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Today's
Stories
April 1, 2008
Jeff Leys
Fracturing
the Peace to End the War
March 31, 2008
Mike Whitney
Dead
on Arrival: Paulson's Fixit Plan for Wall Street
Mats Svensson
Walls,
Tunnels and Daily Humiliations
Paul Rockwell
Hillary's
Lies About Outsourcing
Paul Craig Roberts
A Third American War in the Making?
Patrick Cockburn
Sadr
Calls for Ceasefire
Peter Dale Scott
The Showdown
Alfredo Molano
Cultura Mafiosa in Colombia
Peter Morici
Why Paulson's Reform Plan Falls Short
Uri Avnery
Day of the Land, 32 Years Later
Michael Simmons
The American Bard in New Orleans
Betsy Roberts
/ Karen Orr
The Clorox Coup
Phyllis Pollack
First the Sun and Then the Moon: Scorsese Does the Stones
Website of
the Day
Five Years Too Many
March 29 / 30, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
When
They Pick Up the Phone at 3 AM, What Will They Say?
Patrick Cockburn
Iraqi
Police Refuse to Back Maliki's Attacks on Medhi Army
Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Next Big Bail Out Plan
Christopher Brauchli
The Pastor of Armageddon and the Slave Sale: McCain, Lieberman
and Rev. Hagee
William Blum
China, Tibet and the Propaganda Olympics
Robert Fantina
Iraq
Troika: McCain, Obama and Clinton
John Ross
AMLO, the Comeback Kid? Fighting the Privatization of Mexico's
Oil
Allison Kilkenny
Shady Lending Hits Home
Nelson P. Valdés
Cuba, the Beatles and Historical Context
Suzanne Baroud
The Great Lake of Gaza: a New Crisis in the Making
Richard Rhames
Social Security: Throwing Granny from the Gravy Train
Christopher Fons
Transcending the 60s? Obama and the Baby Boomers
Carl Finamore
Misery at 35,000 Feet: Mergers Stall, Fares Soar, Services Slump
and Consumers Sour
Eamonn McCann
Hillary Misremembers Again!
Missy Beattie
Justice and the Monsters of War
Fred Gardner
Jim Thorpe, All-American
Kim Nicolini
Cock Chuggers and Cheese Curls: Richard Kelly's "Southland
Tales"
David Yearsley
"All the World's a Hospital"
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Booked Up
Poets' Basement
Valentine and Ko Un
Website of
the Weekend
Hidden Iraq
March 28, 2008
Saul Landau
Growing
Dread About Iraq
Alan Farago
Other People's Money: the Chop Shop Economy
Peter Morici
Knocking Down False Economic Gods
Andy Worthington
Plight of the Uyghus: a Chinese Muslim's Desperate Plea from
Guantánamo
Felice Pace
Ashes of Lies: Why No One Trusts the US Forest Service
Peter Montague
Sierra Club Cleans House -- With Clorox!
Dave Lindorff
The Mumia Exception
March 27, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
Basra
Erupts
Binoy Kampmark
Free Market Apostates
Joanne Mariner
"Was George Washington a Terrorist?"
Norman Solomon
NPR News: National Pentagon Radio?
William S. Lind
Mars Only Knocks Once: a Prognosis for Iraq
John V. Walsh
Obama's Speech: a Touch of Bigotry?
Robert Weissman
How Things Work
Ron Jacobs
Meeting Charlie Ehlen
Ralph Nader
Put Impeachment Back on the Table
David Macaray
Court Rules Against Grocery Workers
John Borowski
Clearcutting the History of Forest Destruction
Website of
the Day
Going Out for an English
March 26, 2008
Stan Cox
The
Germs Next Door
Sharon Smith
Greed
Pays: Welfare on Wall Street
Anita Sinha / Jill Tauber
Dreams Turned into Rubble in New Orleans
Matt Vidal
So Much for the Self-Regulating Market
William S. Lind
Operation Cassandra
Joe Mowrey
The Audacity of Hypocrisy: Obama's Pandering to Israel
Dave Lindorff
Duck and Cover (Up): Hillary Under Fire
Ray McGovern
Frontline's War: Too Timid, Too Little, Too Late
Justin Smith
Why Race and Gender are Separate Issues
Sam Husseini
The Winter Soldier Hearings and Indy Media
Martha Rosenberg
Blood on Ice: Gentlemen, Pick Up Your Clubs
Michael Dickinson
Politicians as Dogs
Website of the Day
The Wal-Mart Virus: How the Infection Spread
March 25, 2008
Ishmael Reed
The
Crazy Rev. Wright
Corey D. B.
