 A frame from the documentary about Daniel Ellsberg's leaking of the Pentagon Papers, "The Most Dangerous Man in America," nominated for a 2010 Academy Award. Daniel Ellsberg: All the crimes Richard Nixon committed against me are now legalONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today's OFF-SET questions is Daniel Ellsberg, author, defense analyst and prominent whistleblower. He is the subject of a documentary about his life, "The Most Dangerous Man in America," nominated for a 2010 Academy Award, which took its title from the words former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger used to describe Ellsberg in 1971.  In the 1960s, Ellsberg was a high-level Pentagon official, a former Marine commander who believed the American government was always on the right side. But while working for the administration of Lyndon Johnson, Ellsberg had access to a top-secret document that revealed senior American leaders, including several presidents, knew that the Vietnam War was an unwinnable, tragic quagmire. Officially titled "United States-Viet Nam Relations, 1945-1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense,"–the Pentagon Papers, as they became known–also showed that the government had lied to Congress and the public about the progress of the war. In 1969, he photocopied the 7,000-page study and gave it to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In, 1971, Ellsberg leaked all 7,000 pages to The Washington Post, and 18 other newspapers, including The New York Times, which published them. Not long after, he surrendered to authorities and confessed to being the leaker. Ellsberg was charged as a spy. His trial, on twelve felony counts posing a possible sentence of 115 years, was dismissed on grounds of governmental misconduct against him. In April 1973, the court learned that Nixon had ordered his so-called "Plumbers Unit" to break into the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist to steal documents they hoped might make the whistle-blower appear crazy. In May, more evidence of government illegal wiretapping was revealed. The charges against Ellsberg were dropped. This led to the convictions of several White House aides and figured in the impeachment proceedings against President Nixon. (*More bio below) The federal government has now declassified the Pentagon Papers. The Nixon Presidential Library & Museum will release the documents on June 13, forty years to the day that leaked portions of the report were published on the front page of The New York Times. Also, the PBS series POV is streaming “The Most Dangerous Man inAmerica: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers,” on June 13 and 14.
Until now, the public has been able to read only the small portions of the report that you leaked. What do you think the impact of releasing all 7,000 pages might be? The "declassification" of the Pentagon Papers–exactly forty years late–is basically a non-event. The notion that "only small portions" of the report were released forty years ago is pure hype by the Nixon Library. Nearly all of the study–except for the negotiations volumes, which were mostly declassified over twenty years ago– became available in 1971, between the redacted (censored) Government Printing Office edition and the Senator Gravel edition put out by Beacon Press. (I've heard that most if not all of this has long been online. Here's a link I just looked up; there probably are others: CLICK HERE.) It would be helpful if the publishers indicated, by brackets or different type, what was withheld earlier. But that would be very embarrassing to the Library and the government; I'll be surprised if they do it. Most of the omissions in the GPO edition "for security"–a ridiculous claim, since their substance was nearly all available to the world in the simultaneous Gravel/Beacon Press edition–will appear arbitrary and unjustified. I'd really like to see someone–a journalist or an anti-secrecy NGO– compare this version in detail with the redacted white space in the 1971 GPO edition, for a measure of what the government has regarded as necessarily classified for the last forty years. And then ask: just why was most of what was released by the GPO, covering 1945 to1968, kept secret as late as 1971? Hint: it wasn't for "national security." What that comparison would newly reveal is the blatant violation of the spirit and letter of the FOIA declassification process by successive administrations (including the present one), in rejecting frequent requests by historians and journalists for complete declassification of the Papers over the years. But if the hype around this belated release got a new generation to read the Pentagon Papers or at least the summaries to the various volumes (my highest hope, pretty unlikely), they'd get from them as good an understanding as they could find anywhere today of our war in Afghanistan. The Pentagon Papers didn't explicitly present that last alternative, but their release contributed to that result, eventually. Is it too much to hope that their re-release could do the same? Yes, it is. But fortunately there are a few Congresspersons, like Dennis Kucinich and Barbara Lee, Walter Jones and Ron Paul who got that message the first time, even if the Republican and Democratic leadership hasn't, yet. (CLICK HERE to see a salon.com essay pointing to the only way out of Afghanistan, as it was the only way out of Vietnam). On June 23, 1971, in an interview with CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite, you said, "I think the lesson is that the people of this country can’t afford to let the President run the country by himself, even foreign affairs, without the help of