Ellsberg Supports Wikileaks Afghan Occupation Diaries

ELLSBERG SUPPORTS WIKILEAKS AFGHAN OCCUPATION DIARIES















Daniel Ellsberg. (Photo: jdlasica)

Daniel Ellsberg agrees that The Wikileaks Afghan Occupation Diaries will join the Vietnam Pentagon Papers as a turning point of moral truth in the current Afghanistan stalemate ~ which also cannot answer the two key questions as to why are we there and why are we continuing this expensive exercise in futility: Allen L Roland

The Wikileaks Afghan Occupation Diaries are a shot across the bow of the Obama Administration. On Wednesday, Democratic Sens. Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) and Jim Webb (D-Virginia) sent a letter to the White House asking President Obama to refrain from making any major commitments to Afghanistan without the consent of the Senate "We do not believe that a long-term, open-ended presence of U.S. military forces in Afghanistan serves our national interest," the senators wrote.

As a senator, Obama supported a similar request sent to President Bush in 2007 regarding Iraq ~ but the publication of the Wikileak Dairies appears to be having the same effect as the pentagon papers had with the Vietnam conflict.

Before WikiLeaks, before the Afghanistan war, before the Internet, a defense analyst named Daniel Ellsberg rocked America in 1971 when he leaked to the newspapers of the day a top-secret study of US decisionmaking in Vietnam. The documents came to be known as the 'Pentagon Papers'.
Ellsberg was also castigated by the financial elite as well as various Senators and Congressman but his papers laid bare the truth of a Vietnam quagmire mired in denial and ineptitude.

Recently, the Monitor's Gloria Goodale talked to Mr. Ellsberg, who now lives in California, for his unique perspective on the recently released Wikileaks Afghan Occupation papers ~ which also lay bare the truth of an Afghan quagmire mired in denial and ineptitude.

Excerpt: Why it Is Important That This Kind of Information Gets Out ?

Ellsberg: " One of the most important messages or conclusions to be drawn from the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago is what they didn’t reveal, and that was: In some 7,000 pages of high-level discussions, they didn’t reveal a single compelling or even remotely realistic basis for continuing the war. Nor did they answer the question of: Why are we there? And that’s the conclusion: that there wasn’t an answer to be given. It couldn’t be inferred from a very small release of papers, say 10 pages or 20 pages. You really had to see that, year after year, nobody was coming up with or reporting any kind of success. "

" And the same is true with this six-year ( Afghan ) compilation to show that, year after year, the process really isn’t changing, and that the more we increased our presence in Afghanistan, the stronger the Taliban was growing. I’m sure, by the way, that this is still the case. A leak I would like to see right now is what the change in Taliban strength has been over these past seven months of President Obama’s new strategy. Don’t wait for the administration to release that because I’m sure it would be very embarrassing to the strategy. I’m sure that their official estimates of Taliban strength as of July are greater than the estimate in December when Obama initiated that strategy. " http://www.truth-out.org/wikileaks-qa-with-daniel-ellsberg61831

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Wednesday called for the criminal prosecution of Wikileaks, the website that courageously published classified military documents this week. "I’m willing to prosecute anybody who led to undermining the war effort," Graham proclaimed during an appearance on Fox News.

Excuse me, Senator Graham ~ but this is not a war but an illegal and morally unjust occupation that an increasing amount of Veterans, including myself, are rightfully speaking out against.

Here's one of them, Mike Prysner, proclaiming recently that The Real Terrorist was Himself " Our real enemies are not those living in a distant land whose names or policies we don't understand; The real enemy is a system that wages war when it's profitable, the CEOs who lay us off our jobs when it's profitable, the Insurance Companies who deny us Health care when it's profitable, the Banks who take away our homes when it's profitable. Our enemies are not several hundred thousands away. They are right here in front of us. "
Video & Transcript ( 4 Minutes )http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26047.htm

We came within 31 votes of stopping the recently passed War supplemental bill of over 30 Billion dollars for Afghanistan.This unjust occupation can be stopped ~ but only if we the people let our voices not only be heard but be registered in petitions, letters and votes in November.
Sign our petition to the Democratic and Republican National Committees to tell them you vote, and you demand an end to this occupation

As Arthur Schopenhauer once wrote ~ All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, Second, it is violently opposed and finally it is accepted as being self-evident.
With the publishing of the Wikileaks dairies ~ the sad truth of the Afghanistan Occupation is obviously becoming self evident.