Walker
The Politics of Jeremiah Wright
Linn Washington Jr.
Racism in America and Other Uncomfortable Facts
Alan Farago
The Money Launderers: a Picnic for Wall St. Insiders
Vijay Prashad
A Glimmer of Hope From the Gulf Coast
Joshua Frank
A Silver Lining to the Bush Years?
Ralph Nader
How Public Servants Can Help End This War
David Rovics
If I Can't Dance: Why is the Left So Boring?
Peter Morici
America's Banks are Broken
Dave Zirin
Olympic Flames: China's Crackdown in Tibet
David Krieger
The Crisis in Tibet
Website of
the Day
Memorializing Iraq
March 24, 2008
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Blonde
Ambition: Hillary's Berserker Campaign for 2012
Peter Morici
Digging Out of the Recession
Uri Avnery
Two Americas
Wajahat Ali
First of the Mohicans: an Interview with Rep. Keith Ellison
Paul Craig Roberts
Inside the Shell Game
George Ciccariello-Maher
The Coming War on Venezuela
Stephen Lendman
Sami Al-Arian's Long Ordeal
Christopher
Brauchli
Possessing Someone Else's Country
Cat Woods
A Letter to Mom on Obama
Stacey Warde
Tax Burden
Dave Lindorff
The American Dead Hits 4,000, But Who's Counting?
Website of
the Day
Live from the Longest Walk
March 22 /
23, 2008
Ralph Nader
Bush
Blisters the Truth on Iraq
Nicole Colson
Can You Afford to Feed Your Family?
James Petras
The Cost of Unilateral Humanitarian Initiatives
Laura Carlsen
From Bombs to Markets: The Andean Crisis and the Geopolitics
of Trade
Greg Moses
Tolerance and the American Pulpit
Andy Worthington
Torture Stories Dog Guantánamo Trials
Michael Dickinson
Art on Trial
John Ross
Bush's Surge Hits Mosul
Missy Comley Beattie
Killer Economics
David Michael
Green
Happy Anniversary, America!
Ramzy Baroud
The Coming Uncertain War on Iran
Martha Rosenberg
Easter Egg Shells from Hell
Paul Watson
Evolution is Going to the Dogs in the Galapagos
Isabella Kenfield
Monsanto's
Raid on Brazil
James Murren
Logging v. Water in Honduras
Jacob Hornberger
Sex and the Immigration Officer
Kathlyn Stone
Ben Heine, Master of the Art of Resistance
Seth Sandronsky
Rethinking New Mexico's History
Kim Nicolini
Class, Gender and Abortion in Communist Romania
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Booked Up: What I'm Reading This Week
Poets' Basement
Wilson, Woods, Gibbons and Orloski
Website of
the Weekend
Merci, McCain!
March 21, 2008
Marleen Martin
Land
Behind Bars: the Hidden Casualties of America's "War on
Crime"
Peter Montague
Run
Your Car on Coal? Maybe Not
Saul Landau
Monroe's
Deadly Doctrine
Anis Hamadeh
Merkel in the Knesset
Jacob Hornberger
McCain's Al Qaeda Scare: Slip or Tactic?
Khalil Nakhleh
Al Nakba of 1948: How Long Will It Persist?
Adam Isacson
Colombia, Paramilitary Threats and Assassinations
Kenneth Couesbouc
Money for Nothing
Madis Senner
Will the Feds Underwrite the Stock Market?
Monica Benderman
The Costs of Freedom: What Are You Willing to Pay?
Website of the Day
Stop Foreclosures and Evictions
March 20, 2008
Damien Millet
/
Eric Toussaint
The
Triple Failing of the Big Private Banks
Mike Whitney
Winding
Up Bear
John Ross
What Do We Owe Iraq?
