June 18: govt ruling on Pentagon Papers

[The Blue Flower]

June 18 - this weekend - marks the date when the first Supreme Court hearing was held at the government's demand to restrain the New York Times from publishing the Pentagon Papers. The judges ruled that no national security jeopardy was at hand, and if the government was embarrassed by its decisions, it would have to live with that. The judge went on to say that the press must be ubiquitous and educate the American people - part of the reason for the first amendment is
to allow the people to know about midjudgements and bad decisions at the highest level and to prevent the government from becoming like other governments in terms of silencing the press and allowing out only the information they want the people to know.

(Floyd Abrams, "Speaking Freely)

[Roland99]

1. Too bad the media is too timid today.

Gone are the days of the rabid truthseekers.


Well, there may be a few reporters wanting to report on the meaty stuff but their editors are under demands from higher ups to keep those articles out of print.

[Norquist Nemesis]

2. Well, the editors are either under demands

as you say or it could be they're part of that mindset. I'm guessing the latter.

[KurtNYC]

3. I was just searching for some Pentagon papers stuff

and what I get is discussion about the publication of the PPs. What about the substance?

My research question (challenging my own memory) is did the Pentagon Papers show in effect that the war was perpetuated by those who were profiting from it? In other words, there was no exit strategy (deja vu) because Vietnam was essentially run as an on-going business.

I am suspicious of the assertion now that there was "no plan for after the victory" in Iraq. The GOP has long term plans for everything. Their takeover of the media has been moving along step by step since Nixon set the goal. Why should I believe that there was no plan for after the Iraq invasion? I think it is more likely that a kind of quagmire is what they had in mind. The chaos in Iraq lets them off the hook. Oil revenue was going to pay for the war/rebuilding but it sounds crazy to ask where is the oil revenue while the country is in chaos. To the military/prison/industrial complex Iraq is just Vietnam with oil (and without pesky reporters running around). Cha-ching!