sillywalk 10 months ago

I can recommend his sort of autobiographical books, Secrets and The Doomsday Machine. The former covers his time driving around in Vietnam with John Paul Vahn and his leaking of the Pentagon Papers, the latter covering nuclear planning and command and control. He had a number of top secret nuclear documents that he was planning on leaking that he buried in a landfill but were lost during a storm.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 10 months ago

> At the same time, Horton believes that Ellsberg, like other whistleblowers, occasionally sees conspiracy and government perfidy when the evidence is scant. During the course of our hour- and-20-minute interview, Ellsberg contended America still runs a “covert empire” around the world, embodied in the U.S. domination of NATO. He believes Washington deliberately provoked Vladimir Putin into invading Ukraine by pushing its seat of power eastward toward Russia’s borders;

Ellsberg probably sees a lot of parallels between Ukraine and Vietnam: Domino theory that if the invasion isn’t stopped now, more countries will be invaded in the future and escalation starting with non-lethal aid, then lethal aid, then more advisors and trainers, and in Vietnam, actual American combatants.

  • sdfghswe 10 months ago

    One thing I've noticed is that people who are very anti-america often end up being very pro other anti-america people. Choamsky comes to mind. America bad, therefore Russia good.

    I'm not a fan of the CIA, to put it mildly, but the idea that the US "provoked" Russia into invading Ukraine is obvious Russian propaganda. Here's a heuristic for knowing if something is Russian propaganda: is it a story where Russia has no agency? Then it's Russian propaganda. You'll notice the amount of stories floating around where Russia is portrayed as "we had no choice, there was nothing else we could do". Notice that American propaganda is very different. The US illegally invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, but it never defended its position as "Isis is there, we have no choice but to invade", or "Sadam has WMD, we have no choice but to invade". No, the way that America writes its propaganda is very different. It says "we do have a choice, and we choose X because of freedom/national security interest/whatever". It's very telling that Russia is always "we had no choice". It's self-victimization propaganda, coming from a weak country.

    • ttonkytonk 10 months ago

      While I think your first sentence is true, I think this is a consequence of being human - i.e. it's hard to be an objective observer.

      Remember, all these countries were Warsaw Pact countries. And from my limited knowledge of the situation I recall that Russia's attempt to join NATO was basically responded with, "You have to wait your turn" as if they were just another country, not the country that the alliance was formed because of to begin with.

      It's kind of like the story of the prodigal son, only instead of a joyous welcome the father tells him to "wait his turn".

      It's also occurred to me that things like not allowing Russian athletes to fly their flag at the Olympics must be profoundly humiliating.

      I remember happening to see a speech a neo-con made where they called the idea of thinking of countries in terms of international citizens (and therefore the U.S. should behave like a good citizen) "crazy", but the question is, "how else should we act?" It's kind of like thinking of various universities in terms of their sports rivalries, instead of institutions of higher learning working for a common cause.

      In conclusion, the observation that critics think in terms of moral polarities applies equally to the criticized, and should be cold comfort.

  • dragonwriter 10 months ago

    > Ellsberg probably sees a lot of parallels between Ukraine and Vietnam:

    There are a lot of parallels.

    But the closest parallel to the US role in Vietnam in the 1950s-1970s is to the Russian role in Ukraine in the 2010s-2020s.

    Russia is the one citing Domino Theory to justify first backing local proxies and no conducting massivr direct combat operations against a regime they claim is not the ultimate enemy, but just a pawn in a superpower scheme that must be stopped.

  • quonn 10 months ago

    At the time of Vietnam there was some sort of competition of different systems, now it‘s just plain old far right tyranny vs. the democratic world.

    The Domino theory was more about the alternative perhaps proving itself viable so it was to be stopped in time. But Russia is not about to prove anything, instead Putin has stated over and over again that they want to bring the former Soviet countries under their rule.

    • timaios 10 months ago

      [flagged]

      • _kbh_ 10 months ago

        > Russia is fighting for its existence against vastly superior enemy.

        If Ukraine is a vastly superior enemy to Russia then my god what have they been doing with all of that money for the military?.

        And Russia is not fighting for its existence, if they withdrew from Ukraine no one would invade.

        > Russia wanted to avoid this war, even though not realizing fully how much superior the enemy was. Everyone who tells you otherwise fell victim to western propaganda, or is a propagandist himself.

        It’s quite clear they didn’t want to avoid this war cause the easiest way to do that would be to not goto war and withdraw from Ukraine.

        But they don’t they insist on staying and escalating there terrible war crimes into new uncharted territory.

        • timaios 10 months ago

          As I said, and as also your reply shows, you are closer to 1984 than Russia..

          • _kbh_ 10 months ago

            > As I said, and as also your reply shows, you are closer to 1984 than Russia..

            Nice work refuting all those points go scurry back into the shadows like the rest of the Russian propagandists when they get challenged.

      • dragonwriter 10 months ago

        > Russia is fighting for its existence against vastly superior enemy.

        No, the wars it has started since 2008 with, e.g., Georgia, Moldova, and and Ukraine are (1) not for the survival of Russia, and (2) not, in any case, against an enemy that was, in any material sense, vastly superior at the time Russia started each respective war.

        They might be for the survival of Putin’s regime, but that’s... not the same thing as Russia.

        > Russia wanted to avoid this war,

        Not bad enough not to start it without anything vaguely like an actual or imminent attack that it was responding to or defending against.

        • timaios 10 months ago

          You were repeatedly warned about not expanding NATO to the west, violating promises made to Gorbachev. And you never really ceased to speak of Russia as an "enemy" whereas the Russian government insisted until february 2022 to call you "our western partners".

          You are disingeneous and hypocrite, or ignorant.

          • dragonwriter 10 months ago

            > You were repeatedly warned about not expanding NATO to the west, violating promises made to Gorbachev.

            No such binding, heritable-by-a-successor-state commitment was ever made, as the Government of Russia, led by people who understand the basic mechanics and norms of international law even if they do not rigorously adhere to them, well knows.

            And even if it had been, it would have been repudiated by Russia efforts to join NATO early in Putin’s time as leader.

            > And you never really ceased to speak of Russia as an "enemy" whereas the Russian government insisted until february 2022 to call you "our western partners".

            The US and NATO called Russia a partner (not just in a general sense, but as a member with others of the NATO Partnership for Peace and with a special relationship through the NATO-Russia Council) up until Russia launched the present unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine in 2014, which was not even the first in the series of similar wars launched against its neighbors.