Dave Lindorff
Paying the Piper: the Bodies and Bills are Piling Up
Wajahat Ali
Pakistan on Fire
Jill Nagle
Memo to Sex Workers: Stop Financing Shock Journalism
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Obama and the Psychic Auto-Shrink-Wrapping Called Race in America
Dan La Botz
Obama's Race Speech
Robert Weissman
Alternative Power: Shutting Down the API
Stella Dallas
/
Jennifer Matsui
Apostasy Now! Mamet, Enter Stage Right
Website of the Day
The Angry Monk
March 19, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
A
War of Lies
Robert Fisk
The Little Men and the Inferno
Jeff Taylor
Five Years of War in Iraq
Ed Ruggero
From Pinkville to Iraq: the Dark Anniversary of My Lai
Ron Jacobs
Who'll Stop the Rain?
Christopher
Fons
Obama Takes the Race Bait
Sherwood Ross
In Defense of Rev. Wright
Cynthia McKinney
An Urgent Crisis: Confronting America's Racial Disparities
Joshua Frank
The Kool-Aid That Kills
Robert Weissman
Monsanto's Genetic Food Gamble
Walter Brasch
It's a Welfare State--If You're Rich
Yifat Susskind
Iraqi Women Resist the Occupation
Andrew Wimmer
War Demands Its Due
Website of
the Day
Glimpses of Nature
March 18, 2008
David Price
The
Military "Leveraging" of Cultural Knowledge
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Collapse of American Power
Tim Wise
Of National Lies and Racial America: Jeremiah Wright, Barack
Obama and the Unacceptability of Truth
Patrick Cockburn
One of the Most Disastrous Wars Ever Fought
Conn Hallinan
Afghanistan, a River Running Backward
James T. Phillips
Monsters: Past, Present and Wannabe
Uri Avnery
The Killing in Bethlehem
David Macaray
Could Wal-Mart Revive the Labor Movement?
Marjorie Cohn
Beware an Attack on Iran
Peter Zinn
Obama in New Orleans
Dan La Botz
The Economic Crisis, Labor and the Left
Monica Benderman
Where are We Going?
March 17, 2008
Pam Martens
The
Fed's Wall Street Dilemma
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The US, Iran and the Policy of Dual Containment
Nelson P. Valdés
The Imperial Branding of Simon Bolivar and the Cuban Revolution
Peter Morici
The Corrosive Consequences of the Trade Deficit
Wajahat Ali
Disrobing the Nine: a Conversation with Jeffrey Toobin on the
Supreme Court Since 9/11
Ronnie Cummins
Beyond Progressive Malpractice: Taking Down Big Pharma
Shaun Harkin
Saint Patrick's Day in Fortress America
Ali Khan
No Pardon for Musharraf
Robert Jensen
Beyond Peace
P. Sainath
Oh, What a Lovely Waiver!
Greg Moses
Jeremiah was a Bullhorn
Dr. Susan Block
Advice for Eliot Spitzer
Website of the Day
No Cowboys
March 15 /
16, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
How
to Destroy a Country in Five Years
Mike Whitney
Bearly
Alive: Investment Giant Rushed to ICU by Panicky Fed Chief
Ralph Nader
Of
Laws and Men
Robert Pollin
It's Still the Economy, Stupid
Diane Christian
The Poetics of Perversity: From Boccaccio to Spitzer
Wajahat Ali
Faking the Hood: a Conversation with Ishmael Reed
Tom Wright
/
Therese Saliba
Rachel Corrie's Case for Justice
Alan Farago
Back to Florida: Where Bushtime Began
Greg Moses
Raiding the Family Room in Texas
Michael Hudson
A Grand Global Bargain?
Martha Rosenberg
Why Hillary's Favorite Chicken Company is Eying China
John Goekler
Fourth Generation Warfare in a Fifth Generation Conflict
Uzma Aslam
Khan
A Letter to Barack Obama: Where's the Change, Barack?