Congress, without the help of the public. I think we cannot let the officials of the Executive Branch determine for us what it is that the public needs to know about how well and how they are discharging their functions." How concerned are you that elected officials haven't learned those lessons? I still stand by my cited conclusions, both for 1971 and for every single year since, including this one. But I never expected elected officials in the Executive branch (of which there are exactly two in each administration) or their myriad subordinates to "learn those lessons" or to accept them as warnings. Leaders in the Executive branch–in every country– know what they're doing, and why they're doing it, and they always want to stay in office and keep on running things with as little interference from Congress, the public and the courts as possible: which means, with as much secrecy as they can manage. So I'm not exactly concerned that they're still at it (which is why I'm still at what I do), since that is so predictable, in every government, tyrannical or "democratic." Our Founders sought to prevent this. Article I, section 8 of the Constitution, for the first time in constitutional history, put the decision to go to war (beyond repelling sudden attacks) exclusively in the hands of Congress, not the president. But every president since Harry Truman in Korea–as the Pentagon Papers demonstrated up through LBJ, but beyond them to George W. Bush and Barack Obama–has violated the spirit and even the letter of that section of the Constitution (along with some others) they each swore to preserve, protect and defend. However, as has been pointed out repeatedly by Glenn Greenwald, ( CLICK HERE) and Bruce Ackerman , David Swanson and others, no president has so blatantly violated the constitutional division of war powers as President Obama in his ongoing attack on Libya, without a nod even to the statutory War Powers Act, that post-Pentagon Papers effort by Congress to recapture something of the role assigned exclusively to it by the Constitution. This open disregard of a ruling statute (regardless of his supposed feelings about its constitutionality, which Obama has not even bothered to express) is clearly an impeachable offense, though it will certainly not lead to impeachment–given the current complicity of the leaders of both parties–any more than President George W. Bush's misleading Congress into his crime against the peace, aggression, in Iraq, or President Johnson's lies to obtain the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. Yet the most important point, as I see it, is not the secrecy and the lying, or even the blatant disregard of the Constitution, the Presidential oath and the rule of law. As the Pentagon Papers documented for the much of the Vietnam era (we still lack, and we still need, the corresponding Papers for the Nixon policy-making, that added over twenty thousand names unnecessarily to the Vietnam Memorial and over a million deaths in Vietnam) and the last decade confirms: the point is that the Founders had it right the first time. As Abraham Lincoln explained their intention (in defending to his former law partner William Herndon his opposition to President Polk's deliberately provoked Mexican War): "The provision of the Constitution giving the war making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons: kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This our convention understood to be the most oppressive of all kingly oppressions, and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us." ( CLICK HERE to read the whole letter, which I keep pinned to the wall of my office). As Lincoln put it, the alternative approach (which we have actually followed in the last sixty years) "places our President where kings have always stood." And the upshot of that undue, unquestioning trust in the president and his Executive branch is: smart people get us into stupid (and wrongful) wars, and their equally smart successors won't get us out of them. In March–at the age of 79–you were arrested in front of the White House–and then again outside of Quantico military prison–while protesting in support of Army private Bradley Manning, accused of being the Wikileaks leaker. Manning, charged with 34 counts including "aiding the enemy," faces life in prison and possibly, execution. Have you been able to communicate with Bradley? It was then almost impossible to communicate with Bradley Manning, and I have so far done so only through his few visitors. In front of the White House and at Quantico, I was attempting to communicate with those holding him prisoner, to protest the abusive and illegal conditions of his detention, amounting not only to punishment of someone not tried, convicted or sentenced but to torture forbidden by domestic and international law and the Constitution even as punishment. Do you believe what Bradley did was necessary and heroic? Yes. Do you still have all 7000 pages of the Pentagon Papers? I don't really know. Hundreds of boxes of files have gone from storage into my basement, and my old copies of the Papers may or may not be somewhere in there. I'm not going to go searching among them for the still-classified eleven words. These days, when you find yourself thinking about Richard Nixon, what comes to mind? Richard Nixon, if he were alive today, might take bittersweet satisfaction to know that he was not the last smart president to prolong unjustifiably a senseless, unwinnable war, at great cost in human life. (And his aide Henry Kissinger was not the last American official to win an undeserved Nobel Peace Prize.) That includes burglarizing my former psychoanalyst's office (for material to