[wvns] Daniel Ellsberg: A Coup Has Occurred
'A Coup Has Occurred'
By Daniel Ellsberg
Text of a speech delivered September 20, 2007
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/092607a.html
Editor's Note: Daniel Ellsberg, the former Defense
Department analyst who leaked the secret Pentagon
Papers history of the Vietnam War, offered insights
into the looming war with Iran and the loss of liberty
in the United States at an American University
symposium on Sept. 20.
Below is an edited transcript of Ellsberg's remarkable speech:
I think nothing has higher priority than averting an
attack on Iran, which I think will be accompanied by a
further change in our way of governing here that in
effect will convert us into what I would call a police
state.
If there's another 9/11 under this regime … it means
that they switch on full extent all the apparatus of a
police state that has been patiently constructed,
largely secretly at first but eventually leaked out
and known and accepted by the Democratic people in
Congress, by the Republicans and so forth.
Will there be anything left for NSA to increase its
surveillance of us? … They may be to the limit of
their technical capability now, or they may not. But
if they're not now they will be after another 9/11.
And I would say after the Iranian retaliation to an
American attack on Iran, you will then see an
increased attack on Iran – an escalation – which will
be also accompanied by a total suppression of dissent
in this country, including detention camps.
It's a little hard for me to distinguish the two
contingencies; they could come together. Another 9/11
or an Iranian attack in which Iran's reaction against
Israel, against our shipping, against our troops in
Iraq above all, possibly in this country, will justify
the full panoply of measures that have been prepared
now, legitimized, and to some extent written into law.
…
This is an unusual gang, even for Republicans. [But] I
think that the successors to this regime are not
likely to roll back the assault on the Constitution.
They will take advantage of it, they will exploit it.
Will Hillary Clinton as president decide to turn off
NSA after the last five years of illegal surveillance?
Will she deprive her administration her ability to
protect United States citizens from possible terrorism
by blinding herself and deafening herself to all that
NSA can provide? I don't think so.
Unless this somehow, by a change in our political
climate, of a radical change, unless this gets rolled
back in the next year or two before a new
administration comes in – and there's no move to do
this at this point – unless that happens I don't see
it happening under the next administration, whether
Republican or Democratic.
The Next Coup
Let me simplify this and not just to be rhetorical: A
coup has occurred. I woke up the other day realizing,
coming out of sleep, that a coup has occurred. It's
not just a question that a coup lies ahead with the
next 9/11. That's the next coup, that completes the
first.
The last five years have seen a steady assault on
every fundamental of our Constitution, … what the rest
of the world looked at for the last 200 years as a
model and experiment to the rest of the world – in
checks and balances, limited government, Bill of
Rights, individual rights protected from majority
infringement by the Congress, an independent
judiciary, the possibility of impeachment.
There have been violations of these principles by many
presidents before. Most of the specific things that
Bush has done in the way of illegal surveillance and
other matters were done under my boss Lyndon Johnson
in the Vietnam War: the use of CIA, FBI, NSA against
Americans.
I could go through a list going back before this
century to Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus in
the Civil War, and before that the Alien and Sedition
Acts in the 18th century. I think that none of those
presidents were in fact what I would call quite
precisely the current administration: domestic enemies
of the Constitution.
I think that none of these presidents with all their
violations, which were impeachable had they been found
out at the time and in nearly every case their
violations were not found out until they were out of
office so we didn't have the exact challenge that we
have today.
That was true with the first term of Nixon and
certainly of Johnson, Kennedy and others. They were
impeachable, they weren't found out in time, but I
think it was not their intention to in the crisis
situations that they felt justified their actions, to
change our form of government.
It is increasingly clear with each new book and each
new leak that comes out, that Richard Cheney and his
now chief of staff David Addington have had precisely
that in mind since at least the early 70s. Not just
since 1992, not since 2001, but have believed in
Executive government, single-branch government under
an Executive president – elected or not – with
unrestrained powers. They did not believe in
restraint.
When I say this I'm not saying they are traitors. I
don't think they have in mind allegiance to some
foreign power or have a desire to help a foreign
power. I believe they have in their own minds a love
of this country and what they think is best for this
country – but what they think is best is directly and
consciously at odds with what the Founders of this
country and Constitution thought.
They believe we need a different kind of government
now, an Executive government essentially, rule by
decree, which is what we're getting with signing
statements. Signing statements are talked about as
line-item vetoes which is one [way] of describing them
which are unconstitutional in themselves, but in other
ways are just saying the president says "I decide what
I enforce. I decide what the law is. I legislate."
It's [the same] with the military commissions, courts
that are under the entire control of the Executive
Branch, essentially of the president. A concentration
of legislative, judicial, and executive powers in one
branch, which is precisely what the Founders meant to
avert, and tried to avert and did avert to the best of
their ability in the Constitution.
Founders Had It Right
Now I'm appealing to that as a crisis right now not
just because it is a break in tradition but because I
believe in my heart and from my experience that on
this point the Founders had it right.
It's not just "our way of doing things" – it was a
crucial perception on the corruption of power to
anybody including Americans. On procedures and
institutions that might possibly keep that power under
control because the alternative was what we have just
seen, wars like Vietnam, wars like Iraq, wars like the
one coming.
That brings me to the second point. This Executive
Branch, under specifically Bush and Cheney, despite
opposition from most of the rest of the branch, even
of the cabinet, clearly intends a war against Iran
which even by imperialist standards, standards in
other words which were accepted not only by nearly
everyone in the Executive Branch but most of the
leaders in Congress. The interests of the empire, the
need for hegemony, our right to control and our need
to control the oil of the Middle East and many other
places. That is consensual in our establishment. …
But even by those standards, an attack on Iran is
insane. And I say that quietly, I don't mean it to be
heard as rhetoric. Of course it's not only aggression
and a violation of international law, a supreme
international crime, but it is by imperial standards,
insane in terms of the consequences.