Oren Ben-Dor
The Silencing of Gilad Atzmon
David Underhill
Mammon, Morals and the Mobile Tanker Deal
Fred Gardner
The Education of Eliot Spitzer
David Michael
Green
Why Spitzer Should Have Resigned (and Why He Shouldn't Have)
Rev. William E. Alberts
Jesus, Entombed in Heaven
Gail Dines
It's All About the John: Prostitution and Male Power
David Yearsley
Conducting, Anarchy and the Problem of When to Begin
Chris Clarke
Walking with Zeke: the Luckiest of Dogs
Poets' Basement
Anderson, Lodge & Subiet
Website of
the Day
Deviant Art
March 14, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Watching
the Dollar Die
Don Santina
Vichy
Democrats: Pelosi and the Politics of Collaboration
Patrick Cockburn
Iraqi
Mother Vows Revenge on US: How She Lost Her Husband and Her Sons
Tim Rinne
StratCom
Rules! The Next War Will Start in Nebraska
Robert Fantina
In
Torture We Trust
Saul Landau
Letter
to the Presidents-in-Waitings
David Macaray
Common
Myths About Labor Unions
Franklin Lamb
Is
the Bush Administration Switching Horses in Lebanon
Michael Neumann
The
One State Illusion: Reply to My Critics
March 13, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Republicans
and "Free Market" Zealots Bring Disaster to America
Mike Whitney
Meltdown
Looms Larger As Credit Markets Freeze
Assaf Kfoury
"One-State
or Two State?"- Sterile Debate on False Alternatives
Andy Worthington
Afghan
Hero Who Died in Guantánamo: The Background to the Story
Adam Federman
From
Autopia to Autogeddon: Cars Reach the End of the Road
March 12, 2008
Dave Lindorff
Bringing
Down Spitzer: It's the Big Brother Who Should Bother US
R.F. Blader
The
Spitzer Backlash
Yonatan Mendel
How
to be an Israeli Journalist. Never Write "Murder" or
"Palestine"
Jonathan Cook
One
State or Two? Neither. The Issue is Zionism
Bill and Kathy
Christison
Fallon
and Gates -- At Least One Cheer
James J. Brittain
Was
the U.S. Involved in Killing the FARC-EP Leaders
Ron Jacobs
"All
the Money You Make Will Never Buy Back Your Soul"
March 11, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
How
to End the Subprime Crisis
Ed O'Loughlin
How
Israeli Troops Invade Homes in Gaza, Brutalize, Smash and Steal
Ramzy Baroud
'Unwavering
Commitment' to Inequality
Kathy Christison
One
State or Two? The Debate Over Israel and Palestine
China Hand
PRC
Plays it Cool, as U.S. Tries to Amp Up Pressure on Iran
John Joslin
Thank
You, Nafta! Welcome to Weirton, Home of the Discount Cigarette
Mike Averko
Serb
Politics, Kosovo and the Moscow-Washington Divide
Ben Rosenfeld
Gavin
Newsom's Kneejerk Plan
Thierry Paquot
High
Rise, Low Spirits:The Curse of the Tower Block
March 10, 2008
Uri Avnery
"Kill
A Hundred Turks and Rest": The Five-Day War in Gaza
Col. Dan Smith
Scoring
the "Surge" and What Lies Beyond
R.F. Blader
Why
"Lock Them Up and Throw Away the Key" is Losing its
Sheen
Michael Neumann
The
One-State Illusion: More is Less
Bob Fitrakis
and Harvey Wasserman
Did
the Republicans Give Hillary Her Victory in Ohio?
James J. Brittain
Anti-Uribe
Protests in Colombia and the World
Missy Comley
Beattie
The
Passion of John McCain
March 8-9,
2008 Weekend Edition
JoAnn Wypijewski
The
Only Way to Fight the Clintons
Mike Whitney
Sorting
Through the Rubble in Post Bubble America
Peter Morici
Fed
and Treasury Fiddle as Economy Plummets
Ralph Nader
The
Silent Violence of Gaza's Suffering that Candidates Ignore
Jonathan Cook
The
Meaning of Gaza's Shoah
Steve Niva
Behind
the Israeli Escalation in Gaza
Bill and Kathy
Christison
Crisis
over Teheran's Alleged Nuclear Plans Nearing Climax
Hervé
Do Alto and Franck Poupeau
Bolivia:
Morales is Checked
Eric Walberg
To
Leave and Stay at the Same Time: Putin to Medvedev to…?
Scott Johnson
City
of A Thousand Foreclosures
Mark Scaramella
James
Brown's Gate
Bill Clinton
President
Clinton's Remarks on Naming William M. Daley as NAFTA Task Force
Chairman
Poet's Basement
St.
Thomasino, Engel, Davies and Willson
Website of
the Weekend
Hillary
Blackens Barack
March 7, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
Why
Iraq Could Blow-Up in John McCain's Face
Robin Blackburn
Question
for Barrack Obama: Why Afghanistan is the'Right War'?
