Leak against this war

[greedy_lars]

Leak against this war

US and British officials must expose their leaders' lies about Iraq - as I did over Vietnam

Daniel Ellsberg
Tuesday January 27, 2004
The Guardian

After 17 months observing pacification efforts in Vietnam as a state department official, I laid eyes upon an unmistakable enemy for the first time on New Year's Day in 1967. I was walking point with three members of a company from the US army's 25th Division, moving through tall rice, the water over our ankles, when we heard firing close behind us. We spun around, ready to fire. I saw a boy of about 15, wearing nothing but ragged black shorts, crouching and firing an AK-47 at the troops behind us. I could see two others, heads just above the top of the rice, firing as well.
They had lain there, letting us four pass so as to get a better shot at the main body of troops. We couldn't fire at them, because we would have been firing into our own platoon. But a lot of its fire came back right at us. Dropping to the ground, I watched this kid firing away for 10 seconds, till he disappeared with his buddies into the rice. After a minute the platoon ceased fire in our direction and we got up and moved on.

About an hour later, the same thing happened again; this time I only saw a glimpse of a black jersey through the rice. I was very impressed, not only by their tactics but by their performance.

One thing was clear: these were local boys. They had the advantage of knowing every ditch and dyke, every tree and blade of rice and piece of cover, like it was their own backyard. Because it was their backyard. No doubt (I thought later) that was why they had the nerve to pop up in the midst of a reinforced battalion and fire away with American troops on all sides. They thought they were shooting at trespassers, occupiers, that they had a right to be there and we didn't. This would have been a good moment to ask myself if they were wrong, and if we had a good enough reason to be in their backyard to be fired at.

Later that afternoon, I turned to the radio man, a wiry African American kid who looked too thin to be lugging his 75lb radio, and asked: "By any chance, do you ever feel like the redcoats?"

Without missing a beat he said, in a drawl: "I've been thinking that ... all ... day." You couldn't miss the comparison if you'd gone to grade school in America. Foreign troops far from home, wearing helmets and uniforms and carrying heavy equipment, getting shot at every half-hour by non-uniformed irregulars near their own homes, blending into the local population after each attack.

I can't help but remember that afternoon as I read about US and British patrols meeting rockets and mines without warning in the cities of Iraq. As we faced ambush after ambush in the countryside, we passed villagers who could have told us we were about to be attacked. Why didn't they? First, there was a good chance their friends and family members were the ones doing the attacking. Second, we were widely seen by the local population not as allies or protectors - as we preferred to imagine - but as foreign occupiers. Helping us would have been seen as collaboration, unpatriotic. Third, they knew that to collaborate was to be in danger from the resistance, and that the foreigners' ability to protect them was negligible.

There could not be a more exact parallel between this situation and Iraq. Our troops in Iraq keep walking into attacks in the course of patrols apparently designed to provide "security" for civilians who, mysteriously, do not appear the slightest bit inclined to warn us of these attacks. This situation - as in Vietnam - is a harbinger of endless bloodletting. I believe American and British soldiers will be dying, and killing, in that country as long as they remain there.

As more and more US and British families lose loved ones in Iraq - killed while ostensibly protecting a population that does not appear to want them there - they will begin to ask: "How did we get into this mess, and why are we still in it?" And the answers they find will be disturbingly similar to those the American public found for Vietnam.

I served three US presidents - Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon - who lied repeatedly and blatantly about our reasons for entering Vietnam, and the risks in our staying there. For the past year, I have found myself in the horrifying position of watching history repeat itself. I believe that George Bush and Tony Blair lied - and continue to lie - as blatantly about their reasons for entering Iraq and the prospects for the invasion and occupation as the presidents I served did about Vietnam.

