The Afghanistan Papers v. The Pentagon Papers: How A Whistleblower Worked Much Better Than Endless FOIA Litigation

from the people-are-dying dept

On Monday morning, the Washington Post released The Afghanistan Papers, an incredible (though, tragically, not surprising) collection of unpublished notes and interview transcripts revealing that the past three administrations -- Trump, Obama, and Bush -- all lied consistently and repeatedly about how bad things were going in Afghanistan, pretending that various actions were succeeding, while the reality was they knew it was an unwinnable war.

“We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan — we didn’t know what we were doing,” Douglas Lute, a three-star Army general who served as the White House’s Afghan war czar during the Bush and Obama administrations, told government interviewers in 2015. He added: “What are we trying to do here? We didn’t have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking.”

“If the American people knew the magnitude of this dysfunction . . . 2,400 lives lost,” Lute added, blaming the deaths of U.S. military personnel on bureaucratic breakdowns among Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department. “Who will say this was in vain?”

And, as part of that, there was the concerted effort to hide this reality from the American public:

Several of those interviewed described explicit and sustained efforts by the U.S. government to deliberately mislead the public. They said it was common at military headquarters in Kabul — and at the White House — to distort statistics to make it appear the United States was winning the war when that was not the case.

“Every data point was altered to present the best picture possible,” Bob Crowley, an Army colonel who served as a senior counterinsurgency adviser to U.S. military commanders in 2013 and 2014, told government interviewers. “Surveys, for instance, were totally unreliable but reinforced that everything we were doing was right and we became a self-licking ice cream cone.”

John Sopko, the head of the federal agency that conducted the interviews, acknowledged to The Post that the documents show “the American people have constantly been lied to.”

For fairly obvious reasons, this release is being compared to the Pentagon Papers, a similar trove of documents that revealed how officials knew the Vietnam war was a lost cause and deliberately misled the American public about it for years.

There is one stark contrast between the two, however: how they came out. The Pentagon Papers came out because whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg leaked them to the press (for which President Nixon then tried to destroy his life in a bunch of different ways). The Afghanistan Papers, on the other hand, are coming out because of a years long FOIA battle by the Washington Post to get these documents released, against the wishes of the US government (who still was able to black out a bunch of information):

For all the talk about how whistleblowers and leakers should "use the proper channels," every time we see the "proper channels" in action, they seem to only open up opportunities for the government to delay, hide things, and continue whatever destructive (but embarrassing) policy they have in place. There is a place for whistleblowers to call out this kind of misconduct, and as Ellsberg himself has been saying for years, the growing attacks (by each administration) against whistleblowers and leakers has much more to do with government embarrassment, rather than any legitimate attempt to "protect national security."

Filed Under: afghanistan papers, daniel ellsberg, dod, doj, foia, forever war, leaks, pentagon papers, transparency, whistleblowing

NY Times Published The Pentagon Papers, But Can't Be Bothered To Send Reporter To Bradley Manning Trial

from the not-a-big-enough-story? dept

The NY Times, of course, was the newspaper central to the case of the Pentagon Papers. That involved a huge dump of information concerning a Pentagon study highlighting how the Johnson Administration had lied to the public and Congress concerning Vietnam. The papers were leaked to the NYT by Daniel Ellsberg. The Times proceeded to release excerpts of it along with some reporting, and eventually the entire set of documents was released publicly. Ellsberg was charged under the Espionage Act -- though eventually all the charges against him were dismissed, in part due to "gross governmental misconduct." The NYTimes was hit with an injunction against publication, and a legal fight ensued, which the NY Times eventually won. There are, of course, significant similarities with Wikileaks. Again, we're talking about a large amount of classified government documents, highlighting lies to the public by the administration, and which were leaked to Wikileaks by Bradley Manning. The documents were, at first, released in excerpts along with some reporting, and eventually the entire set of documents was released publicly. Manning has been arrested and is awaiting trial.

There have been some ongoing hearings, many of which we've covered, but some folks have noticed an oddity. The New York Times did not send a reporter. It merely ran a single AP wire story. Thankfully, the NY Times' own public editor is scolding the paper for its failure here, noting that no matter what you think of Manning or the whole Wikileaks issue:

The testimony is dramatic and the overarching issues are important.

The Times should be there.

The excuse from NYT Washington bureau chief David Leonhardt seems especially weak. Basically, saying there just isn't that much to the story:

We’ve covered him and will continue to do so. But as with any other legal case, we won’t cover every single proceeding. In this case, doing so would have involved multiple days of a reporter’s time, for a relatively straightforward story.

Apparently, when it's someone else, rather than the NY Times itself... it's just a "relatively straightforward story" not worth a reporter's time.

Filed Under: bradley manning, daniel ellsberg, journalism, pentagon papers, wikileaks
Companies: ny times

If You're Going To Leak Classified Info About The White House, It Better Make Them Look Good

from the vindictive-administration dept

We've noted the unfortunate trend of the Obama administration vindictively going after any whistleblowers (despite one of Obama's first moves in office being to encourage whistleblowing). To date, the Obama administration has been involved in six prosecutions of whistleblowers using the Espionage Act... twice as many such uses of all other Presidents combined. But, here's the thing. We just wrote about the NYTimes reporting that the US was behind Stuxnet, and that President Obama himself was deeply engaged in the project.