Allen L Roland
http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/ellsberg-supports-wikileaks-afghan.html

This weblog is sustained through donations from people like yourself. Please send check or Money Order to Allen L. Roland, PO Box 1221, Sonoma,CA 95476 Also accept Visa, MasterCard and Discover .

Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and psychotherapist Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private consultations ( allen@allenroland.com )

Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net

ONLY THE TRUTH IUS REVOLUTIONARY

The Prince Of Peace In His Bomber Jacket

THE PRINCE OF PEACE IN HIS BOMBER JACKET


The prince of peace, Barack Obama poses in occupied Afghanistan for his obligatory warrior photo ~ dressed in his bomber jacket which fully reveals the hypocrisy of his recent and deeply tainted Nobel Peace prize : Allen L Roland

As Holy Week unfolds in 2010 ~ we have the twin spectacles of the Vicar of Christ, Pope Benedict XVI, deservedly under attack for obstruction of justice while the Prince of Peace, Nobel Peace prize winner President Barack Obama, visiting illegally occupied Afghanistan in the dead of night for an on the run Photo Op with the troops ~ while posing in his macho bomber jacket. In essence, it was a six hour pro-war pep rally !

All we need is a Mission Accomplished Banner behind Obama to replicate the hypocrisy of the GW Bush Photo Op on May 1, 2003 on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln where Bush declared that the Iraq war, which was also an illegal occupation, was over.

This Obama photo is a statement to America, and the world, that Obama is a war president and you better get used to it. Obama sold out to the Military / Industrial complex a long time ago ~ and, as a result, we'll be in Afghanistan for many years to come.

Those were Obama's exact words by the way ~ He assured his listeners, and most assuredly Americans at home, that we will “finish the job” and made another promise as well: “I’m looking forward,” he told the troops, “to returning to Afghanistan many times in the years to come.”

Machiavelli, The Prince, ch. IX, fully describes our current Prince Obama ~ " For in every city these two opposite parties [people vs aristocracy] are to be found, arising from the desire of the populace to avoid oppression of the great, and the desire of the great to command and oppress the people....For when the nobility see that they are unable to resist the people, they unite in exalting one of their number and creating him prince, so as to be able to carry out their own designs under the shadow of his authority."

As Norman Soloman writes in Common Dreams " President Obama has taken a further plunge into the kind of war abyss that consumed predecessors named Johnson, Nixon and Bush. "

The Afghanistan and Iraq wars ($1 trillion so far), will cost $200-250 billion more this year, including hidden and indirect expenses. Obama’s Afghan “surge” of 30,000 new troops will cost an additional $33 billion ~ which is more than Germany’s total defense budget.

Commander in Chief Obama is paying for America’s wars through supplemental authorizations ­by utilizing America's maxed-out credit card. Future generations will be stuck with this bill to the tune of what is now over $30,000 dollars per American.

In other words, If Americans actually had to pay for these wars and occupations through a war tax ~ and not on credit ~ both of these conflicts would now be over.

As Daniel Ellsberg said ~ "The only way the Vietnam War could have been ended was by Congress cutting off the money " and he was absolutely correct !

President Obama now has HIS war in Afghanistan and his Bomber Jacket ~ but we can stop this War President nonsense by defunding these senseless occupations and make it our peace cry for the midterm elections in November, 2010.

Allen L Roland
http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/prince-of-peace-in-his-bomber-jacket.html

This weblog is sustained through donations from people like yourself. Please send check or Money Order to Allen L. Roland, PO Box 1221, Sonoma,CA 95476 Also accept Visa, MasterCard and Discover ~ call (707) 935-1908.

Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net

Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and psychotherapist Allen L Roland is also available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private consultations ( allen@allenroland.com )

ONLY THE TRUTH IS REVOLUTIONARY