9-24-06 (3:47amEST)

 In the October 2006 edition of Harper’s Magazine, the masthead reads, "Daniel Ellsberg: Leak the Iran Plans." The monthly has always advocated the leftist perspective of world affairs; however, NEVER has the magazine, until this month, sponsored the outright foment of sedition of the United States’ Presidency in a time of war.

Foment: tr.v. -mented, -menting, -ments. To promote the growth of; instigate.

Sedition: n. 1. Conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of state. 2. Insurrection; rebellion.

                -The American Heritage Dictionary: Second College Edition

Daniel Ellsberg, the source of the "Pentagon Papers", in a section titled Notebook, has released an article entitled "The Next War". In the (roughly 3,000 word) article, Ellsberg directly challenges members of the President’s Staff and Cabinets to commit Treason. Daniel Ellsberg, who was never convicted on twelve counts of federal felony upon which he was indicted, due to the Watergate Scandal, which ended in the Nixon impeachment over warrantless phone tapping and eventual creation and implementation of the FISA Accords in 1978, allows his modern readers a window into his previous activities and scathing conclusions.

He compares our current Administration's foreign policy situation with that of the 1964 run-up to Vietnam and the 2002 run-up to the Iraqi Liberation; and, in the second paragraph of the piece, states, "In both cases, if one or more conscientious insiders had closed the information gap with unauthorized disclosures to the public, a disastrous war might have been averted entirely."

From this point, the article continues in lament and tragedy. Ellsberg notes, parenthetically, that he "by coincidence" assumed the role of special assistant to the assistant secretary of defense on the day of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which U.S. destroyers were attacked by torpedo boats of North Korea, "an alleged attack which had not, in fact, occurred at all." For some reason (?) he does not mention that the assistant secretary of defense was Morton Halpernin. In addition to the possible truth of his overwhelming assertion that the event was fictitious, which he posits as a complete fabrication of the Johnson Administration - the question begged is, why would Ellsberg, in this candid confession, not mention by name the man whose phones were tapped by Kissinger and Nixon, which led to the Watergate Affair ushered in by an ACLU driven campaign of Aryeh Neier, whose ten day New York Times spreads brought the scandal of illegal wire-tapping to National awareness?

Tragically, Ellsberg considers the possibility that if he had given all of his confidentially bound "drawerfuls of working papers, memos, estimates and detailed escalation options, revealing the evolving plans of the Johnson Administration for a wider war to come soon after the election," to Senator Morse the moment the truth of Johnson’s intentions were in question, he may have averted the "deaths of 50,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese, with more to come."

Throughout his lamentation, Ellsberg appeals to the ethical dilemma of the current White House insiders, who sign secrecy agreements and at the same time take an Oath to uphold the Constitution… and attempts to shed light on the puzzling situation one arrives at when or if known lies are fed to the public by the Administration, while the insiders, through loyalty, are possibly denying the Constitution’s supremacy over the signed confidentiality agreements. To that effect, he states that it took him seven years "to recognize that the secrecy agreements we had signed frequently conflicted with our Oath to uphold the Constitution."

Ellsberg, then, artfully relates this contention by singling out Richard Clarke, the Chief of Counter-terrorism in the George W. Bush Administration during the eighteen months leading up to the Iraqi conflict. It is important to note that he fails to acknowledge that our valiant military men and the Administration’s plans liberated the Afghani people and paved the way for democracy to take hold, by defeating and driving the Taliban from power. Instead, Ellsberg focuses on Clarke’s memoir Against All Enemies’ "correct prediction" that "…attacking Iraq would actually make America less secure and strengthen the broader Islamic terrorist movement."

In addition to this conjecture, Ellsberg posits that instead of releasing a cleared Memoir eighteen months after the conflict of liberation began, "[Clarke] could have made his knowledge of the war to come, and its danger to our security, public before the war. He could have supported his testimony with hundreds of files of documents from his office safe and computer, to which he still had access."

Ellsberg acknowledges the ramifications of lost job, lost clearance, and imprisonment as probable if Clarke had pursued the un-cleared path; but, he emphatically attests that the action would have allowed for an open debate over whether the war in Iraq "…would make the United States safer, and whether it was otherwise justified, since it may have prevented the war."

