Watch CN Live! with Katherine Gun, Daniel Ellsberg, Scott Ritter, Ray McGovern and John Wight on whistleblowing, the Iraq War, impeachment and the British political crisis.
Katharine Gun, the GCHQ whistleblower who tried to stop the invasion of Iraq and whose story is now the subject of a major motion picture, “Official Secrets,” joined legendary whistleblower Dan Ellsberg for an in-depth discussion about what it means to blow the whistle to try to stop bloodshed.
Scott Ritter, a former UN chief weapons inspector looking for WMD in Iraq before the 2003 invasion, who also opposed the war, provided his eye-opening insights into that period, as well as his thoughts on the CIA “whistleblower,” questioning whether he had contacts with Obama CIA Director John Brennan.
Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst who used to enter the White House to brief the president, also spoke about the CIA “whistleblower,” revealing that McGovern turned down the very same job in the White House because of a political conflict of interest, which apparently did not bother this “whistleblower.”
We also got an incisive update on the political crisis rocking Great Britain from Scottish journalist John Wight. All on CN Live! with your hosts Elizabeth Vos and Joe Lauria. You can watch the replay here:
I’ll never forgot, as long as I live, how “Tom-Tom” Broke-paw beat those drums of war on national TV, minutes after planes slashed into twin towers: THIS IS AN ACT OF WAR, declared Pom-Pom Tom, even before the Cheerleader-in Chief muttered a mumblin’ word.
Talk about secret agents in the WH making policy, those self-appointed media cock-a-doodlers ain’t so shabby themselves, are they? Plus, ‘scuse the obvious, they’re plugged directly, in real time, into the public info/message flow, fabricated as the Neverending Now.
I mean, forgive my naivete, if you will, for wondering, if, as the new (fake) WH whistleblower said, he was motivated because the conversation he *overheard* was of such dire threat to national security, that it just had to be reported and outed, what, two months later? And he, what, took notes of one side of a conversation? In the oval, while the pres was talking on the phone? Or maybe he was talking in the head with the spook in the next stall? Or did the agent read a *transcript*? From, what, an NSA recording? With or without FISA warrant? (ha ha) Said presidential conversation revealed after being massaged, ‘scuse me, edited, by how many hands? The eavesdropping agent’s? His *sources’*? The recording agency’s? Transcribing agency’s? President’s? Medias’? The bathroom attendant’s? Getting a strong whiff of bogusity here.
And that’s just it, as Ms. Gun makes clear, bless her bravery, there are very few champions anymore in the media, in the agencies, even among the so-called reps of the people, any/all of whom can be drowned-out by mass media/techno drumbeats.
Even when it did slip out, years ago, through that memo from the highest levels of Ms. Gun’s own gub-mint, that bush’n blair’n co. were *fixing* the facts around the policy to invade Iraq (helped by members of Ray’s former agency, fingers stained cake-yellow, as I recall) no one with Authority, in Power, in Peerage was able to slow or stop the juggernaut for war?
For which, imo, we continue to witness ferocious blowback, with Ukraine as, what, PNAC *unintended consequence* #6382? Sorry, nothing about this continuing Bu-Chene Shitstorm seems unintended to me any longer. And none of the major actors deserve the benefit of doubt. Six ways from Sunday, my ass. It’s been a round-robin stroke-a-thon.
No More War
From what I have read, Nixon was relaxed about Ellsberg’s leaking of the ‘Pentagon Papers’ as it mainly covered the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. It was, apparently, Henry Kissinger who persuaded him to go after Ellsberg.
I recently bought a copy of Daniel Ellsberg’s book “The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner”.
It is important to remember that the nuclear danger has not gone away by any means.
This was a very interesting discussion, although I can rarely spend two hours weekly to view even half of such a program.
Regarding the defense of future whistleblowers, Mr. Ellsberg’s makes the point that they should reveal facts under oath if possible, arranging some prosecution to which their information is necessary. I suspect that the information would be kept from mass media.
The defense should argue the distinction between secret programs that must be secret to protect essential and indisputable national interests (such as defense in wartime), and secret programs that conceal policies never approved by the people. The latter are illegal wars by oligarchy, and their supporters are the criminals.
Important to understand that the US Constitution does not permit foreign wars, only repelling invasions. Only a treaty extends that, and NATO was never intended for aggression, so that is illegal. The people of the US never authorized foreign aggression.
The presidents, secret agents, politicians, and media who promoted foreign wars, especially secret aggressive operations secret wars, whether military or economic, should be sued for racketeering, along with every judge of our completely corrupt judiciary who opposes that.
A very fine program to sink your teeth into Friday, Ms. Vos and Joe. A great deal of empathy for Scott Ritter, who I have paid attention to since the very early 1990s. Just goes to show again how truth tellers give up so much for their country.
I’m surprised at the knee-jerk TrumpHate from such a well-informed crew. One of the reasons why there was no one to support Trump’s desire to pull out of Syria. He may be an A-hole but I’m pretty sure that other than Tulsi he’s the only prez candidate with the guts not to bomb Iran when they shot down our drone. Maybe Bernie. Maybe. Those cages were built by Obama, the Deporter-in-Chief. And more people were heading north with children because of all the noises being made by my ole lesser-evil Dems. Trump disgusted me with his little Saudi globe dance until he finally got a Yemeni port open to food and medicine. And now it looks like the Saudis have been pressured to negotiate. Are you implying that Trump is worse than Obama and his eight wars? You didn’t mention Israel and giving away the Golan Heights. That sounds more impeachable to me. The media and Dems seemed fine with that. I didn’t vote for Trump nor have I voted for a Republican since my first vote in 1972 but my country is bombing fewer innocent civilians that at any other time in my adult life (except Carter and they crushed him) and that counts for a lot with me.
Amen, Paula.
In addition, the great Daniel Ellsberg is apparently unaware of that which Ray makes clear: the media is not our friend anymore. The major outlets are now quite bought and paid for by the intel community and have been ever since Daniel Ellsberg interrupted their war in Vietnam. CIA learned their lesson way back then.
I click the video on and Mr. Ellsberg is speaking the truth in his particularly clear way. I feel like I am sane again.