Ellsberg et Wikileaks (suite)

Ellsberg et Wikileaks (suite)

Pour le micro de Democracy Now !, Daniel Ellsberg semble ne pas dissimuler son enthousiasme pour les auteurs des fuites sur l’Afghanistan par Wikileaks. Dans War In Context, le même 26 juillet 2010, Paul Woodward donne des citations au ton différent, citant Ellsberg cité lui-même par le Financial Times et le Wall Street Journal. (Un très court article du Guardian, le 27 juillet 2010, semble concilier les deux approches.)

Il semble surtout qu’en comparant les deux affaires, on compare au fond deux faits incomparables. La réserve de Ellsberg, telle que Woodward la met en évidence, concerne ceci qu’il manque toujours une fuite fondamentale, comme l’étaient les Pentagon Papers parce qu’ils expliquaient pourquoi (dans quel but réel) l’on était en guerre au Vietnam. Ce que voudrait Ellsberg, ce sont des documents donnant la même explication pour l’Afghanistan. Le problème est peut-être que ces documents n’existent pas parce que nul ne sait vraiment pourquoi (dans quel but réel) l’on est en guerre en Afghanistan.

Extraits de War in Context :

«Comparisons are being made between the war logs and the release of the Pentagon Papers which were leaked to the New York Times by Daniel Ellsberg in 1971, yet the content of the documents and the contexts in which they appeared are vastly different. The Pentagon Papers revealed a massive level of deception through which US governments had led, by that point, 54,000 Americans to their deaths in Vietnam.

» “These documents are not the Pentagon Papers — we still await their equivalent for Afghanistan,” Ellsberg told the Financial Times. “But they do add to the strong doubts that most of us have about a war that has cost us more than $300bn so far in which the Taliban only appears to get stronger with each passing year. They reinforce the question: What is the point of this war?”

»Ellsberg told the Wall Street Journal he had mixed feelings about the release of so many documents:

»“To put out such a large amount of material is of some risk if you haven’t read it all,” said Ellsberg, reached in Mexico where he was attending a screening of “The Most Dangerous Man in America,” a documentary about his Pentagon Papers ordeal...»

Toujours sur cette même affaire, et témoignant à la fois de la vigueur du choc et des très grandes nuances, voire différences des réactions, on peut également mentionner ce jugement de Steve Clemons, de The Washington Note, le 26 juillet 2010. Là encore, Daniel Ellsberg est cité en référence.

«The extraordinary WikiLeaks dump of some 91,000 classified reports into the public sphere on America's war in Afghanistan may be the game-changer in American support for a war that continues to worsen.

»This is the “Pentagon Papers moment” in this contemporary war, and it will force President Obama and his team to go back and review first principles about the objectives of this war. […]

»The question is whether President Obama has the backbone and temerity to reframe this engagement and stop the hemorrhaging of American lives and those of allies as well as the gross expenditure of funds for a war that shows a diminished America that is killing hundreds of innocent people and lying about it, of an enemy that is animated and funded in part by our supposed allies in Pakistan, and US tolerance for a staggering level of abuse, incompetence and corruption in our Afghan allies in the Karzai government. […]

»Daniel Ellsberg once told me (see TWN entry for September 28, 2004) that he hoped that a bureaucrat or soldier or spy would eventually take out of his or her safe the several feet thick pile of classified files on America's 'war on terror' and put them out to the public. He said that this person – whoever it might be – would need enormous public support as the downside risks to one's career and life were staggering given the State's desire to squelch the nastier truths of war reaching the public.

»Ellsberg's hope has now become a reality – and when we eventually learn of the hero and/or heroes who brought this material to the public – he or they will need society's thanks and support as the State will work to crush those that made this happen.»

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