Saul Landau
The
Stupid Economy
Binoy Kampmark
When
Competition is Good: McCain and the Muddled Democrats
Chris Floyd
Crushing
the Ants: Admiral Fallon and His Empire
Andy Worthington
Spanish
Drop "Inhuman" Extradition Request for Guantánamo
Britons
Will Potter
Before
the Smoke Even Clears in Seattle: Bringing Out the T Word
March 6, 2008
March 6, 2008
Vincent Navarro
The
Next Failure of Health Reform
Forrest Hylton
High Stakes in the Andes: Colombia's Cornered President
Peter Morici
Why the Dollar is So Cheap
George Ciccariello-Maher
Counter-Attack of the Bureaucrats
John Ross
Taxi! Taxi! The Dark Side of the Oscars
Jacob Hornberger
No Standing to Lecture on Justice
Paul Watson
Illegal Japanese Whaling by the Numbers
Dan Bacher
Off the Deep End
Website of the Day
A Katrina Reader Online
March 5, 2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
A
Great Day for John McCain (and Maybe Nader)
Joanne Mariner
After Guantanamo
Fidel Castro
The Raid on Ecuador: Underestimating Rafael Correa
Christopher
Brauchli
The Turkish Invasions
Steven Sherman
Obama and the Prospects for a Renewal of the Left
Dave Lindorff
Busting Bush & Co. in New England
James Murren
Bombing Somalia
Adam Engel
Necropolis Now
Website of Day
Remember Song
March 4, 2008
Wajahat Ali
Mumbo
Jumbo: Naming Names with Ishmael Reed
William Blum
How Could Hillary Have Known?
Bill Quigley
The Cleansing of New Orleans
Ralph Nader
The Prince Harry Solution
Patrick Irelan
Oil and Health in Venezuela
James J. Brittain
/
R. James Sacouman
Uribe's Colombia is Destabilizing a New Latin America
Norman Solomon
The War Election
Jacob Hornberger
Hillary in Waco: the Missing Apology
Andy Worthington
Guantánamo and the European Parliament
Mike Averko
Kosovo and the Press
Website of the Day
Tex-Mex Primary
March 3, 2008
Jennifer Loewenstein
Gazan Holocaust
Alan Farago
American Politics and the Faltering Economy
Richard Gott
Colombian Deaths in Ecuador
Wajahat Ali
Who Speaks for a Billion Muslims? Analyzing the World Gallup
Poll with John Esposito
Paul Craig Roberts
The Mukasey Conspiracy: a Bi-Partisan Attack on the Constitution
Robert Weissman
When Multinationals Say Adieu
Uri Avnery
Good Morning, Hamas
Martha Rosenberg
When Your Meat is a Downer
Eva Liddell
Leave the Next Dance for Bill
Michael Donnelly
Will Ferrell Does Flint
Website of the Day
Muddy Waters: Train Fare Home Blues
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Apri1
1, 2008
A Conversation
with Daniel Ellsberg
Restoring
the Constitution
By THOMAS P. HEALY
Daniel Ellsberg is no stranger to wiretapping.
Yet he had no trouble accommodating a journalist who requested
permission to tape a recent phone interview. Since the host of
his upcoming visit to Indiana will be the local chapter of the
ACLU, we began our conversation there.
TPH: The theme of the ACLU-Indiana
event banquet which you will address is: "Restore American
Democracy: A Call for Change." What kind of changes will
you be calling for?
DE: [laughs] That's a funny
title. I guess they gave it that title. The theme I'll be pursuing
is "Our Constitutional Crisis: Must the U.S. Remain an Outlaw
State?" Only it's not a matter of "change," it's
a matter of restoring our Constitution, which has been under
assault now for seven years. And with some precursors before
that under Clinton. So it didn't all start under Bush.
The fact is Bush and Cheney
operate under a theory of government that is at odds with our
Constitution and our Bill of Rights, and they have pretty much
enacted their theory. In other words, it's not a matter of changing
to a new government, it's restoring checks and balances and an
oversight function for Congress and a preeminent role for Congress
in the issue of war and peace, which has been basically rejected
or destroyed by this administration - and, as I say, with some
precedents earlier. Article 1, section 8, which puts the power
of war and peace with Congress, not the executive branch, has
been under, let's say, neglect ever since Harry Truman went to
war in Korea in 1950 without a declaration of war, and right
up to the previous administration - the Clinton administration
- which conducted an air war in Kosovo and Serbia without Congressional
declaration.
