WikiLeaks: Fishing With Dynamite
Pity the U.S. diplomats in the field, whose jobs presumably require that they now compose classified cables reporting back to Washington on local responses to the blunter aspects of their own wikileaked previous cables. The State Department has tried to close the barn door, uncoupling itself from the network that allowed the filching of what WikiLeaks claims is a cache of 251,287 cables from 274 diplomatic missions around the globe — 15,652 of these cables classified as “secret” and 101,748 as “confidential.” But how secure would you feel these days, either confiding in an American diplomat, or being one?
Pity their sources, or at least some of them, who thought they were speaking in confidence and now see their remarks plastered all over the internet. Pity a world in which any information that can be downloaded onto the internet is advertised as serving the high cause of “truth,” no matter who gets hurt.
Not that the wikileaked cables aren’t interesting. They’re fascinating. In the trove released to date, there are cables that deserved to be leaked. They expose a wealth of important information, from the begging and finagling with which the Obama administration has been pursuing an economically disastrous accord on “climate,” to the hypocrisies of Arab rulers who foster mindsets profoundly dangerous to the U.S. and its democratic allies, but plead privately with American officials for the U.S. to save their necks by cutting the head off the Iranian snake. And why, pray tell, has the Obama administration not done more to inform the American public about the specifics of the fears emanating from the Middle East itself regarding Iran, including such wikileaked items as “the Iran-Al-Qaeda connection.”
But that kind of information, yea, even those particular cables, could have been leaked without Assange embarking on the wholesale release of more than a quarter of a million State Department cables. There’s a difference between exposing specific wrongdoing, and exposing almost everything you happen to obtain in a massive download (some names have been crossed out, but not enough to protect various people, from Iran to Venezuela, who did no wrong and are now in harm’s way).
Speaking from some experience as a reporter, I can attest that a leaked document can be the vital item that clinches a story. Leaked documents can play an important part in exposing corruption, malfeasance, and a host of damaging hypocrisies with which people in power exempt themselves from the rigors they impose on others. Back in the days when newsrooms still had typewriters, one of my brilliant and curmudgeonly editors liked to teach all his disciples that one of the staples of the reporter’s trade is the leaked document. But there is a natural vetting that tends to take place before those leaked documents arrive on your desk — or at least, so it’s usually worked until the web brought forth Julian Assange. Secret documents most often leak because someone inside or close to an organization or a government witnesses wrongdoing and becomes so unhappy with the situation that he or she will take the risk of handing over incriminating material to the press — usually with a request that the reporter protect the source. Sometimes they come from competitors of the folks who are misbehaving. There are various ways that documents leak, but the common denominator tends to be that someone is seeking justice for some specific wrong. It is the evidence of wrongdoing that drives the story, and in publishing the leaked document, or at least some of the details within, old-fashioned reporting standards entail making every possible effort to avoid humiliating or otherwise harming the innocent.
This is different. Unless Assange regards it as malfeasance merely to be a U.S. diplomat, then what wrongdoing, exactly, is he seeking to address in embarking on the wholesale dump of thousands upon thousands of confidential U.S. diplomatic cables? For that matter, with Assange’s declared passion for total disclosure, why is WikiLeaks choreographing “Cablegate” as the dance of the seven veils (or the drip of the 251,287 cables, which WikiLeaks proposes to release “in stages over the next few months”)?
Assange’s rationale, as laid out on the (migrating) WikiLeaks site, is: “The subject matter of these cables is of such importance, and the geographical spread so broad, that to do otherwise would not do this material justice.” Come again? This trove of cables is essentially a large database, with complex, interactive parts. If WikiLeaks is determined to put it all out there, then releasing it in stages is manipulation of the first order — a high-stakes tease, while the world wonders for months if, when, or where the next bombshell might land. If the aim is to present to the public a TSA-style strip-search of American diplomacy, and the done deal is, ultimately, to release everything, then candor and fair play would seem to require skipping the publicity striptease and the advance deals with hand-picked news outlets. Just release the entire database. If the aim of putting it all out there is to let people see and decide for themselves what this cable traffic really means, then let them decide with full information available upfront.
But that’s not what this is about. Having declared that all these cables will become public in stages, WikiLeaks is now broadcasting that any definitive move to shut down Cablegate will result in the rest of the trove being leaked all at once. That’s no exercise in service of the public, or of some higher truth. It’s a threat. I see plenty in the U.S. State Department to quarrel with, plenty that should be more fully shared with the public, and plenty that warrants exposing and fixing — but with the kind of care that the better gumshoes of the typewriter age once took to protect the innocent while going after the documents that could nail the guilty. This is nothing like that. Whatever ultimately comes of Cablegate, bulk-dispensing these U.S. documents is a game of power and manipulation. And in those deep waters, WikiLeaks is fishing with dynamite.
