I respect your opinion and agree on many points, but that being said, Ellesberg should not be looked upon as a hero by anyone, he is still a traitor.
As Clemenceau said, "War is a series of calamaties that result in victory."
And yes Vietnam was a battle lost in a larger scope war that we ultimately did win, precisely because we showed the Soviets that they were not going to be able to expand their influence without paying a heavy price, a price in the end, they were not willing to pay. All that in spite of the cluster f--k LBJ and McNamara made out of the war.
The problem with Vietnam was that the "debate" was conducted behind closed doors, in secure conference rooms, and the proceedings were (wrongly, IMHO) stamped "TOP SECRET."
The only things that thrive in an environment of complete secrecy are mendacity and incompetence. The Founding Fathers gave us a republic--the question was whether or not we would keep it. Decisions of whether or not to commit the country to war should be accompanied by vigorous public debate, with all available data laid on the table. To do otherwise is to make America into an oligarchy based on one's security clearance, which is about as far from the Founding Fathers' intent as you could get.
Had the Pentagon Papers material been discussed in the public domain in 1964, I am convinced that (a) we still would've gone to Vietnam, because it was obviously the right thing to do, and (b) we wouldn't have done the ineffective things that we did, because the average citizen would've looked at the (non-)plan and said to their representatives, "This 'plan' makes no frickin' sense, send Bobby Strange back to the drawing board and have him get it right."