As people have noted, that level of "leak" seems to go way beyond what many of those charged under the Espionage Act did (including other leaks to the NY Times). And yet, as Gawker discovered, unlike with some of those other stories, the White House did not try to prevent the publication of this info, and almost certainly gave its tacit approval to the publication.

So, what's the difference? Well, the prosecutions against whistleblowers, and the attempts to stifle the reports based on them, all seem to focus on cases where the White House looks bad -- domestic spying, torture, etc. The Stuxnet story was a success story. Even though the malware eventually leaked out into the world and was exposed, the "damage" was already done. This leak actually lets the White House claim credit and look good.

A year and a half ago, we wrote about Daniel Ellsberg (the guy who leaked The Pentagon Papers to the NY Times a few decades back) talking about his personal theory as to why Obama was so vindictive against leaks, despite an outward persona (and specific statements) that totally contradicted the position. His belief was that Obama was so vindictive about whistleblowing, because all of those whistleblowing cases revealed things that were embarrassing to the President. The fact that the White House doesn't seem to have a problem with this particular leak of classified info -- one that more or less makes them look good -- certainly adds significant weight to that theory.

Filed Under: daniel ellsberg, espionage act, obama, pentagon papers, whistleblower, white house

If Wikileaks Is About Cyberwar, Was The Pentagon Papers About A Wood Pulp War? [Updated]

from the overhyping dept

The guy behind the Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg, recently tweeted a link to my blog post about how some believed the US government was trying to make the case that Wikileaks was a part of a "cyberwar" because it helped further the agenda of certain government officials and defense contractors to use FUD about "cyberwar" to give the government more technological snooping powers and make those contractors tons of money supplying the tools. Of course, this is ridiculous. Wikileaks is no "cyberwar."

But Ellsberg's quote on the matter sums it up so eloquently, that we thought it was worthwhile to repeat here:

If @wikileaks is a "cyberwar," then what were the Pentagon Papers, a wood pulp war?

Indeed. Wikileaks is no more a cyberwar issue than the Pentagon Papers was a wood pulp war. The infatuation with adding "cyber" to the front of things just to pretend it's somehow "different" is really misleading.

Update: As was pointed out in the comments, I am a moron with this particular story. Ellsberg was apparently quoting my own original statement asking if the Pentagon Papers were a wood pulp war. I honestly did not remember writing those words (as you my know, I write an awful lot...). But it explains why the words resonated. Though, of course, now that makes me look egotistical. Point taken: this post shows I'm an egotistical moron. I still like the quote though.

Filed Under: cyberwar, daniel ellsberg, pentagon papers

Why Does The Myth Persist That Wikileaks Is Indiscriminately Leaking Thousands Of Documents?

from the check-your-facts dept

A few weeks ago, we called out the fact that many in the press continued to falsely report that Wikileaks had indiscriminately released all 250,000+ State Department cables that it had in its possession. In fact, this was the key claim that many have used to condemn Wikileaks and to suggest that it's neither a journalistic entity nor a whistleblowing entity. The problem is, this is false. To date, Wikileaks has only dribbled out approximately 2,000 of the cables and nearly every one has been in conjunction with various mainstream publications and do include redactions of sensitive info.

NPR just got around to correcting the error, even though many of its "hosts, reporters and guests have incorrectly said or implied that WikiLeaks recently has disclosed or released roughly 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables."

And yet the myth persists. It's quite amazing, for example, that the Wall Street Journal allowed famed First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams to publish this attack on Wikileaks as being "different" than Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers (a case for which Abrams represented the NY Times). The crux of the "differences" that Abrams highlights is the fact that Ellsberg withheld four out of 47 volumes of the Pentagon Papers, to be published at a later date, and then says:

Can anyone doubt that he would have made those four volumes public on WikiLeaks regardless of their sensitivity? Or that he would have paid not even the slightest heed to the possibility that they might seriously compromise efforts to bring a speedier end to the war?

As Jack Shafer deftly points out over at Slate, why, yes, it's quite easy to doubt that assertion of Abrams, since Wikileaks has so far withheld much more than Ellsberg did. As Shafer notes:

Perhaps because Abrams listens to too much NPR or doesn't read the New York Times very closely, he's under the misconception that WikiLeaks has published all 251,287 U.S. diplomatic cables it claims to possess. It hasn't, as NPR noted in a correction yesterday. WikiLeaks has released just 1,942 cables, which makes Assange's ratio of released-documents to withheld-documents much, much smaller than Ellsberg's. By that measure, Abrams should regard Assange as a more conscientious leaker than Ellsberg, not less conscientious.

Abrams' other reasons for slamming Wikileaks seem self-contradictory. He complains about the "harm" that these leaks will do, while at the same time insisting many of the documents shouldn't be released because they show no wrongdoing. Again, Shafer debunks this thoroughly:

Does he mean to imply that publishing state secrets can be defended only if they catch the government murdering, stealing, kidnapping innocents, fouling pristine rivers, or betraying allies? It may startle Abrams to learn that the diplomatic process has always been treated as news. Any of the cables now in the news would have made a splash had they been leaked in the conventional, non-WikiLeaks fashion.

There are plenty of legitimate reasons to dislike Wikileaks. The organization clearly has some serious issues and there are lots of reasonable questions concerning Julian Assange's leadership and focus. But it's really quite amazing how frequently the major media sources out there are attacking Wikileaks based on flat out false statements.

Filed Under: fact checking, floyd abrams, pentagon papers, whistleblowing, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks