Pentagon Papers Leaker Decries Iraq War

[Hissyspit]

Source: Golden Gate XPress

Pentagon Papers leaker decries Iraq war
Daniel Ellsburg calls President Bush a war criminal
by Justin Hughes, staff writer
April 1, 2008 5:49 PM
About 100 people came to see anti-war activist Daniel Ellsberg speak at the Unitarian Universalist Church in San Francisco on March 30 as he condemned the war in Iraq as a “supreme war crime” and warned about the dangers of a future war in Iran.

In 1971 Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers, a classified study of U.S. policy in Vietnam, to The New York Times and other major American media sources. Ellsberg was a consultant to the Defense Department at the time, risking possible life imprisonment because he felt that the classified information was of great importance to the American public.

- snip -

Ellsberg’s talk was a celebration of the 10th year anniversary of the War and Law League (WALL), a non-profit San Francisco-based organization working to ensure that the U.S. government follows the Constitution, treaties, and international laws in times of war and peace.

Ellsberg condemned Bush and Cheney as war criminals and “domestic enemies of the constitution,” an accusation that brought the entire crowd of people—a vast majority of whom were from the Vietnam War era—to a loud standing applause. He explained that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was illegal, clearly violating the UN charter. “It was a war of aggression without approval from the U.N. security council,” he said.

Read more: http://xpress.sfsu.edu/archives/news/010702.html

[trusty elf]

1. Thank you Daniel Ellsberg!

:patriot:

[keopeli]

2. Why is it so hard to tell the truth? It sure is refreashing to hear... n/t

[0007]

3. Whoopi!!

Working for a better & safer Amurka.
The defintion of puke in action.

[ToughLuck]

4. Good for you Daniel Ellsberg!!! Problem is NOT enough people show up

the MSN sucks..Pelosi took impeachment off the table.........UNBELIEVABLE FOLKS..I still get so angry!

[Peace Patriot]

5. Thank you, Daniel Ellsberg, once again! I remember your first act of moral courage

--the release of the Pentagon Papers, which laid out the ugly truth about the Vietnam War--which you did in the face of Nixonite dirty ops to spy on you and discredit you. Dirty ops like that are not only meant to sully virtuous people, they are intended to instill fear. And we are seeing plenty of that--magnified a thousand times--with the Bush Junta. I applaud you for speaking out a second time, which I know you have been doing all along, on the Iraq War. It cannot be an easy thing, with these ruthless criminals in the White House apparently under the protection of the Democratic Party leadership. Where are the people who should be representing and defending us? They are scarce, indeed--in the news media, in Congress, in our political establishment in general, in our financial establishment, in our own party. We have a few rare champions. You are one of them.

Please see my comment (#3) on the Winter Soldier event (and on U.S. Marine Jon Turner's rejection of his Iraq military medals).

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3095045

I want to include this reminder in particular...

...I do feel the need to point out, once again, that 56% of the American people opposed this war from the beginning--Feb. '03, just before the invasion (NYT poll; other polls, 54-55%). 56% is a significant majority. It would be a landslide in a presidential election (and believe me, it was). That big majority has now grown to a whopping, epochal anti-war majority of 70%, and still the American people cannot get their will enforced. We vote--as in '06--and somehow produce a Congress that is the OPPOSITE of the American people, 60% to 70% FOR the war, and which ESCALATED the war and larded Bush/Cheney will billions MORE of our non-existent tax dollars to kill more Iraqis.

Something wrong here. Something very, very wrong. And it is not the war profiteering corporate news monopolies. They are merely the scribes of war. They write the plausible narratives for stolen elections.

In that same pre-war period--indeed, in the same month as the Iraq War Resolution (IWR), Oct. '02--the Anthrax Congress also passed the so-called "Help America Vote Act" (HAVA), a $3.9 billion electronic voting boondoggle, by which electronic voting machines were fast-tracked, all over the country, run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, with virtually no audit/recount controls. I believe the two things are related. The IWR guaranteed unjust war; HAVA provided the means to shove that unjust war down the throats of the American people.

Every anti-war event NEEDS TO INCLUDE THIS INFORMATION. The majority of the American people are not warmongers, are not uninformed, are not 'sheeple,' are not stupid, are not lazy, and are certainly not, and never have been, 'sieg heiling' Bush's war. They have opposed it, never more than now. They have been deliberately and systemically DISENFRANCHISED. And the "trade secret" vote counting is still in place!

[GleninDublin]

6. Good man

He came over here to give evidence at the trial of a woman who attacked and damaged U.S. war planes at Shannon airport.

[unkachuck]

7. K&R....n/t