blackmail me into silence), warrantless wiretapping, using the CIA against an American citizen in the US, and authorizing a White House hit squad to "incapacitate me totally" (on the steps of the Capitol on May 3, 1971). All the above were to prevent me from exposing guilty secrets of his own administration that went beyond the Pentagon Papers. But under George W. Bush and Barack Obama,with the PATRIOT Act, the FISA Amendment Act, and (for the hit squad) President Obama's executive orders. they have all become legal. There is no further need for present or future presidents to commit obstructions of justice (like Nixon's bribes to potential witnesses) to conceal such acts. Under the new laws, Nixon would have stayed in office, and the Vietnam War would have continued at least several more years. Likewise, where Nixon was the first president in history to use the 54-year-old Espionage Act to indict an American (me) for unauthorized disclosures to the American people (it had previously been used, as intended, exclusively against spies), he would be impressed to see that President Obama has now brought five such indictments against leaks, almost twice as many as all previous presidents put together (three). He could only admire Obama's boldness in using the same Espionage Act provisions used against me–almost surely unconstitutional used against disclosures to the American press and public in my day, less surely under the current Supreme Court–to indict Thomas Drake, a classic whistleblower who exposed illegality and waste in the NSA. Drake's trial begins on June 13, the 40th anniversary of the publication of the Pentagon Papers. If Nixon were alive, he might well choose to attend. * * * *MORE BIO: After graduating from Harvard in 1952 with a B.A. summa cum laude in Economics, he studied for a year at King’s College, Cambridge University, on a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. Between 1954 and 1957, Ellsberg spent three years in the U.S. Marine Corps, serving as rifle platoon leader, operations officer, and rifle company commander.  From 1957-59 he was a Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows, Harvard University. He earned his Ph.D. in Economics at Harvard in 1962 with his thesis, Risk, Ambiguity and Decision. His research leading up to this dissertation—in particular his work on what has become known as the “Ellsberg Paradox,” first published in an article entitled "Risk, Ambiguity and the Savage Axioms"—is widely considered a landmark in decision theory and behavioral economics. In 1959, Ellsberg became a strategic analyst at the RAND Corporation, and consultant to the Defense Department and the White House, specializing in problems of the command and control of nuclear weapons, nuclear war plans, and crisis decision-making. In 1961 he drafted the guidance from Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the operational plans for general nuclear war. He was a member of two of the three working groups reporting to the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (EXCOM) during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Ellsberg joined the Defense Department in 1964 as Special Assistant to Assistant Secretary of Defense (International Security Affairs) John McNaughton, working on the escalation of the war in Vietnam. He transferred to the State Department in 1965 to serve two years at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, evaluating pacification in the field. On his return to the RAND Corporation in 1967, Ellsberg worked on the top secret McNamara study of U.S. Decision-making in Vietnam, 1945-68, which later came to be known as the Pentagon Papers. In 1969, he photocopied the 7,000 page study and gave it to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; in 1971 he gave it to the New York Times, the Washington Post and 17 other newspapers. His trial, on twelve felony counts posing a possible sentence of 115 years, was dismissed in 1973 on grounds of governmental misconduct against him, which led to the convictions of several White House aides and figured in the impeachment proceedings against President Nixon. Ellsberg is the author of three books: Papers on the War (1971), Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers (2002), and Risk, Ambiguity and Decision (2001). In December 2006 he was awarded the 2006 Right Livelihood Award, known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize,” in Stockholm, Sweden, “. . for putting peace and truth first, at considerable personal risk, and dedicating his life to inspiring others to follow his example.” Since the end of the Vietnam War, Ellsberg has been a lecturer, writer and activist on the dangers of the nuclear era, wrongful U.S. interventions and the urgent need for patriotic whistleblowing. He is a Senior Fellow of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. |
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Let me get this straight...Rep. Pelosi said that impeachment was off the table when it came to looking into–just looking into–known Bush/Cheney crimes. But a Congressman–not a President–uses poor judgment that might ruin his marriage, but that's probably it–and she calls for an investigation. The problem isn't so much with Wiener as it is with the politicians who are making it a national issue. Will his behavior affect me tomorrow? next year? I doubt it. Let's get rid of the hypocrisy of those like Vitter et al. along with all of these better-than-thou politicians, if we're to get rid of Wiener. Enough of ruining good law-makers' careers (e.g., Spitzer) because these politicians have to gain some points on the back of someone else's terrible, but personal, mistakes.
