Statement from Daniel Elsberg

Here is a bit from the San Francisco Chronicle with an interesting statement about Wikileaks from a group of people, one of whom is Daniel Elsberg of the Pentagon Papers fame:

WikiLeaks has teased the genie of transparency out of a very opaque bottle, and powerful forces in America, who thrive on secrecy, are trying desperately to stuff the genie back in.

How far down the United States has slid can be seen, ironically enough, in a recent commentary in Pravda (that's right, Russia's Pravda): "What WikiLeaks has done is make people understand why so many Americans are politically apathetic ... After all, the evils committed by those in power can be suffocating, and the sense of powerlessness that erupts can be paralyzing, especially when ... government evildoers almost always get away with their crimes. ..."

So shame on Barack Obama, Eric Holder, and all those who spew platitudes about integrity, justice and accountability while allowing war criminals and torturers to walk freely upon the earth. ... the American people should be outraged that their government has transformed a nation with a reputation for freedom, justice, tolerance and respect for human rights into a backwater that revels in its criminality, cover-ups, injustices and hypocrisies.

Odd, isn't it, that it takes a Pravda commentator to drive home the point that the Obama administration is on the wrong side of history. Most of our own media are demanding that WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange be hunted down -- with some of the more bloodthirsty politicians calling for his murder.

Here is the key Elsberg statement:

Ellsberg strongly rejects the mantra "Pentagon Papers good; WikiLeaks material bad." "That's just a cover for people who don't want to admit that they oppose any and all exposure of even the most misguided, secretive foreign policy. The truth is that EVERY attack now made on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange was made against me and the release of the Pentagon Papers at the time."

This statement goes on to speculate about the motive for the original leak. They propose something similar to what motivated Elsberg: if you are a good person trapped in a system doing evil, what can you do, other than spill the beans and let people know the evil silently going on:

Motivation? WikiLeaks' reported source, Army Pvt. Bradley Manning, having watched Iraqi police abuses, and having read of similar and worse incidents in official messages, reportedly concluded, "I was actively involved in something that I was completely against." Rather than simply go with the flow, Manning wrote: "I want people to see the truth ... because without information you cannot make informed decisions as a public," adding that he hoped to provoke worldwide discussion, debates and reform.

Here is their conclusion about the role of the media, a very similar role which the media played in the Vietnam war:

The media: again, the media is key. No one has said it better than Monsignor (Oscar) Romero of El Salvador, who just before he was assassinated 25 years ago warned, "The corruption of the press is part of our sad reality, and it reveals the complicity of the oligarchy." Sadly, that is also true of the media situation in America today.

The big question is not whether Americans can handle the truth. We believe they can. The challenge is to make the truth available to them in a straightforward way so they can draw their own conclusions -- an uphill battle given the dominance of the mainstream media, most of which have mounted a hateful campaign to discredit Assange and WikiLeaks.

There's more. Go read the whole article.

I'm conflicted. I believe governments need the ability to have "state secrets". But I also realize that secrecy is widely abused by government and that a democracy assumes a "informed public". You can't have secrets and have an informed public. So there is a mighty tension. There is a plague on both houses. Some secrecy is needed but more transparency is needed. I'm for the muddled middle. There needs to be far more transparency, but not to the extent that no conversations are private, no military plans secret, etc.