Vietnam had the Pentagon Papers- Afghanistan and Iraq have Wikileaks

As newspapers and the press are supposed to act as a check on the potential abuse of power by governments, the Wikileaks release of Pentagon documents earlier this year, followed by the release of state department memos, is proving how a free and independent press is the greatest protector of freedom and democracy. Trying to divert attention away from their own actions, and embarrassing lack of security on their own information, the trumped up charges against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is classic kill the messenger type of political defense.

Just as the government tried to do with the release of The Pentagon papers, a top secret 7,000-page study of US decision-making during the Vietnam war which revealed repeated lies and cover-ups by the government, the U.S. government is again threatening legal action to defend its illegal actions by threatening to arrest Julian Assange under the Espionage Act.

As the Daniel Ellsberg, the author of the Pentagon Papers, recently wrote in a Guardian Op-Ed,

“The administration responded by trying to suppress publication. It took out an injunction against myself and the New York Times in order to stop publication – a clear violation of the US constitution's first amendment – claiming that every page and every day's revelations were gravely damaging national security. We were eventually vindicated by the fact that no such damage was shown to have taken place.

As Ellsberg noted in reference to the release of Iraq War documents by Wikileaks earlier this year,

As with Vietnam, we have again seen evidence of a massive cover-up over a number of years by the American authorities. The logs reveal the human consequences of the continuing Iraq war, which have been concealed from the western public for too long: the countless instances of torture; the killing of hundreds of civilians at roadside checkpoints.

Now we know that the Pentagon, which claimed in the early years of the Iraq invasion either that it didn't count casualties or that it had no evidence of them, was indeed keeping meticulous records all along. It has reports of 66,000 civilian casualties – 15,000 of which were completely unknown to Iraq Body Count, the only public attempt to log the war's victims. That means 15,000 deaths that never made any news report – five times the number murdered on 9/11. It certainly would be news if they were American or British deaths. That's 15,000 families who've suffered huge anguish and who may potentially have been motivated to seek revenge against American or allied troops. For the Pentagon to lie or try to hide this kind of carnage can only be self-defeating.

Perhaps that the victims are "only" Iraqis shows the kind of mindset among the occupying commanders that kept this bloody war going for so long. Perhaps they failed to realize that the coalition's deadly activities have been such a powerful recruitment weapon for the resistance, both in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The political uproar in Washington over the release of the State Department memos, reveal how badly militarism has infected the American political system. It appears that the only time there is any kind of bipartisan support for anything in Washington DC in the post 9/11, perpetual war era is when the military is concerned. The silent cancer of militarism in America is clearly evident when both the top Democrat and Republican at the Senate Intelligence Committee called on Attorney General Eric Holder to prosecute Assange for espionage.

Before these corrupt and dishonest public servants point the finger at Mr. Assange,and demand he be held responsible, someone should remind these politicians to look at their own hand and see that the hand in which they are pointing a finger at Mr. Assange has three fingers pointing back at themselves.