Pelosi should be held complicit int he war crimes she failed to investigate. It's my understanding she refused to pursuit justice for millions of dead iraqis so that the dem party could be in an electable position. Pelosi, should also be labeled a war criminal for her negligence. http://www.warcriminalswatch.com
Amen....
You sir must be out of your collective mind, .Rep. Pelosi was not a part of the GOP war monger role, so to say she should not have investigated Bush and Cheney war crimes is mis-spent, she was the speaker of the house not a dictator. This country needs to read ROBERTS RULES OF ORDER not a re-interpretation of the founding fathers. Which
of course was changed because of the Tierney of some states (the civil war) that is the true beginning of America
and the rule of law. Not 1776 but 1886. The pledge of allegiance was written in 1889 and the most remorseful words
f "ONE NATION UNDER GOP" were added in 1955 by the GOP not the American people. (Show me the vote) Na sayers?
Then you must agree that Bu$h belongs in prison. I agree too.
Nixon vindicated! Two words I never dreameed I hear used together. If you throw enough money at countries, they will feed you steak. The ERA.....he gets some credit for that, but he had a lot of help ti write that short paragraph. His enire administration was lawless.
Ya gotta problem. The "crimes" Bush et al were accused of weren't crimes. It had all already been pored over countless times by trained investigators, some of whom were the biggest conservative/Bush haters imaginable, who used every rationale available to twist things into an actual criminal complaint – AND THEY FOUND NOTHING. All of this was explained over and over, ad nauseam, in the press and elsewhere. If you can't let go and accept the truth, you've got a problem that goes beyond all the political theater now taking place.
I'm not the least bit impressed that you were in the military (if you really were.) Some of the biggest and dumbest anti-American haters have a military background. Also, when you say "inferred," do you mean "interfered?" I have my opinion as to why you most probably used the wrong word. (You're not real smart, and you may well be a leftie plant writing a b.s. article. If you are what you say you are, you're unimpressive.)
You are part of the problem.
What investigation? An investigation by objective and honest human beings, unfortunately, our elected politicians on both sides of the aisle are Not credible or honest. Fact: Iraq and Afghan wars are a huge mistake, in fact they have made it worse for us. Bush had one job, get bin Laden, nothing else. But he was an incompetent president.
Lets ask Bush himself what the thinks........ Bet he's not planning any European vacations anytime soon
Hey Ralph, I'll bet you're a real big man, aren't you. I'll bet you're the biggest, toughest man on the face of tthis earth. Guys like you don't have to join the military, you're all such big men and real americans too. Goshy darno, Ralph, I'll bet you could have KO'd Mohammed Ali(in his prime), George Foreman and Joe Frazier all at once with both hands tied behind your back. You're such a big, rough and tough all american man...I'll bet you watch John Wayne movies everyday of the week, too, don't you? Funny how John Wayne never served his country either...he just pretended to.
The crimes of the Bush Cheney Rumsfeld Rice Rove Powell Gonzales Yoo Pearle are beyond war crimes. Bush killed and displaced over 2 million people in the Middle East with illegal and undeclared wars, organized the demise of America as we knew it, instated a crime against children with NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND leaving our educational system in total collapse and torture (which is a world crime) and I could go on. Once the world community can clear the fog of what is going on over here they will start their own prosecutions. Already the monsters can't travel to France or Germany without being arrested. I hope Disneyland is the only place they can travel soon, that would be hell enough.
The worst crime of all is that the Pentagon aims to achieve a disarming and unanswerable first strike capability. Trident missile engineer Bob Aldridge-www.plrc.org-resigned because it´s suicidal as it leads to Launch On Warning by 2014 because of the missiles in Bulgaria, Romania and Poland by 2015 to take out missiles surviving First Strike with Minuteman-3 and Trident-2 with CEPs less than 30 meters. "The smoking gun":Professor Paul Rogers: The warheads on MX and the D5 on Trident-2 are designed to minimize nuclear winter effects when used against missile silos". For that reason the warhead from MX was put on Minuteman-3.
There is one major difference between Viet Nam and The Middle East: Israel. American foreign policy in this region is created in Tel Aviv and enforced by AIPAC, with the assistance of the electronic and print media that have long ago abandoned their watchdog function and serve only as an instrument of government propganda. Witness the President of the United States being taken to the AIPAC woodshed, and Nethanyahu addressing a Congress that was literally jumping up and down with applause, after Mr. Nethanyahu publically embarassed the President and, by extension, the country. Then of course the candidates for the Republican nomination visit the state of Israel to get an israeli blessing long before they visit Iowa.