And in this most recent case,
of course, the Congress was called on to support war against
Iraq in November of 2002 and they did so, but they did so under
a great deal of manipulation and false pretenses by the administration.
In other words, as in Vietnam and the Tonkin Gulf resolution,
Congress was lied into war. I don't want to relieve them of all
complicity here because it proved pretty easy to lie to them
- much easier than it should have been. But the fact is they
were given a very false picture of the situation and the Constitution
was ignored in that instance.
But even more blatantly, since
2001 President Bush has simply flagrantly violated the law -
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), in terms of
warrantless wiretapping for 7 years now -- and moreover has conducted
torture since 2001 in violation of both domestic laws and international
laws. And finally the signing statements are pretty much intended
to negate the legislative function of Congress. So in all these
respects, the President is actually acting beyond the law as
an outlaw - as a criminal, to put it bluntly - for the past 7
years without effective oversight or checks by Congress.
The failure to hold impeachment
hearings on what seems extremely solid grounds, which I've just
described, amounts to complicity by Congress in this abrogation
of the Constitution. Moreover we're seen as an outlaw state by
the international community for ignoring international law on
torture and on aggression. The attack on Iraq without authorization
by the U.N. Security Council is a flagrant violation of the U.N.
charter, which is an international treaty which we've signed
and are subject to. It means that we have committed and are in
the process of committing a crime against the peace in the Nuremburg
sense.
TPH: Excuse me, what was
that a crime against?
DE: A crime against the peace.
The crime of aggression. I was misquoted on that recently. I
got arrested last Sunday and the papers said I was protesting
"a crime against the American people." My statement
was actually "an American crime against the peace,"
and they misheard that.
Of course the American people
have been injured in this but not nearly as much as the Iraqis
or international law. It would be like saying "Saddam Hussein's
crime against the Iraqi people" when he invaded Kuwait,
for example.
Anyway, we have an administration
that both in domestic and in international terms is an outlaw
- a lawless regime.
TPH: We've had several leaks
regarding this lawless behavior - the photos from Abu Ghraib,
the Downing Street Memos - but they haven't led to the kind of
political changes like those that resulted from your leaking
of the Pentagon Papers. What's changed in the intervening years?
DE: There was a period of significantly
more open government, and the Church Hearings on, among other
things, illegal surveillance, led to the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978. That was a direct result of
the investigations that came out of both Watergate and the Pentagon
Papers and the Vietnam War.
The Church Committee found
all kinds of violations by the NSA and the FBI on surveillance,
and corrections were made. But that concern kind of closed down
in the '80s, and we've had progressively more secretive government
since then. The Clinton administration was much better in revealing
old secret classified documents and upholding the Freedom of
Information Act. But they were very secretive about their own
operations and I don't know how that would work in a new Hillary
Clinton administration. Jack Nicholson said recently that he
felt sure that she would run a more transparent government. I'm
much less sure of that. She might go back to the Freedom of Information
Act when it comes to materials 10 or 20 years old - I'd be glad
to see that. But I don't have any confidence she would be any
more open about what her administration would be doing. Certainly
McCain would not be. I don't know about Obama.
TPH: Regardless of who gets
elected, the new administration is going to inherit this incredible
executive privilege power that has been asserted by the Bush
administration.
DE: That's right. I don't have
any confidence that any new president-unless he or she were pressed
by the public and by Congress-would give up any of the new presidential
freedoms of invading our privacy and new executive powers that
have accrued.
Which one of them is going
to tell the National Security Agency to stop collecting all this
information on Americans? I don't foresee that. I hope it's not
irreversible. But if it is reversible it's going to have to be
by action outside the executive branch, and that means by Congress,
and that means by pressure on Congress by the public and in particular
by the legal community. I would like to see lawyers and judges
speaking out more explicitly about the injuries that have been
done to our Constitution.
TPH: You've written and
spoken about the "urgent need for demonstrating civil courage."
Is this what you're talking about by asking lawyers and the public
to step up and increase the pressure on Congress and the White
House?
DE: Yes. It always takes some
degree of courage for ordinary citizens or members of the establishment
to speak in opposition to the President, but it takes even more
for officials who are hired by the President to tell the truth
when he or she doesn't want it told. I'm not talking about officials
breaking the law. I'm talking about their observing the law against
the wishes of their agency heads or their superiors or the President
when those people are breaking the law. After all, these people
have been involved in breaking the law and the Constitution very
regularly for the last 7 years, and as I say, some of that really
goes back earlier.
