Stand Behind Wikileaks and Against Secret War

http://pdamerica.org/articles/alliances/2010-08-05-10-47-09-alliances.php

Published by MondoWeiss.net.

I love the debate in the MSM about whether the great Julian Assange is as virtuous as Daniel Ellsberg. I bet they were trashing Ellsberg 40 years ago, too. Oh but this is so different! Yes, very true. Different times, different weapons. Ellsberg spent nights at a Xerox machine.

Tom Hayden has sent out the following petition on behalf of Wikileaks. I missed the Rolling Stone bit. Good:

We believe that WikiLeaks and those whistleblowers who declassify documents in a time of secret war should be welcomed as defenders of democracy, not demonized as criminals. We support their First Amendment rights and welcome their continued disobedience in response to a long train of official deception.

Our government and its allies in Afghanistan and Pakistan have stretched the labels “national security” and “secrecy” beyond all reasonable definitions, because they wish to keep the realities of these wars hidden from the American people. “National security” is becoming the last refuge of scoundrels. Only consider –

- Our government prohibited the media from photographing the returning remains of our dead soldiers, until public pressure forced a change in policy;

- The Abu Ghraib torture scandal only came to public attention when photographs were leaked by an MP;

- The war in Pakistan is shrouded in secrecy because it violates that country’s sovereignty, results in the killing of innocent civilians, and is deeply unpopular;

- According to the new information from WikiLeaks, our Special Operations Task Force 373 operates outside the ISAF mandate to kidnap and kill targeted insurgents in a repeat of the discredited Phoenix program of the Vietnam era.

- Gen. Stanley McChrystal was forced to resign after a Rolling Stone reporter uncovered attitudes hostile to civilian authority;

- The same Rolling Stone article quoted a top official saying if the truth about these wars was known by the American people, they would be even more unpopular.


More at the link ---