>>>get an israeli blessing long before they visit Iowa.<<<
Interesting: this is like me getting permission from the cat to clean the litterbox. Israel exists solely @the behest of Am. foreign aid. & Our guys needta get over the biblical implications: I mean, if there's any place the planet that's never been a land of milk & honey, it's Israel & environs. We fulfill religious prophecy w/ good old-fashion secular MONEY! Can you say "schizoid?"
Obama's a hard guy not to like:
He's well-educated
He presents a refined, dignified exterior
He's a great spokesman
He appears to be noble and forthright, BUT...
He failed to investigate and prosecute the bush crime family
He reneged on his promise to close Guantanamo
He's allowed the two phony wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to continue, and the evil has slopped over into Pakistan
His health care "reform" is a scam, as is his economic "reform".
He's an advocate for the corporate monster rather than the people who elected him to be THEIR advocate.
In short, he's a traitor to his people, and a disgrace to his office. He should be removed from office, either through indictment or election.
Is this likely to happen? Not a chance. Follow the money.
BRAVO!!
TRUTH!
CIA in Kuwait implementing mutually assured distruction into Iraq in attempt to secretly overthrow Saddam, this was all before Saddam started firing his scud's onto Kuwait. if we were Saddam we would have definitely obliterated Kuwait for sure. the entire bush administration are trouble making technological terrorist's and the bush center for indignation has to be abolished. A.S.A.P. Hurry!
As desperate I am to want Obama to be the president he claimed he would be I too am very disappointed in his administration. Anyone who wants to see what he is really about only needs to google the Obama deception......... It is unequivocally undeniable that he is a wall street insider. Oh I am sure he believes the rhetoric he so elegantly spiels but the truth is he has done a thousand times better for the rich than for the middle class. Am I the only one who believes the tax extension for the rich was extremely out of balance in exchange for extended unemployment checks for a few. This was a perfect excuse for Obama to give the right what they want. One question for everyone. Who do you think bankrolled Barack's campaign? Follow the money......
If Obama is, as you say, better for the Republicans why is it they hate him so? I'm confused. I am bitterly disappointed in the administration but I also know that there are things the president is faced with that the general public will never know about due to national security. Secrecy, for better or worse, influences presidential action. Obama has been light years better for the US that the combination of McCain/Palin could have been.
Right you are, willymack. I'm not voting, next time. If enough of us did not vote, because none of the candidates are worthy of our consideration, we could show the world that when democracy is perverted, citizens have a negative say. As Spain and Portugal just did. The righties won but with a taint on their "mandate", as everyone understands. WE NEED NEW PARTIES THAT REPRESENT US.
Yeah DON'T VOTE... the world will be SHOCKED INTO PAYING ATTENTION!
(doubles over either in laughter or disgust)
He hasn't delivered the implied free aspirin, forgiven mortgages, free gasoline, and government cheese?
Now, there's a shock.
Finally the right response, delicately hidden in sarcasm. What's wrong with all these people? All these liberals actively complaining that Obama won and that McCain Palin lost. Some people want it ALL, like children removed from reality. Reality isn't perfect, Obama's made some mistakes... but for liberals to act like he's the antiChrist "let's put some Republicans back in power" ... talk about cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. Sad that America is so knee-jerk and uneducated....
Nixon's crimes pale in comparison to those of Bush, Obama and their cabal.
What Obama crimes? Please be specific, because I'm sick of this false equivalency between what Bush started and Obama inherited.
I think Ellsberg laid one out for you in the above article. Libyan war without congressional approval? Remember? Look, I had high hopes for this pres. too but being an apologist for him is not going to change the fact that he was handed a defective executive office that he chooses to perpetuate the precedence of. We need to hold our leaders accountable regardless of whether they are of you're preferred party or not or we will continue to get the same, and worse, all down the line.
My sentiments exactly! It is that simple. Im so tired of being sick and tired. I could go on.....
@John– So do you you really think it's a good idea for a the president to single handedly decide where we should send our military? I thought that was why we had shared powers in these matters, to prevent kingly/dictatorial actions like this. I don't even disagree that Libya probably needed some help, it's just the way it's done that bothers me. It keeps happening because our silence says it's okay.