It's time now for people at
the lower levels to begin to observe their oath to the Constitution
and their oath of office. Their oath of office is in every case
not to the President; it is to "support and defend the Constitution"
as it is written. And the President has not been doing that -
a number of presidents have not been doing that - and generally
their subordinates have been following them in that lawbreaking
by keeping silent about it and obeying orders. It's time for
them now to begin observing the laws by speaking truthfully to
Congress and the public when they know that laws are being broken.
TPH: It seems that leaking
has changed since the Pentagon Paper days, and now it's being
used by government officials as a form of intimidation - I'm
thinking of the Plame leak.
DE: That's not a matter of
a trend. Most leaks - that is, disclosures of information that
the government has classified - most of that has always been
done by agency heads and by the White House for their own purposes.
That's been true before and that's true now and it's always true.
In other words, most so-called leaks are really authorized disclosures
even though they violate the classification rules.
For example the Plame leak
had a very clear precedent in the efforts to defame me or to
intimidate me by trying to get secrets out of my doctor's office,
by overhearing me on illegal wiretaps and so forth - that goes
back to Nixon. They intended to leak information or to threaten
to leak information on me in order to intimidate me. So there's
nothing new; the Plame leak was exactly like that.
There is more leaking now that's
genuinely unauthorized; in other words, unauthorized disclosure
of information that the agency heads or the President really
don't want out because it would embarrass them or incriminate
them. There is more of that than there used to be; unfortunately
it hasn't taken the form of documents that are irrefutable and
it hasn't led to hearings.
I must say the Pentagon Papers
didn't lead to hearings either, because the Democrats in charge
took a look at those papers and decided that they didn't want
hearings that would largely incriminate the Democrats. So they
didn't hold hearings either. But at least the papers were there
for everyone to read and they couldn't say, "Oh, whoever's
saying that wasn't in the loop" because these were documents
signed by the Secretary of Defense.
So we haven't had much of that
now, unfortunately. I don't know if you watched the recent "Frontline"
series. It was very interesting but I couldn't help but feel
that a lot of those people speaking, like Paul Pillar from the
CIA - who regrets having written the "white paper"
which was full of misleading statements - he regrets being a
part of that, yet it would have been so much better if he had
told us that at the time. It might have avoided a war. It's true
not only of Pillar but of a number of other people: Lawrence
Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to Colin Powell, Richard Clarke
- they were both on that program. They've told us a lot since
they left government and that's to their credit. But if they
had told it before, while they were in office, they could have
averted a war.
TPH: Perhaps inadvertently,
the "Frontline" piece illustrates the mainstream media's
complicity in the Bush administration's success.
DE: Yeah. There's no question
about that. For instance, they talked quite a bit about the aluminum
tubes and how critical that story was and how much it was played
up. I noticed on the screen, they showed the story on the front
page story of the New York Times, and what has drawn almost
no attention ever is the fact that the stories weren't only by
Judith Miller, whose complicity has been pretty well established
by now - she's almost been run out of the profession; she was
fired by the Times and I don't think she's playing much
of a role now in journalism at this point, and rightfully so.
But the number one name on that story's byline was Michael Gordon.
Now Michael Gordon is still writing stuff for the Times and really
he's done as much, I would say, to promote war with Iran as in
Iraq. He was very important in the case of Iraq and he's been
pushing I would say for staying in Iraq - that's the way I read
his stories there. He's a big advocate of the surge as well as
writing stories pointing to war with Iran. He has never drawn
the critical eye that Judith Miller has and yet his name was
on a number of her stories.
TPH: You mention war in
Iran. You've written
and spoken out frequently on the topic. Do you think the possibility
has become less likely?
DE: Well, it goes up and down.
There are contradictory events that come along. The National
Intelligence Estimate on Iran certainly weakened or destroyed
the case for attacking Iran based on nuclear weapons. It was
very credible and I believe truthful. I read that it was made
public because intelligence officers were "lined up to go
to jail" rather than see it suppressed - that is, kept inside
the government. In other words, if it were not released to the
public they were prepared to put it out themselves and if necessary
face prosecution. That was the kind of thing I have been calling
for. They got it out and that was very helpful.
