Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Happy Anniversary, Pentagon Papers

Today is the 35th anniversary of the initial publication of the Pentagon Papers in the New York Times. The traditional gift on such dates is coral. Thus I'm going to give the Papers a plaque made of coral that says "I Don't Understand—How Could This Possibly Be Relevant To The Present Day?" This plaque also has a small button that, when pressed, produces the sound of two million Vietnamese peasants dying.

Now, here's an article from the LA Times by Daniel Ellsberg:

Today, there must be, at the very least, hundreds of civilian and military officials in the Pentagon, CIA, State Department, National Security Agency and White House who have in their safes and computers comparable documentation of intense internal debates — so far carefully concealed from Congress and the public — about prospective or actual war crimes, reckless policies and domestic crimes: the Pentagon Papers of Iraq, Iran or the ongoing war on U.S. liberties. Some of those officials, I hope, will choose to accept the personal risks of revealing the truth — earlier than I did — before more lives are lost or a new war is launched.
A U.S. News & World Report story on the anniversary is here. And the National Radio Project has produced a thirty minute segment of Ellsberg talking about civil disobedience in Crawford, Texas.