If you want to see how Bush/Reagan , combined to defraud America out of 1.4 trillion dollars. Research Savings and loan
scandal of 1970's, They got away with murder. Reagan was complicit, and the Bush family benefited greatly.
Julian Assange is in very good company. I am sure Ellsberg is quite proud of him. More than ever we need brave, decent people like Ellsberg and Assange.
Ellsberg is spot on. Nixon was far to the left of what we have in Washington today, sadly enough.
I believe this has been the goal of the Nixon people still in government all along. You can start with one Antonin Scalia who was in the White House counsel's office working on matters related to cable television back then; I wonder if even then he was looking for a way to create a conservative propaganda outlet such as Fox.
Face it, wake up and smell the coffee. Bottom line always had and has always been. Nixon did nothing that all the presidents before him were'nt doing. Except he got caught doing it.
Viet Nam, wasn't Tricky Dick's downfall. Cambodia, Laos, Thailand.the destruction of these countries, was his downfall...along with Micthell (who was the worst) and the rest of them. INone of them had any integrity or shame. Todays politicians have the same flaws..
20,000 men were killed unnecessarily? When discussing war, it's sad grouping the loyal sacrifices of
men are reduced to numbers, statistics, casualties, etc. We (the living) just carry on with brief, solemn
moments. I've lived a great life of ups and downs, and wished these men had the chances I had to
simply "live a life."
If Bradley Manning is sentenced to decades in prison, it would have a silencing effect upon all journalism that relies on anonymous whistle-blowers. Read about the history of Bradley Manning's case as well as my defense of Manning and Wikileaks.
http://jasonbeets.blogspot.com/2011/04/free-bradley-manning.html
Democracy is about selection of the best,as it seems, the best available that stand for election and giving them time to represent the people.
The Chief executive runs the country on behalf of the people and as such represents the will of the people at the time of election,not for every action he performs as the Chief executive, for such a process is not possible.
Or you need to run Referendum for every action,even here there will be dissenters) which will lead to nothing but anarchy.
The compromise in democracy is that you trust one and give him time to act whether it is in the interests of the country or not.
If he does not run the country in the interests of the country,you replace him, period.
Not that democracy is the best form of governance, but the best available on date.
we live in a republic...not a democracy
"A republic is a form of government in which the people, or some significant portion of them, retain supreme control over the government". The people > the Demos > Democracy.
Even though its executive branch depended on military autocracy fed by war and domination of foreign lands, the Roman empire in its propaganda long still claimed to be a republic too. Perhaps the French and American revolutions were temporary hick-ups? Or is the spirit of freedom, equality and fraternity leaving the American states for fresher soil?
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You can't have complete oversight with complete opacity, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and when you get to the top of the food chain the only way to go is down.This is why you can never have just 1 absolute leader.
You can't have *security* with complete transparency either... Why is it that everyone on the web thinks the world is either BLACK or WHITE? Is it a lack of a nuanced mind? Decline in our education system? What?
Gosh, how about SOME transparency in the right places? There! Not so hard, was it?
People should read "Born Again" by Chuck Colson.
Americans have unique, interesting inclination to legality. Most decent earthlings don't care what's legal but what's moral.
"Americans have unique, interesting inclination to legality."
So people in other countries don't care about following the accepted laws of the land? They prefer to do what they believe to be right according to their own individual morals. Genocide is ok so long as the people doing it are following their own personal belief system?
"Most decent earthlings don't care what's legal but what's moral."
As compared to the people on other planets??
I guess the reason is USA is one of the few nations on earth that started out with a civilized legal system, not with some long, dark traditions.
I don't think the First Americans/Indigenous People who were here when their country was invaded would agree with your statement.
The Ellsberg reports only covered the tip of the iceberg. I spent over 7 years in Vietnam from 1961 to 1972 and witnessed many "buddy-buddy" deals, killing of civilians, black marketing, etc. I was a young soldier... I knew John Paul Vann at Bien Hoa and he was certainly a deal maker. My Lai was terrible but not the only time it happened. War is hell, real hell!
Over 58,000 U.S. military personnel were killed in Vietnam during that great tragedy.
OH MY
You can never trust the system. One thing is democracy, another thing is accountability, what we have is democracy but no accountability. It still baffle me that Bush is still free regardless of the deceit of weapon of mass destruction and the number of life lost and the amount of tax payers money squandered. Democracy without accountability is nothing.