Citing little known reports by Seymour Hersh and others, who apparently interviewed many insiders, CIA officials, and State Department members, Ellsberg pushes forward the notion that the resignation of many top officials was seriously considered by many in President George W. Bush’s current Administration over the Commander in Chief’s dutiful preparation for a possible confrontation with Iran as Ahmadinejad made threats and ignored the pleas of the United Nation’s members on the Nuclear (Non-?) Proliferation question.

After forwarding that President Bush and Vice President Cheney had secretly plotted "to bring about regime change in Iran by air attack,"…"a country that, unless attacked, poses no threat to the United States," Ellsberg goes on to state that whether an air strike or a nuclear assault were to occur as the Hersh reports suggest, the ominous parallel of Philip Giribaldi’s article released a year ago in The Conservative American regards the possibility "as almost sure to be catastrophic for the Middle East, the position of the United States in the world, our troops in Iraq, the world economy, and U.S. domestic security."

Nothing is mentioned in the article of the threats of Ahmadinejad or the fact that the Iranian Dictator has defiantly rejected the unanimous U.N. Security Council Resolution, demanding that Iran abandon their nuclear ambitions under penalty of sanctions. Nothing is mentioned in the article of the fact that as Commander in Chief, George W. Bush, when faced with a valid threat is duty bound to consider all viable solutions to conflicts, including the military option, to guarantee the safety and security of the citizenry of the United States of America. Instead, Ellsberg notes the fragmentary nature of the current leaks as insufficient. This insufficiency is a direct reference to the recent New York Times terrorist finance tracking betrayal of the Nation’s security.

Piously, Ellsberg urges those men and women, who are considering resignation not to do so in silence, saying, "I believe it is time for one or more of them to go beyond fragmentary leaks…. That means…going beyond executive outside channels, as officials with contemporary access, to expose the President’s lies and oppose his war policy publicly before the war with unequivocal evidence from inside…accepting sacrifice of clearance and career, and risk of prison."

Ellsberg then, patriotically, appeals to these insiders’ conscience, on behalf of the 130,000 American soldiers in Iraq, to act Treasonously, as an act of moral courage.

GET A ROPE!

This article of Daniel Ellsberg is the very definition of Fomented Sedition. It is written in black and white for all to see. It is not veiled in gray - it is plain to see.

Respectfully, Daniel Ellsberg, you are guilty of Fomented Sedition and must stand trial for your WAR CRIME.

In times of War, emotion often leads men and women to commit acts which are ethically questionable. However, to instigate members of our own President’s internal Staff and Cabinets to commit Treason in an age such as this, when Evil such as Ahmadinejad, Nasrallah, Al Assad, Kim Jong Il, Castro, Chavez, and Morales is bonding together in a spidering network of FASCISM, while calling our President "The Devil" in the New York halls of the United Nations, is an unforgivable, high, War Crime.

The proper executive channels exist to safeguard the American People, and to guarantee that Dissent has its time and place on the public pulpit; however, the ramification of a Presidency which cannot trust its confidantes is the immediate achievement of the very autocracy, which Ellsberg is supposedly trying to prevent through his Fomented Sedition!

To call into question the truth and the just nature of George W. Bush’s resolve to protect and safeguard the American Citizenry and its liberating Armies, after his forward progress has allowed the liberation and free elections of so many once under the thumb of dictators and terrorists is a Foment of Sedition.

It is an undeniable fact.

Constitutionally, in both times of War and Peace, the Office and Exercise of Duties of the Presidency of the United States must be respected in full, to guarantee the Unity and Security of this greatest of all nations; and this respect is especially necessary -- in dissent.

Strangely, in the end, Daniel Ellsberg’s call for Sedition brings into light - and under scrutiny - not the validity of President George W. Bush’s aims and policies; rather, this seditious light begs the question: Were the wiretaps, which Nixon placed on Morton Halpernin’s phone line - after all - WARRANTLESS?

--signing off 9-24-06 (5:31amEST)

-Mac Zed, the Elemental Chronicler