrespective of their location in the world or a political scheme they were raised within. Laws of probability alone guarantee that a number of corrupt individuals is present, and was present, in every possible governmental scheme, with the absolute numbers present increasing with the size of a government. Even if others within the same government detect the corruption and work against it (which itself is based on chance) there will be only so many that get expelled and due to natural generational cycles they will be replaced with new crooks elsewhere.
Its basic, historically testable, undeniable logic. It is the way things are. Corruption-free government is a theoretical ideal that has never been (and will likely never be) achieved as long as the nature of the human race does not somehow change dramatically.
how well will logic resolve if the numbers come in that more than half the population of the world supports the leak/publication of these documents ? democratic terrorists ?
I am Australian and it is extremely disturbing to me to see just how much influence the US Govt has over who is elected Prime Minister of Australia.
...I obey the laws of physics....
One of the articles on the subject it is a crime in Sweden to use emotional pressure to get someone to have sex. If that was rigorously enforced in most countries the prisons would be REALLY full.
If the scenario you paint is becoming real, freedom and democracy as we know it is dead.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Also, now I know for a fact that many people here are just anti-American,
You miss the fact that many of us are anti-Republicrat. I love the USA and hate the idiots running it into the ground the last 50 years. Both sides of the fence, most 3rd parties, and a sadly growing number of the general population that are happy to give up essential liberties to infringe on other's liberties they don't like.
Don't bother protesting, both my mind is made up, and my country's collective government's mind.
Ah yes. Another prick who has made up his mind that he's right and anyone who disagrees is obviously wrong and you don't need to think about anything, ever. You are the reason this country is going down in flames.
Learn to love Alaska
Do you enjoy living under tyranny? I ask because what you are describing with relish are the actions of a tin-pot dictatorship at the level of North Korea. Is that what you wish America to become?
New Zealand was found to be one of the least corrupt government on the planet (top 3, I think). And they've had a number of politicians step down within the past year because of corruption. Sure, not the massively bad stuff, just little stuff like expense fraud and such, but still certainly not zero. And yes, the politicians work with corporations to make decisions that may benefit donors above constituents.
Learn to love Alaska
Every government on the planet is calling for Wikileaks to shut down.
Really? Because I just did some digging and so far I can find exactly 2 governments that have said so, being the US and France. I see a ton of press debating both sides of the issue, as well as stances being taken by elected officials, but no calls to shut it down.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Those quotes are not from Wikileaks insiders. The first is from the lawyer representing the victims, and the others are from "an acquaintance".