"You can never trust the system"....
WRONG - You can never trust silly sweeping statements that don't MEAN anything with no context. Go away.
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Ron Paul. As incorruptable as mortal man can be. Our only hope to restore the republic. He would take us out of the wars, invest the money here on us, stop the bank bailouts, end corporate welfare, write NO executive orders... except for one to void all the others. We have to look beyond party for the good of the country and put a president into office who will undo some of the damage. Register republican and vote in the primary. Save your country
By looking at the screwball Rand Paul one can get an idea of the real Ron Paul and it isn't good.
Well, he IS pretty popular with the neo-nazi's and white supremacists.
Did you cut n paste a postingl from the 2008 election? You know one of the ones that starts "The only one who understands our current situation is Ron Paul..." or "The only man that will put the USA back on the Gold Standard is..."
Give it a rest. He's got some decent points but the other 55% is pure "kookery". There's not a chance in HELL he will get elected so put your energies somewhere useful and stop annoying us ... again. FYI, not *every* CNN news story is justification for you to start "stumping" for Paul's presidential bid.
"He transferred to the State Department in 1965 to serve two years at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, evaluating pacification in the field."
This sentence about Elsberg is not true. He was in the CIA.
Wow, Nixon vindicated, decades ahead of the curve. What a visionary. Then again he broke bread with Russia and China years before most of the world thought it was possible and of course he did author the ERA for women. One of our better presidents but you would never know it by the slant journalists and historians put on it.
So the 'we're going to change the world' people of the 60's are now the establishment of the new century and where look where we are.
Multiple wars, the Patriot Act, and so many things that were regarded as unthinkable (in the sense we could have never believed some one would think of it) in that era now part and parcel of daily government intrusion in our lives.
I'm saddened, but not surprised.
Steve Jobs for President!
Yes! Jobs and Gates together, actually. People who know how to manage money, huge businesses, innovate to get things done, and can't be greased with money (they have more than anybody could ever offer them).
And the geeks shall inherit the earth!
Hmmm
megsy Posted on Be guided by the dogs iensoralpty when you get itYou may wish to name something that goes with the colours of your dog such as amber but whatever name you choose you will know instinctively that its right for herI called mine Gypsy because she had dark smudges around her eyes like a gypsy with kohl around her eyes chosen after much prior discussion about suitability of names and when I sighted her it just seemed right
Don't it always seem to go, you don't know what you've got til it's gone; they paved paradise, put up a parking lot.
Presidents knew war couldn't be won. Bull Crap, it was won – TET 68 was the turning point. It was political intervention and indecision that caused the eventual loss. If the politicians and political generals had stayed out of the way and let the military fight the war the outcome would have been different. I see the Afghanistan war going the same way. We could have been out of Iraq by now. By the way I was in the Army from 1960 thru 1982 and worked for the Army 1982 thru 2004. I was in a position to see the political intervention and indecision. I saw and heard soldiers complain about the continued inference. Soldiers had to fight under rules that restricted their ability to defend themselves or even go on the offensive. Political inference intensified during Vietnam and continues today. Top Generals knew this and asked the politicians to say out of the 1st Iraq war. They did until hit object #1. Then the again inferred – result need for 2nd Iraq war.
Wow, those pesky politicians always controlling the military. The solution is obvious. Turn the military loose, make them accountable to no one, and give them more money.
But wait a minute! If we won Korea, and won Vietnam, and won Iraq, and won Afghanistan, there is much better solution. Don't spend a penny, get rid of the military, and just announce victory. People like you can hold victory marches and patriotic parades, and people like me can stay home with our sons and our money.
ALL THIS HUB-BUB OVER A democrat WAR... CAN YOU IMAGINE? I GUESS THE FACT THAT NIXON ENDED THIS DEMOCRAT WAR DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING.
unbelievable view of history. Now when did America's involvement in Vietnam start? Nixon escalated the war to include Laos and Cambodia. The hippies and the news media ended the war. Nice try mr. conservative.
Regarding Daniel Ellsberg interview: I was gratified to read his statement that what was illegal in the 1970's is now legal. As a clinical psychologist I was informed some years ago that any of my clients records could be removed by Homeland Security and I could not tell my client that this had happened. I realized then that it was no longer necessary to break into a therapist's office to obtain confidential records as had been the case with Ellsberg. Now they could be requested without any recourse. Informing clients of this potential breach of confidentiality as they begin therapy has surprised every client, even those without Middle Eastern ties or foreign visas.
