Can a Whistleblower halt the War with Iran?

YouTube - Colbert’s guest wants whistle-blower to halt Iran war plans

The Digg link to this clip didn’t mention Daniel Ellsberg by name. But anyone who isn’t aware of the role he played in ending the Vietnam war should certainly watch this clip.

He’s now daring to call for a modern day whistle-blower to leak the Pentagon’s plans to attack Iran, which he says, will help stop the next war before it starts. The key is tangible documents, he says, which are far better than Seymour Hersch’s hearsay (heresy to some).

Would that stop the war? I don’t know.

If such a leak occurred, apart from the usual chorus of “traitor, traitor, traitor,” the administration would simultaneously argue that we have “all sorts of war plans with all sorts of countries.” The GOP talk-show refrain will be “Heck, we even have a plan to invade Canada if they threaten us.” Golly.

But you know it’s bullshit. We didn’t have much of a plan to invade Iraq, did we? And we went and did that anyway. The reality is, we had a list of targets and resources, and that’s enough to get us into some real embedded trouble. There are routine threat assessments and paper war games for any number of countries around the world, related to our strategic interests. But if we ever see a document that specifies troop levels, support bases, flight paths (i.e., getting fly-over rights from other nations), and a prioritized list of targets, that’s not some mere war game. That’s a plan of attack.

And every indication is that’s what we’re working on right now. Bush has even gone so far as to state, according to sources, that he wants to take care of this Iran problem before he leaves office. Given the mid-term elections, the chances if it starting this fall are pretty good.

What we really need to see is the Neocon plan to create another Gulf of Tonkin incident, another Pearl Harbor, another nine… Oh, wait. I don’t believe in conspiracy theories.