Does that make it impossible? No, it obviously
doesn't, it doesn't even make it unlikely.
That is because two things come together that with the
acceptance for various reasons of the Congress –
Democrats and Republicans – and the public and the
media, we have freed the White House – the president
and the vice president – from virtually any restraint
by Congress, courts, media, public, whatever.
And on the other hand, the people who have this
unrestrained power are crazy. Not entirely, but they
have crazy beliefs.
And the question is what then, what can we do about
this? We are heading towards an insane operation. It
is not certain. It is likely. … I want to try to be
realistic myself here, to encourage us to do what we
must do, what is needed to be done with the full
recognition of the reality. Nothing is impossible.
What I'm talking about in the way of a police state,
in the way of an attack on Iran is not certain.
Nothing is certain, actually. However, I think it is
probable, more likely than not, that in the next 15,
16 months of this administration we will see an attack
on Iran. Probably. Whatever we do.
And … we will no t succeed in moving Congress
probably, and Congress probably will not stop the
president from doing this. And that's where we're
heading. That's a very ugly, ugly prospect.
However, I think it's up to us to work to increase
that small perhaps – anyway not large – possibility
and probability to avert this within the next 15
months, aside from the effort that we have to make for
the rest of our lives.
Restoring the Republic
Getting back the constitutional government and
improving it will take a long time. And I think if we
don't get started now, it won't be started under the
next administration.
Getting out of Iraq will take a long time. Averting
Iran and averting a further coup in the face of a
9/11, another attack, is for right now, it can't be
put off. It will take a kind of political and moral
courage of which we have seen very little…
We have a really unusual concentration here and in
this audience, of people who have in fact changed
their lives, changed their position, lost their
friends to a large extent, risked and experienced
being called terrible names, "traitor," "weak on
terrorism" – names that politicians will do anything
to avoid being called.
How do we get more people in the government and in the
public at large to change their lives now in a crisis
in a critical way? How do we get Nancy Pelosi and
Harry Reid for example? What kinds of pressures, what
kinds of influences can be brought to bear to get
Congress to do their jobs? It isn't just doing their
jobs. Getting them to obey their oaths of office.
I took an oath many times, an oath of office as a
Marine lieutenant, as an official in the Defense
Department, as an official in the State Department as
a Foreign Service officer. A number of times I took an
oath of office which is the same oath office taken by
every member of Congress and every official in the
United States and every officer in the United States
armed services.
And that oath is not to a Commander in Chief, which is
not mentioned. It is not to a fuehrer. It is not even
to superior officers. The oath is precisely to protect
and uphold the Constitution of the United States.
Now that is an oath I violated every day for years in
the Defense Department without realizing it when I
kept my mouth shut when I knew the public was being
lied into a war as they were lied into Iraq, as they
are being lied into war in Iran.
I knew that I had the documents that proved it, and I
did not put it out then. I was not obeying my oath
which I eventually came to do.
I've often said that Lt. Ehren Watada – who still
faces trial for refusing to obey orders to deploy to
Iraq which he correctly perceives to be an
unconstitutional and aggressive war – is the single
officer in the United States armed services who is
taking seriously in upholding his oath.
The president is clearly violating that oath, of
course. Everybody under him who understands what is
going on and there are myriad, are violating their
oaths. And that's the standard that I think we should
be asking of people.
Congressional Courage
On the Democratic side, on the political side, I think
we should be demanding of our Democratic leaders in
the House and Senate – and frankly of the Republicans
– that it is not their highest single absolute
priority to be reelected or to maintain a Democratic
majority so that Pelosi can still be Speaker of the
House and Reid can be in the Senate, or to increase
that majority.
I'm not going to say that for politicians they should
ignore that, or that they should do something else
entirely, or that they should not worry about that.
Of course that will be and should be a major concern
of theirs, but they're acting like it's their sole
concern. Which is business as usual. "We have a
majority, let's not lose it, let's keep it. Let's keep
those chairmanships." Exactly what have those
chairmanships done for us to save the Constitution in
the last couple of years?
I am shocked by the Republicans today that I read in
the Washington Post who yesterday threatened a
filibuster if we … get back habeas corpus. The ruling
out of habeas corpus with the help of the Democrats
did not get us back to George the First it got us back
to before King John 700 years ago in terms of
counter-revolution.
We need some way, and Ann Wright has one way, of
sitting in, in Conyers office and getting arrested.
Ray McGovern has been getting arrested, pushed out the
other day for saying the simple words "swear him in"
when it came to testimony.
I think we've got to somehow get home to them [in
Congress] that this is the time for them to uphold the
oath, to preserve the Constitution, which is worth
struggling for in part because it's only with the
power that the Constitution gives Congress responding
to the public, only with that can we protect the world
from mad men in power in the White House who intend an
attack on Iran.
And the current generation of American generals and
others who realize that this will be a catastrophe
have not shown themselves – they might be people who
in their past lives risked their bodies and their
lives in Vietnam or elsewhere, like [Colin] Powell,
and would not risk their career or their relation with
the president to the slightest degree.
That has to change. And it's the example of people
like those up here who somehow brought home to our
representatives that they as humans and as citizens
have the power to do likewise and find in themselves
the courage to protect this country and protect the
world. Thank you.
Daniel Ellsberg is author of Secrets: A Memoir of
Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers.
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