How Did Successive American Administrations Fool Their People and Drag Them into the Vietnam War?

Published in Mainichi Shimbun
(Japan) on 11 June 2021
by (link to originallink to original)
Translated from by Eric Stimson. Edited by Jamye Sharp.
Daniel Ellsberg, the 90-year-old former Defense Department employee who provided the Pentagon Papers — secret documents that relate these events — to American newspapers, has once again attracted attention. The leak involves Taiwan. He says that in 1958, when China attacked an isolated Taiwanese island, the U.S. military looked into using nuclear weapons and considered a situation where American bases, including on Okinawa, would be retaliated on with nuclear weapons. Amid the tense situation in Taiwan, he disclosed the existence of documents that he obtained half a century ago.

The secret information Ellsberg was privy to enraged him about the folly of war, and he appears to consider it his mission to prevent the use of nuclear weapons. In 1973, a court dismissed his prosecution for leaking classified national security documents. It became an example of the legitimacy of whistleblowing.

How about this disclosure? ProPublica, an American nonprofit press institution, obtained IRS tax records from an anonymous source. It reported that the super-wealthy, including Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, “pay little in income tax compared to their massive wealth.”

The White House has expressed the point of view that leaking secret information is illegal. But the revelation of the true extent of the upper class’s exploitation of its knowledge to avoid taxes could be a tailwind for the Biden administration, which has made rectifying inequality one of its policy pillars. Was it an accusation driven by righteous fury, or a calculated leak? We are in an age in which a few rich people accumulate wealth that rivals that of nations and take it into space. This must be valuable information for planning a tax system. Budget deficits are ballooning in many countries due to the COVID-19 disaster. This is not just an American problem.


歴代米政権がいかに国民をだましてベトナム戦争に引きずり込んだか。経緯が記された機密文書「ペンタゴン・ペーパーズ」を1971年に米紙に提供した元国防総省職員、ダニエル・エルズバーグさん(90)が再び、注目を集めた▲台湾をめぐる機密の暴露だ。58年に中国軍が台湾の離島を攻撃した際、米軍は核使用を検討し、沖縄を含む米軍基地が核で報復される事態も想定していたという。台湾情勢が緊迫する中、半世紀前に入手した文書の存在を明らかにした▲エルズバーグさんは機密情報に接して戦争の理不尽さに憤り、核兵器の使用阻止を自分の使命と考えたそうだ。裁判所は73年に国防機密漏えい罪での公訴を棄却した。内部告発の正当性を示す実例となった▲この暴露はどうか。非営利の米報道機関プロパブリカが匿名の人物から米内国歳入庁(IRS)の納税記録を入手した。アマゾン・コム創業者のジェフ・ベゾス氏ら超富裕層は「膨大な富に比してわずかな税しか納めていない」と報じた▲ホワイトハウスは機密の情報漏えいは違法という見解を示した。だが、節税に知恵を絞る富裕層の実態暴露は、格差是正を政策の柱にするバイデン米政権にとって「追い風」にもなりうる。義憤からの告発か、意図的なリークか▲少数の富裕層が国家に匹敵する富を蓄積し、宇宙にまで乗り出す時代。税制のあり方を考える上で貴重な情報とはいえるだろう。コロナ禍でどの国も財政赤字が拡大している。米国だけの問題でもない。
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