Via WikiLeaks on Twitter, an excellent comment from “defendwikileaks” on Boing Boing’s article “Video: Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and Daniel Ellsberg at Personal Democracy Forum“:

How sad it is to see the climate in the United States today — the majority is still lock-step in line with the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about so many decades ago. I want to make the following points:

1) First and foremost, there needs to be more discussion about the potentially enormous ethics violations that seem to have been committed at Wired Magazine. Everyone knows Kevin Poulsen & Adrian Lamo are friends. It is obvious they worked their target, Bradley Manning, for days — in co-operation with the FBI and US Army CID. This hearkens back to COINTELPRO tactics. How likely is it that Lamo worked entirely on his own with no involvement from Poulsen, who only found out about it all after-the-fact, in time to “break the story” for Wired? There is no disclosure provided in the original article and it is written as if Poulsen wasn’t involved at all. Could it really be that, in pursuit of breaking a big story, Wired magazine staff helped set up a situation where the FBI/USACID got to use proxy interrogators, who misled a suspect into believing that he was only answering questions from someone he could trust, instead of federal/military law enforcement, without any Constitutional protections in place? This needs to be more critically examined.

2) Would Lamo have snitched out Daniel Ellsberg in 1970, hypothetically speaking? Based on the justifications he’s publicly offered to date, it seems so. This isn’t something to be admired. The US War Machine rolls on exactly because of mass media complicity, the lack of information about US militarism around the world and the witch-hunt persecution of everyone from the Dixie Chicks to Valerie Plame to Cindy Sheehan to the millions of Americans who protested this war BEFORE it began and were subjected to scrutiny, harassment and intimidation by law enforcement (an under-reported story). In the 70s, the persecution of Daniel Ellsberg only caused support for him to increase. Somehow, it seems like the same will not be true for Bradley Manning unless thoughtful & concerned citizens do something about it.

3) We don’t know for sure but Lamo claims that PFC Manning finally decided to be a whistleblower when he was ordered to process the arrest of Iraqi civilians who did nothing more than publish an academic paper about corruption in the Iraqi Provisional Government. He leaked the Collateral Murder video which was so shocking to so many because of how little the US public understands about the US war machine. And, he allegedly leaked diplomatic reports that demonstrate a pattern of lies and, we can only imagine what else. Possibly the details of US support for Middle East dictatorships, Israeli occupation and settlement expansion, etc. In other words, business as usual — just like the US supported dictatorships in Latin America, Southeast Asia, Iran and anywhere that corporate interests demanded market access at gunpoint. Leaking this information is the act of a hero. If only US support of Operation Condor in Latin America had been leaked in 1972 instead of years later.

4) Now, instead of publishing important leaks and building on the momentum from the Collateral Murder release, key Wikileaks volunteer Julian Assange is on the run from the retaliatory actions of the US State Department, who have a menu of options made possible by years of “extraordinary rendition” kidnappings. Would we even KNOW if US operatives have gotten hold of Assange? Are we supposed to be proud of this global gestapo that was put in place by the Bush Administration and continued by the Obama presidency? Is Lamo proud to have made it all possible?

5) I must reiterate what others have said here: the assertion that “innocent lives are risked” by the release of what was leaked so far is a falsehood. And, the only reason to even think that PFC Manning was “risking lives” is the unconfirmed innuendo made public by Adrian Lamo, who has every reason in the world to justify the breach of trust he committed by willfully initiating a clandestine interrogation of PFC Manning. Certainly, the Collateral Murder video doesn’t put any lives at risk. The analysis by Ellsberg on this is probably the most accurate: these alleged leaks would greatly embarrass the US Government by forcing the media to report on even further evidence that supports allegations made by opponents of US foreign policy. That doesn’t RISK lives — it does the exact opposite.

Daniel Ellsberg is a hero. PFC Manning came to a realization about US foreign policy; it’s well-documented that thousands of enlisted soldiers have had the same realization after being on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. The difference is that PFC Manning was willing & able to actually DO something about it, beyond participating in a Winter Soldier event or going to protests. To that extent, PFC Manning is also a hero.

Wired Magazine, Kevin Poulsen and Adrian Lamo should be viewed with skepticism, as they are potentially the proud participants in one of the most scandalous breaches of journalist ethics in recent history. Adrian Lamo is now engaged in a public campaign to discredit PFC Manning as a “dangerous spy” and Poulsen continues to report on the story for Wired.

This is an extremely important case and I urge all citizens to do what they can to support PFC Manning and any other soldier who disobeys orders/regulations to expose war crimes and/or the truth about US foreign policy.

“I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism [...] Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. [...] I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. [...] Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

- Major General Smedley Butler, US Marine Corps, 1933