Senator Gravel
Dear Editor: The two most important things Sen. Mike Gravel ever did happened 50 years ago this month in 1971 when:
1. He single-handedly stopped the Selective Service Draft for almost three months with a filibuster against its extension that President Nixon, the Pentagon, and the rest of the military-industrial complex so desperately needed to keep their War in Viet Nam supplied with fresh meat. “It’s a senseless war, and one way to do away with it is to do away with the draft,” he’d explained at the time.
2. And then a couple of days later, when he read 4,100 pages of the 7,000 page document known as “The Pentagon Papers” into the Congressional Record, on the grounds that “It is my constitutional obligation to protect the security of the people by fostering the free flow of information absolutely essential to their democratic decision-making.” Thus did he officially disclose the lie, hoax, sham and scam that was what the people of Viet Nam called and still call “The American War.”
(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Gravel)
It’s a shame there is nobody in Swampland with the courage to read “The Afghanistan Papers” into the Congressional Record, as well. And woe be unto the politician who would demand that somebody write – and encourage somebody else to then leak – “The Forever War Papers”; going all the way back to September 10, 2001, and then to 1979, and the ascent of Saddam in Iraq, the Siege of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, the overthrow of The Shah in Iran, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Because that is when and where this “Forever War” all began.
But then, how many politicians subscribe to the idea that their constitutional obligation includes protecting the people by “fostering the free flow of information”? Especially when that information exposes the secrets those politicians have kept from – and the lies they have told and sold to – those very people they are supposed to be protecting.
This state and this nation could very seriously use many more of those type of folks occupying our corridors of power. Folks like Sen. Mike Gravel; at least when it came to Viet Nam.
Jeffrey G. Moebus, Sitka,
Master Sergeant, U.S. Army, retired
