By: Harley SchlangerMay 14 -- With most policy makers, pundits and media maintaining silence, or denying the prospect that a war between the United States and Russia or China is likely, and could escalate to nuclear weapons, ninety year-old whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg spoke bluntly about the danger of such a possibility. He took the occasion of an event commemorating the 50th anniversary of his release of the Pentagon Papers to sound a warning about what he described as an "asinine" and "criminally insane" discussion about the likelihood of the use of nuclear weapons by the U.S., mentioning in particular comments by StratCom chief Admiral Charles Richard. “That discussion is going on, I have no doubt whatever, in the Pentagon right now...."He said that a war with Russia or China, puts us "at a high risk of escalation to nuclear war. And if it goes to nuclear war ... we are talking about the near extinction of humanity. No, there should not be the slightest option, threat or thought whatever of armed conflict with Russia and China now or ever again,” he insisted. He disclosed that the U.S. came close to using nuclear weapons against China in 1958, when Secretary of State John Foster Dulles asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff to recommend to the President that they be used during the crisis in the Taiwan Strait. In reporting this, he was citing still-classified documents from the RAND Corporation. Acknowledging that releasing these documents could lead to his imprisonment, he called on future whistleblowers to come forward, saying that a war of annihilation is likely "unless people in the government show the moral courage of Ed Snowden and Chelsea Manning ... and let us know what these inside plans are....Without that, I think civilization will not survive the era of nuclear weapons.”