By the time I released to the press in 1971 what became known as the Pentagon Papers - 7,000 pages of top-secret documents demonstrating that virtually everything four American presidents had told the public about our involvement in Vietnam was false - I had known that pattern as an insider for years, and I knew that a fifth president, Richard Nixon, was following in their footsteps. In the fall of 2002, I hoped that officials in Washington and London who knew that our countries were being lied into an illegal, bloody war and occupation would consider doing what I wish I had done in 1964 or 1965, years before I did, before the bombs started to fall: expose these lies, with documents.

I can only admire the more timely, courageous action of Katherine Gun, the GCHQ translator who risked her career and freedom to expose an illegal plan to win official and public support for an illegal war, before that war had started. Her revelation of a classified document urging British intelligence to help the US bug the phones of all the members of the UN security council to manipulate their votes on the war may have been critical in denying the invasion a false cloak of legitimacy. That did not prevent the aggression, but it was reasonable for her to hope that her country would not choose to act as an outlaw, thereby saving lives. She did what she could, in time for it to make a difference, as indeed others should have done, and still can.

I have no doubt that there are thousands of pages of documents in safes in London and Washington right now - the Pentagon Papers of Iraq - whose unauthorised revelation would drastically alter the public discourse on whether we should continue sending our children to die in Iraq. That's clear from what has already come out through unauthorised disclosures from many anonymous sources and from officials and former officials such as David Kelly and US ambassador Joseph Wilson, who revealed the falsity of reports that Iraq had pursued uranium from Niger, which President Bush none the less cited as endorsed by British intelligence in his state of the union address before the war. Both Downing Street and the White House organised covert pressure to punish these leakers and to deter others, in Dr Kelly's case with tragic results.

Those who reveal documents on the scale necessary to return foreign policy to democratic control risk prosecution and prison sentences, as Katherine Gun is now facing. I faced 12 felony counts and a possible sentence of 115 years; the charges were dismissed when it was discovered that White House actions aimed at stopping further revelations of administration lying had included criminal actions against me.

Exposing governmental lies carries a heavy personal risk, even in our democracies. But that risk can be worthwhile when a war's-worth of lives is at stake.


awsome source

[JackSpratts]

ellsberg clearly missed rumsfeld's and bush's "the iraqi's will welcome us with open arms" war memos.

oh wait.

"they will as soon as saddam's dead or captured."

oh wait, he is.

they're not.

great post greedy.

- js.

[theknife]

no shit, the parallels are dead on...nice post, GL.

...and trashing Ellsberg was job one for Nixon's goons (Liddy and the team of dirty tricksters know as the Watergate Plumbers)...much the same way as the critics of the current admninstration are hammered as soon as they go public (think Paul O'Neill and Joseph Wilson).

it takes a helluva a lot of guts to for anyone in politics to stand up and call this bullshit war for what it is...

[scooobiedooobie]

vietnam comparisons are not justified in the war with iraq, and shame on anybody who draws false comparisons to a much more severe war for political gain.



Iraq War Is Not Like Vietnam....

"As a Vietnam infantry vet, I saw firsthand the impact that war had on civilians and soldiers. I went to Vietnam as an impressionable 20-year-old to serve my country and to make a difference in the lives of the people of Vietnam.

I quickly discovered that we were not fighting the evils of communism as much as we were taking sides in a civil war, not unlike the British and French in the U.S. Civil War. The truth of the matter was that our dog in the fight was as corrupt as the dog he replaced.

The farmer in the rice paddy was caught between an ideology that we Americans abhorred and a corrupt government that we perceived as the lesser of two evils.

In retrospect, politicians and soldiers alike should agree that we were wrong in our approach and our war was fought at great expense to the people of Vietnam and to ourselves.

The war in Iraq, on the other hand, was intended to remove from power a person who was ready, willing and able to export terrorism to America. Establishing a democratic form of government to replace the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein is the right and moral thing to do. To state that this is immoral is to ignore clear facts.

We will replace an evil, sadistic tyrant with an interim governing body that will provide the people of Iraq a freedom they have not experienced for more than 30 years. At the same time we will eliminate a significant threat of terrorism to ourselves.

