Hey all, In the past few hours the latest Wikileaks leak is out, and it's a big one: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cable-leak-diplomacy-crisis The article covers it fairly well so I won't repost any of it. Pretty damaging stuff though. A number of Arab nations - mainly Saudi Arabia - asking the US to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, a number of revalations about corruption (be it from Western leaders, or Russia, etc), plans between the US and South Korea to potentially form a United Korea (with help from China) if the North Korea regime falls through, and (closer to home, and much less damaging) Mervyn King saying that David Cameron and Osbourne and out of their depths, etc. Thoughts/comments?
What's interesting to me is none of this is particularly uncommon stuff. This kind of diplomatic traffic is always flying around, bitching about various leaders, throwing out ideas and people pushing their pipe dreams. I'm sure there is a lot of stuff in there that the governments would just as soon not be public, but I doubt there is anything earth shatteringly important. I for one applaud a forced reduction in secrecy. EDIT: their server appears to be down. Here's the message:
Whoever's submitting these documents to Wikileaks needs to be discovered and dealt with swiftly, publicly and strongly, no matter who it is or what level position they hold in government service.
Leaks are leaks... the governments has no role into this other than tight things up on their side. It's freedom of speech. Beside you think these leaks comes from "Yo I am XYZ I am the sectary, and have these papers". You have no idea where they come from. It passes in so many hands, where everyone covers everyone, before it reaches Wikileaks, and it usually involves the media for protection. It is impossible for anyone to find out it comes from where. It can even be one of the person that cleans the floor, or the guy that picks up the garbage. Who knows.
And what should be done with the people who classify everything just to cover their own ass and make sure no one knows how much money they are wasting to build their empire? Without transparency there is no accountability. Revealing government secrets threatens open government? Really? EDIT: Site is back up, but without the new info.
I'm actually in two minds about it. It's not journalism, it's just publicising dirty laundry. Yes, it's interesting to see, but should we see it? Everyone keeps some of their lives private and I thoroughly expect countries talk about the stuff mentioned above. If they DIDN'T I'd be more concerned they weren't prepared for it. Does it do anything to call out people for trying to hide things like war crimes or bring people to justice? Does it provide evidence for serious corruption or things that affect the public and need to be stopped? If not, then why publish it and risk ****ing the delicate international balance? Given the situation in the Korean peninsula, showing evidence to NK that at least 3 people want to **** it over and the whole lot could blow up. Living within spitting distance of all that I'm quite concerned. I actually think it does more harm than good - after all we're only ever seeing one side of the story from the US, never other countries. Cthippo - There is a balance between an open government and an efficient government. I'm usually the first to say everything important should be publicly documented but we also employ and vote for politicians to get on with a job and take decisions.
That's true. Where that balance lies is a matter of opinion and judgment. The US has gone way overboard on secrecy at least since the cold war. I would choose openness over efficiency just because we are so far tilted the other way right now. I understand that a certain amount of confidentiality is necessary, but there has been so much evil committed in the dark that I am very skeptical of any claim for the necessity of secrecy.
I do agree, but I'm also concerned about the balance of power. Look at its 'non-allies' who aren't put under similar exposure: surely they have as much to show, if not more? Imagine if Russia, China or 'Rouge states' aired their frillies in the same way? I would rather see everyone's to get the bigger picture, it's too easy to demonize the US on a one sided story. EDIT: Reading some more, it appears that it's airing global laundry, so good good!
In answer to your two questions: yes and yes, albeit indirectly. Don't worry about upsetting delicate geopolitical balances. Bush and Blair did a fine job of that already. Most of what has been leaked does not come as a surprise to us; do you think it comes as a surprise to the governments concerned who know way more than we do? But what it does do is make us, the voter, more aware of the shenanigans that go on in our name. Perhaps it will make people ask more incisive questions of their government. Perhaps governments may start to worry a bit more about how their actions may come across. And if not, at least we only have ourselves to blame.
Ah didn't think of it like that. That is, those who are allowed to have a say. How many Chinese would survive questioning their leaders over the Google hacking?
Funny you should say that, because the leak suggests that the Google hack was in fact orchestrated by a senior member of the Politburo who put his name in the search engine and did not like what was written about him in the articles that came up. Yeah, I know, talk about shooting the messenger. But what made my eyebrows reach for the sky is this: - China was not responsible for the hack after all; - Do we really want an utter egomaniac abusing his powers in such an important and influential post? I think not. If anything, these leaks reveal many of the people in power as the petty little humans with petty little motivations that they are. We already should have realised that by now, but it bears being reminded of. Government is too serious a business to leave to the politicians.
Tbh I'd never heard of it before. So the Politburo is a government within a government: sort of a Freemasonary of backscratching and reach-arounds? If he is in government in a decision making position, he represents it. Petty egotism or not.
It's supposed to be the watchers watching the watchers in Communist regimes. But basically it is the O'Brien behind the Big Brother figurehead. You know how it is: even an elite party has a little elite clique striving to be more elite still.
So, secret sects with special handshakes and reach-arounds then? A group power driven dictators. Oh, where have I heard that before? Nice to know the human race is at least, consistent, regardless of race and culture.
Reading this today there seems to be very little that we didn't know. Berlusconi a vain and ineffectual president, Putin still pulling the strings in Russia, the Afghan government being corrupt. Hardly revelations at all. Even the bugging of the U.N.is hardly uprising it's supposed to be the most bugged place on earth. I agree with those above though it seems there going after a rather easy target with the U.S. it be interesting to see what China and Russia are involved in.
Had similar thoughts...nothing posted about world leaders that we as average folk don't already know/think/have formed similar opinions ourselves...
personally i think it's great that this sort of information gets public, think of it as a cs server allowing wallhack for one run. you get to see a little bit of how your opponent thinks and acts. but nothing more happens. i can't see how this would affect major international relationships, i mean i can understand the way you're thinking, but i just can't see it. this is mostly on diplomatic level, a bunch of he said/she said rubbish. the worst that could happen is one diplomat cursing at another saying "scr*w you! you're going up on my facebook hatelist!" (never had facebook, does such a list exist?). then their parents (leaders) come, saying "now now, can't you guys just play along, just for this term?". these are all lowrisk secrets and speculations, there probably are more "dangerous" secrets which are much more guarded and tracked.
Two of my favourite comments on this so far from other sources: "Dear government: as you keep telling us, if you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to fear" "WikiLeaks is what happens when the entire US government is forced to go through a full-body scanner" I have mixed feelings on this overall though. There in some form needs to be more accountability for actions at the moment and fortunately Wikileaks appear to be high minded and don't leak information that would compromise individuals in vunerable positons. The issue with leaking is if people do it without regards for individuals, like Dick Cheney and the CIA spy he outed, but then he was the power.
Thing is its par for the course that Russia and China etc would have more dirty laundry and hide it even deeper. I think that should be revealed aswell but then when your life and that of your family is in danger if you leaked as it is in those countries then its less likely to happen. And if we aren't more transparent and act better than they do then what are we.
There was Dick Cheney outing a CIA operative out of petty revenge directed at her husband; there was Rumsfeld letting slip publicly who was the whistle blower in Abu Ghrab a few days after he passed on those graphic photos we all know by now to the authorities. Ironically if he had passed them to Wikileaks instead his identity would still be safe. And of course there are government secrets being misplaced and sensitive laptops being stolen with depressing regularity.