On the other hand, U.S. Central
Command commander Admiral William Fallon, who has been very candid
about his views on how we should not go to war against Iran,
was essentially fired, or was forced to resign. That's a bad
sign. It might indicate that they're on the verge of attacking
or it might not. (The best guess now seems to be that he was
fired because he disagreed with the policy in Iraq that his subordinate
General Petraeus and President Bush are about to announce, slowing
down withdrawals of the surge forces and keeping the pre-surge
levels of troops there at least through the fall. ) His interview
in Esquire
was challenging or provocative, I would have to say - it would
have been under any president. But in any case, even if he was
fired for speaking too frankly about policy or for wanting faster
reductions in Iraq, the fact is that they have removed one of
the main obstacles to an attack on Iran. It would now be easier
to get that through when Fallon was in place where he could provide
direct opposition to that from inside the government. So that's
a very bad sign.
And of course, the president
has gone out of his way to say he simply does not accept the
conclusions of the National Intelligence Estimate - he doesn't
agree with it. And Cheney has been saying that, essentially,
on his Middle East trip and perhaps lining up support for an
Iran attack. [Note, 3-31-08: Michael Hayden, head of the CIA,
has just joined this administration chorus of "personal"
disagreement with the NIE.] So what it adds up to is I think
the chance of an attack looks somewhat lower than it looked before
the NIE but still very significant - far above zero. And I'm
very concerned about it in the remaining months of the Bush administration.
So I think that it would be
very patriotic for someone to show the courage to put out documents
that would demonstrate the determination of the White House -
Bush and Cheney - to move ahead on an attack on Iran and alert
the world and alert us and Congress to the fact that they do
still envision an attack on Iran, which I suspect is still true.
Congress still has not held
investigative hearings on our policy with respect to Iran. If
they did hold hearings, they could call witnesses-starting with
Admiral Fallon-- who would be happy to testify under oath truthfully
and to give expert opinion on how costly that would be and what
the plans are. What we need is public pressure on Congress to
hold those hearings, but it hasn't happened yet.
TPH: How do you gauge the
current state of the nuclear threat that the Bush administration
poses to the world?
DE: They have been promoting
the idea of first-use of nuclear weapons in a variety of circumstances,
including now the mere possibility that a country will develop
nuclear weapons - not that they have the weapons but even to
prevent them from getting the knowledge - that refers to Iran
specifically.
Now, I think that the military
opposition to the idea of a nuclear attack on Iran by the Army
in particular has certainly reduced the likelihood of that since
it was first exposed by Seymour Hersh in 2006 in The New Yorker
and by Philip Giraldi in various places. There again, leaks to
Sy Hersh and others were crucial in raising that issue and keeping
the administration from doing that. Again, that's not zero probability.
If a war with Iran actually started I think the chance of escalation
over a brief period of time to nuclear attacks on their underground
sites is very serious, and it doesn't have to be very high to
be very serious. A 10 percent chance would be very serious -
even a 5 percent chance and I think it is that high.
In general, of course, the
Bush administration's refusal to adopt a policy of no-first-use
is an invitation to the rest of the world to imitate us and to
acquire nuclear weapons for those threat-uses for intimidation
that the U.S. relies on. So it precludes an effective program
against proliferation. U.S. policy - and here I have to say it
doesn't start with Bush but Bush has certainly amplified it -
the U.S. policy of threatening nuclear weapons doesn't just undermine,
it essentially destroys the possibility of an effective non-proliferation
policy. You can't stop proliferation while we're continuing to
threaten the rest of the world with using our weapons first.
TPH: One last thing. How
do you maintain your optimism and enthusiasm for your work?
DE: [laughs] Well, optimism
would be definitely too strong a word if that means that I think
that we'll surely avert these disasters. What I have is hope,
and I have enough hope to keep me going. But that doesn't require
a lot of hope because the stakes are so high. The importance
of averting nuclear war and the importance of regaining our democracy
are such transcendent stakes that even a small chance of reversing
these attacks on the Constitution and these threats of nuclear
war makes efforts much greater than mine worthwhile. They're
still at it, so I'm still at it.
Thomas P. Healy is a journalist in Indianapolis. He
can be reached at thomasphealy@sbcglobal.net
Daniel Ellsberg's Web site
is www.ellsberg.net
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