As a veteran of the war in Vietnam I have no illusions about our failure in Vietnam. However, I fully support the action we have taken in Iraq to protect Americans and to liberate an oppressed people.

We are not and should not become the policing state of the world, unless a conflict has an immediate or foreseeable impact on our own security. We have sent a clear message to tyrants around the world that as a nation we will not sit on the sidelines and wait, but will engage our enemies wherever they exist and whenever they present a clear and present danger to the lives of Americans.

We have a moral obligation to stand up to tyranny and to use our extensive resources to make the world a safer place for future generations."

http://www.nctimes.net/news/2003/20030411/60727.html



and....

http://www.military.com/NewContent/0...ietnam,00.html

[Wenchie]

Excellent post Mr Greedy
Very pertinent points

[theknife]

Originally posted by scooobiedooobie
vietnam comparisons are not justified in the war with iraq, and shame on anybody who draws false comparisons to a much more severe war for political gain.

certainly some of the particulars regarding the role of the civilians involved are not comparable...

...but from the perpspective of the administrations' conduct before and during the conflict in question (and i think this is the point Ellsberg is making), i think the comparison is completely relevant.

manipulating public opinion, cherry picking intelligence data, a carefully orchestrated spin machine, exploiting world events, shifting situational rationales for military action, significant intelligence failures, discrediting and demonizing critics, covert political agendas, and the fantasy that we can use military force to socially engineer the world into our own image - these are common characteristics of our government in both Vietnam and Iraq.

the only shame i see is following your leader over a cliff like a lemming because you think he's a stand-up guy, while your neighbor's kids are getting killed in a foreign country for no good reason. it happened in Vietnam and it's happening now. that's a shame.

[scooobiedooobie]

...but from the perpspective of the administrations' conduct before and during the conflict in question (and i think this is the point Ellsberg is making), i think the comparison is completely relevant.

manipulating public opinion, cherry picking intelligence data, a carefully orchestrated spin machine, exploiting world events, shifting situational rationales for military action, significant intelligence failures, discrediting and demonizing critics, covert political agendas, and the fantasy that we can use military force to socially engineer the world into our own image - these are common characteristics of our government in both Vietnam and Iraq.

the only shame i see is following your leader over a cliff like a lemming because you think he's a stand-up guy, while your neighbor's kids are getting killed in a foreign country for no good reason....

you can't be serious, or........

[theknife]

Originally posted by scooobiedooobie
you can't be serious, or........

knew you couldn't keep up an intelligent civil discussion...

it's almost reassuring anymore...you know you're on the right track when a Rightie/Bushie tries to insult you...they wanna negate your existence but they ran out of original thoughts a long time ago

[span]

Originally posted by theknife
they wanna negate your existence but they ran out of original thoughts a long time ago

so says the same group thats trying to recycle anti-war sentiment from the 60's by mislabeling Iraq as Vietnam part 2

[greedy_lars]

i would say if anyone was able to compare the two in a beliveable way, its Daniel Ellsberg, who had first hand experiance of more than one kind during Viet Nam.

and couldent agree with knife more, its the conservative standard, when you back em into a corner with logical points, they come back with 'ya, well yer a fag' or 'yer stupid so why listen to what you say'.


weak at best.


very.

[scooobiedooobie]

they wanna negate your existence but they ran out of original thoughts a long time ago.

insult you? no no....it's merely an original thought....in picture form.

lol...it's a known fact the lefties have the "resorting to insults" market already cornered.

its the conservative standard, when you back em into a corner with logical points, they come back with 'ya, well yer a fag' or 'yer stupid so why listen to what you say'.

you guys sound like you're referring to the typical response from a liberal.



logical points?

[span]

Originally posted by greedy_lars


and couldent agree with knife more, its the conservative standard, when you back em into a corner with logical points, they come back with 'ya, well yer a fag' or 'yer stupid so why listen to what you say'.


weak at best.


very.

you need to step out of your ideological hidey hole and look at your own side.

i can't count the number of times i've been called a fascist nazi for merely supporting our president, no other reason.

