An Oath To Defend

With the advent of the new film, The Post, which is about the Pentagon Papers, a part therein being released to the Washington Post, I think about Daniel Ellsberg.  I think about his courage, his love of country to risk everything to stand for freedom.

I also think about Edward Snowden. I think that the times we live in are not so really different.  That Daniel Ellsberg, like Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning are patriots.  There was no personal gain.  There was confinement for Snowden.  Confined to a room in Russia because his own country would put him in prison. Manning got prison time.

At a time when the President of the United States is under intense scrutiny for alleged hacking of the election with his Russian comrades, it does make you wonder who the treasonist really is.

We are reminded, of a conversation three years ago in The Atlantic wherein "Daniel Ellsberg, the celebrated leaker of the Pentagon Papers, said in a conversation last weekend with National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden that every human sometimes bites their tongue when they witness something that they know to be wrong—and blood often flows as a result. Due in part to lies during the Vietnam War, he said, millions of people were needlessly killed. At home, tobacco executives successfully hid the cancerous nature of their products. More recently, as GM customers died in their cars, the company kept mum about a defect. "

"Snowden was the one person in the (expletive deleted)  NSA who did what he absolutely should have done," he said.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/07/daniel-ellsberg-snowden-honored-his-oath-better-than-anyone-in-the-nsa/375031/

They took an oath to defend the Constitution.  Is there even a Constitution anymore?  Where are the Constitutional lawyers?

The Post is about that time.  In 1971 the Pentagon Papers were leaked.  An all star cast takes us back to the Washington Post, during those years led by Katherine Graham.  Ellsberg was only acquitted because Nixon's White House Plumbers broke into Ellsberg's psychiatrist office.  It is my hope that Edward Snowden receive the same treatment when Trump faces treason.  Edward Snowden deserves to come home to the country and the Constitution he protected.  He deserves to come home the hero and patriot that he is.