Daniel Elsberg is an American hero. He pointed out that the Vietnam war was based on a pack of lies. Another Marine, T. Ritter told the American people that the Iraq war was based on lies. We didn't learn anything from Vietnam. What we got was a Wall in Wash, DC with 58,000+ names of young Americans that paid the price for defense contractors making a lot of money; same thing in Iraq. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on us!!!!
Many of the crimes Richard Nixon had committed had a precedent. In fact, Nixon wanted to reveal the wiretap activities of his predecessors. He knew that Bobby Kennedy had bugged MLK Jr., as well as reporters. He had heard that Jack Kennedy bugged Bobby's office and the home of Bernard Baruck and his wife. LBJ had tapped the Mississsippi Freedom Democratic Party, Bobby Kennedy, and others. FDR had used the FBI for political purposes. Nixon wanted "everything out on the Democrats"; but his White House staff resisted. If Nixon could have convinced the public that what he had done was standard operating procedure, he might have lessened the shock and reduced the sense of outrage over him. But the objections of his White House staff had prevailed, and nothing was done.
let the libyans die.
let the iraquis get tortured.
let the Taliban throw acid on girls for going to school.
is that the "american way"?
we wouldn't want to protect our ideals anywhere else.
heads in the sand, I say, and everything will be OK.
poor, naive peaceniks. it takes blood. evil grows unchecked and like a cancer spreads when not attacked. you have to kill some healthy cells to ensure survival. doing otherwise is suicide – on a global scale.
What is not Ok is your ignorance to the malice developments of the united states ultra secret communications systems of the CIA RMS psychic visual spy manipulations systems implementing mutually assured distruction through artificial intelligence causing it all. cause our CIA is everywhere spewing obloquious M.A.D. matrices of mutually assured distruction where ever in the world the perduellious bush administration wants to go to war merely so they can have their lucrative monetary sales of the warfare they manufacture. please get wise. the world will conquer the U.S. if the CIA keeps trying to conquer the world. the CIA RMS exacerbated everyone so they would fight us were fighting them cause our CIA assaulted them with CIA RMS psychic visual Exacerbation and it was the bush administrations conspiracy to exacerbate the global populate so they would commit to terrorist acts against the United States. it is all perduellious bush administration scamming in the name of ultra secret benchmarks and earmarks.
Now legal thanks to Bush and Cheney ...
I wouldn't say that the crimes that Nixon committed are now legal. What Obama has taught us is that they would not now be prosecuted against someone with greater power in favor of someone with lesser. The brave new world is here.
"All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing." [Edmond Burke]
Yes, guys! This is wrong what has happened. Now if some bad actors decide to take the US government in a scary direction, anyone who talks about it will go to jail. Anyone currently in power has obscene amounts of intelligence on their political rivals. We've created fertile ground for another Mubarak or another Mussolini. If you get brought up on charges for anything, the feds can invoke state secrets and eliminate due process. Our forefathers fought wars for these specific rights that we're giving away. You've been duped. WAKE UP!
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Daniel Ellsberg was a traitor then and is a traitor today. It is the height of arrogance and tyranny for an individual to place his own views above the collective view of an elected government. In a democracy if you don't like the actions of the government you change it at the ballot box, not by independent action. Ellsberg will always be a criminal.
@johne37179–who was it that said "The highest form of patriotism is dissent."?
While so many people have attributed this quote to Thomas Jefferson, the earliest this line can be traced to is 1961. From monticello.org: The earliest usage of the phrase we have found is in a 1961 publication, The Use of Force in International Affairs: "If what your country is doing seems to you practically and morally wrong, is dissent the highest form of patriotism?"
http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/dissent-highest-form-patriotism-quotation
Not that I don't agree with the sentiment. I do indeed.
Actually, "The power" Thinks that "The Philosophy" is FOOL, on which power build up....
Only a decade after the absolute and total win on the new 21st century battlefield, the economic battlefield, by China over the entire U.S. economy, Americans, steeped in legalese, and Political Scince education, banter, with eloquent phrases, about tirvia of little consequence in the real world, America, largest debtor nation in the history of the world, flounders now, as its paper, fiat, and untrusted U.S. dollar falls in value.
Henry Kissinger dude remember you called Bangladesh a Basket case, dont eat your words before you have even seen it.
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