[greedy_lars]

have i ever called you a natsi? have you ever called me a hippy fag?

i rest my case.

sides, yer the one with hitler as yer avatar, so you must feel some kinship. but thats cool, cause after all hitler was cool.

[span]

Originally posted by greedy_lars
have i ever called you a natsi? have you ever called me a hippy fag?

i rest my case.

sides, yer the one with hitler as yer avatar, so you must feel some kinship. but thats cool, cause after all hitler was cool.

look Greedy if you didn't run around spouting your personal opinions and the personal opinions of others as undeniable, irrefutable fact then you'd find that people wouldn't be so quick to call you names, but thats a common problem with people of your ideological mindset, Bush is Hitler, Bush is a deserter, Republicans eat babies and conservativism is a mental defect, go around to nearly any left leaning website and that pattern is repeated over an over again and then go to most right leaning websites and they're all laughing at you alot of times out of malice but mostly out of pity.

[greedy_lars]

Originally posted by span
look Greedy if you didn't run around spouting your personal opinions and the personal opinions of others as undeniable, irrefutable fact ...

umm thats cause im right.

lol at the long sentance on that reply.

[floydian slip]

[tambourine-man]

Hmmmm.

The links or parallels with Iraq and Vietnam are sometimes overstated - largely because many of those who wish to see an end to this current folly, believe it's demise will only come hand-in-hand with a public backlash against the war. Attempting to recreate 'the vietnam spirit' is entirely understandable.

As knifey pointed out: manipulating public opinion, cherry picking intelligence data, a carefully orchestrated spin machine, exploiting world events, shifting situational rationales for military action, significant intelligence failures, discrediting and demonizing critics, covert political agendas, and the fantasy that we can use military force to socially engineer the world into our own image - these are common characteristics of our government in both Vietnam and Iraq. This is not without substance - knifey has a fair point.

The original article did raise an important point though. A point about conscience and loyalty. The article basically argues that revealing your own government's deceit is a higher priority that your own freedom/life. Interesting point. The counterweight is... at what point does treachery become honesty? At what point do your actions cease to be the acts of a traitor and become the acts of a patriot?

Hypothetically, if, during a time of war and national strife, you can call your government a liar, a thief and a murderer, grab the classified documents to prove it and somehow avaoid being considered as a traitor - then shouldn't such actions apply at all times? Shouldn't that person be listened to, rather than be castigated as traitorous or branded as a 'Hussain-lover'?

Interesting post, greedy.

[malvachat]

Originally posted by floydian slip

Where is Blair?If your guys lied so did ours.He at least he deserves a mention.Once again,you think you did it all on your own.You Americans,it's no wonder people don't like you sometimes.

[multi]

politickal sub forum-lol
good idea!

[scooobiedooobie]

Originally posted by malvachat
Where is Blair?If your guys lied so did ours.He at least he deserves a mention.Once again,you think you did it all on your own.You Americans,it's no wonder people don't like you sometimes.

tony blair has been vindicated. he demands an apology...and he deserves one.


"Tony Blair has called on those who accused him of lying about Iraq's weapons to withdraw their allegations in the wake of Lord Hutton's report.

Mr. Blair said the "real lie" was the claim he had misled the country by falsifying intelligence on weapons of mass destruction or lied to MPs."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3437979.stm



gavyn davies, ultra left wing head of the BBC was forced to resign today after the independent hutton commission found him and other BBC leaders responsible for allowing a false report claiming proof that blair manipulated intelligence about iraq just prior to the war.

The BBC has done immeasurable damage (on false, ideologically driven pretenses) to both the united states, britain (and especially tony blair) in it's extremely biased and deceitful coverage of the iraq war (and events leading up to it).

what many people also may not realize is that the BBC is the number 1 news outlet in the world, and had much to do with fanning the flames of anti-american sentiment worldwide regarding the iraq war.

heads are rolling at BBC..expect more to come.