Re-reporting, excerpting and editing by Carolyn Bennett

Lyndon Baines/Barack Hussein... Will we never learn.

"We need people to put out, to tell the truth, and to do it, not the way I did, not after the escalation, Not after the bombs have fallen but right now; Right now; For the Congress to hold hearings that will entertain those people." - Daniel Ellsberg in a conversation pegged to a new documentary, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.

"I look at this film and I watch the bombs falling and all I can see in my mind are the bombs - the same bombs - falling over Afghanistan (or Vietnamistan) and Iraq right now.

"At this moment we are... facing a crisis of decision that's just like the one that's in the film [The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers]... where the President is doing something that I feel will be a disaster, and I kept my mouth shut about it. The change from 70,000 men in the spring of 1965 to an open-ended commitment starting with another 50,000 - which I knew was on the way to hundreds of thousands.

"I didn't tell about that, and nor did anyone else. There was a lot of dissent in the administration about that, but we were overruled. We saluted [Robert McNamara replacement U.S. defense secretary] Clark Clifford, Vice President [Hubert] Humphrey.

"Again, we have a vice president who apparently is against the application, another parallel. James Jones, the military man, can see what I can see and anybody can see who has memories of Vietnam: there is no success at the end of this tunnel. There is only a stalemate, which could persist indefinitely."

In an unconscionable, barbarous clip of history, Ellsberg quotes an exchange between former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former U.S. President Richard Milhous during the war against Vietnam in 1972.

"'I'd rather use a nuclear bomb; got that, Henry... A nuclear bomb," Nixon says. "Does that bother you- I just want you to think big... Henry, for Christ's sakes.

You worry about the civilian casualties.

I don't give a damn."

A few leading principals in war Lyndon Baines to Barack Hussein

Lyndon Baines Johnson (Democrat) was the 36th President of the United States (1963–1969).

Hubert Horatio Humphrey was vice president of the United States (1965–69) in the Johnson administration and presidential candidate of the Democratic Party in 1968.

Clark Clifford, secretary of defense under Johnson, replaced U.S. secretary of defense Robert McNamara (1961 to 1968) who had played a major role in the U.S. military involvement in Vietnam.

Richard Milhous Nixon (Republican) was the 37th president of the United States (1969–1974). Naturalized U.S. citizen (his family having immigrated to the United States in 1938 to escape Nazi persecution of Jews) Henry Kissinger was adviser for U.S. national security affairs and secretary of state wielding major influence in shaping U.S. foreign policy under Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford (1969 to 1976).

Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr. (original name Leslie Lynch King, Jr.), the United States' only unelected chief executive (by authority of the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution), was vice president in the [later resigned under threat of impeachment] Nixon administration and the 38th president (granter of absolute pardon to Nixon] of the United States (1974–77).

Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. (Democrat) is the 44th president of the United States (2009-)

Sources:

Britannica
September 16, 2009, interview with Pacifica program Democracy Now http://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/16/the_most_dangerous_man_in_america
A top U.S. military analyst with the RAND Corporation Daniel Ellsberg in 1971 leaked a top-secret study, since then known as "The Pentagon Papers," of U.S. decision making in Vietnam.
Directors of The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers are Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith.

War toll update (estimates) September 19, 2009
Eexact figures and costs of war are unobtainable

American Military Casualties in Iraq – "Human cost of occupation": since the war began March 19, 2003: 4,344; since the Obama inauguration January 20, 2009: 116; Wounded 31,494-over 100,000; U.S. veterans with brain injuries: 320,000; 18 suicides a day [Anti-war dot com: "Casualties in Iraq, The Human Cost of Occupation" (Edited by Margaret Griffis), September 14 update http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/]

Iraq Body Count figures: 93,108 – 101,608 [http://www.iraqbodycount.org/]

Iraq Coalition Casualty Count's figures: IRAQ: U.S. 4,344; Coalition: 4662 [http://icasualties.org/Iraq/index.aspx] AFGHANISTAN: U.S.: 838 Coalition: 1,404 [http://icasualties.org/oif/]

Just Foreign Policy: Iraqi deaths due to U.S. invasion - "The number is shocking and sobering. It is at least 10 times greater than most estimates cited in the US media, yet it is based on a scientific study of violent Iraqi deaths caused by the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003." Just Foreign Policy figures--Iraqi Deaths: 1,339,771 [http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq]

From the week's U. S. war/occupied zones

AFGHANISTAN: U.S. President Barack Obama's CIA director Leon Panetta is quoted saying although "there was clearly 'some degree of corruption and fraud' in the recent elections," sitting President Hamid "Karzai would likely emerge as the winner."

UN official Grant Kippen who is investigating allegations of election fraud in the country's presidential poll told Al Jazeera "his team will not be rushed, despite increasing frustrations about the delay in declaring a final result."

IRAQ: Four mortar shells landed in the Green Zone as U.S. Vice President Joe Biden made an unannounced visit there.

PAKISTAN: An estimated 30 people were killed in an explosion outside a small hotel in a market in northwest Pakistan; 15 people were wounded in the attack in the town of Kohat, about 60 kilometers [37.28 miles] from Peshawar, the main city in North West Frontier Province.

PALESTINE: United Nations report finds "Israel 'punished and terrorized' civilians in Gaza in a disproportionate attack in its three-week offensive on the territory" that began December 27, 2008. Judge Richard Goldstone, a former South African justice who led the inquiry, said the investigation "'found evidence Israel targeted civilians and used excessive force in the assault [and] the mission concluded that actions amounting to war crimes, and possibly in some respects crimes against humanity, were committed by the Israel Defense Force.'"

"An investigation concludes that both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza committed war crimes and possible crimes [against] humanity, raising the prospect that officials may seek to prosecute via the International Criminal Court" [another source slant].

U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell returns to Washington "after failing to secure a compromise deal for renewed peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians."

SOMALIA: "Terrorists" vow to continue fighting Western nations after Monday's U.S. bombing of Somalia. "Fighting in Somalia has killed more than 18,000 civilians since the start of 2007 and left another 1.5 million homeless."

Sources:

• http://finance.yahoo.com/news/World-ibd-2651833879.html-x=0&.v=1
• http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/09/200991632951222235.html
• http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/09/20099186531271167.html
• http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/09/200991965523515111.html
• http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2009/09/20099189579839812.html
• http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/09/20099198165437548.html

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Dr. Carolyn LaDelle Bennett -author, independent journalist Blog: Today's Insight News Blog: http://todaysinsightnews.blogspot.com/
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