To me the main irony of this is Mr Assange’s assumption the world operates like a western democracy does with respect to people like him who reveal secrets. It does not. His ‘freedom’ to do what he does is not protected in other regions of the world and they don’t hold to the same leniency (or perceived leniency) as a western democracy does. His willingness to destroy the same system that allows him to do what he does shows his ignorance, naivete and malfeasance. I suspect he might learn a hard lesson from outside the system he wishes to destroy.
When you absolutely must have it destroyed tonight..
U.S. Marine Corps!
If the Obama Administration wanted to protect our State secrets this creep Assange would assume room temperature no later than sunset today.
Anyone that helped or helps him would suffer the same justice.
Does anyone think that Israel, China or Russia would play this guy’s game..?
How’s that Hope and Change going folks?
Are you happy yet..?
They most certainly would, at least until they could disable that dead man’s switch he set up. It does them no good to kill him if he can topple their government from the grave.
Who is financing WikiLeaks? Just wondering.
What is it that urged Assange to commit his crimes against America? Click my name for the answer.
The perfect metaphor.
First, let’s get one thing clear. Yes, these cables did, for the most part, originate with overseas officers of the U.S. Department of State. However, they were stolen from SIPRNET, an operation run entirely by the U.S. Department of Defense. State and other agencies provided material, classified up to but not beyond “secret” to be shared interagency in order to further the objectives of the 9/11 Commission on the sharing of intelligence. [oxymoron?]
Second, the pious prats at various MSM news organizations have never had much concern with collateral damage. The last time they actually managed to keep a secret was when Eisenhower told them when and where he intended to invade Europe.
Third, Assange and his anarcho/socialist/marxist cohort simple and plainly hate, loath, and despise the United States and everything it stands for. Lots of penis envy, too, in that the U.S. tends to be the economic engine that powers the rest of the world. Oh, and where would pretty boy and his buddies be if the U.S. were not defending Sweden, Australia, etc.?
Fourth, and finally, Assange has really peeved a whole lot of people who don’t really believe in turning the other cheek. If the Brits want to keep him alive they better either expel him to Sweden or put him in protective custody. The USG won’t be party to whacking him, but there is a wide world of others out there who might.
Maybe the mails could have been made public without benefit of Wikileaks – maybe. But is it likely they would have been?
Governments are as secretive as they can get away with being. Assange is indeed a blunt instrument, but he seems to be the only one thereis.
If instead of saying “Wikileaks” or “Assange,” people would say, “Assange and Manning,” they might think about their opinions more carefully. (And when I say “people” I mean “Mike Stone.”)
You trust that freak Manning? OK. Then full steam ahead.
“The hypocrisies of Arab rulers who foster mindsets profoundly dangerous to the U.S. and its democratic allies, but plead privately with American officials for the U.S. to save their necks by cutting the head off the Iranian snake.”
That’s the one thing I find most distressing about these “leaked” documents. The Arabs, especially the Saudis, publicly say that they hate the Americans and that we are still “infidels” to them, yet when it comes to “Cutting off the head off the Iranian snake,” their Shia rivals, they want the United States to take care of it and do the dirty work for them. The Saudis are so hypocritical that they wouldn’t even mind the Israelis, THE ISRAELIS, bombing Iran if it would serve their purposes.
In short, the Saudis are treating America and Israel like the hired help. They can’t do the dirty work of attacking Iran, so they want us to “take care of it.” I certainly would not play their game. Taking care of Iran should be done to suit OUR purposes, NOT the Saudis’ purposes. If it is in our best interest to overthrow the Iranian regime through covert operations instead of an all-out war, then so be it. But we shouldn’t be doing something because the Saudis think it would be a nice thing to do.
An excellent article, Ms. Rosett.
There is no excuse to dispense all these secrets. Assange’s is an all-out war against America and we should treat it as such.
Leaking, for example, the thousands of sites the US has identified as potential terror targets, is aiding and abetting the Muslim terrorists and our other enemies.
We have the means to stop this POS; we ought to use them.
“Vetting”? You want “vetting”? I’m afraid that’s hopelessly beyond the Assange worshippers who kneel at his feet and say, “We trust everything you upload to the web!” Which means, apparently, that they implicitly trust his weird little accomplice Manning who gave him all the documents.
If anything in there is bogus, we’ll never know, because if the govt. says, “Well, these 145,273 documents are real, and these 17 documents are fake,” who’s going to believe them? This gives nuts like Assange absolute power to push whatever agenda they want to; and nuts like Pvt. Manning to get revenge on whoever they want to.
A mature mind should ask “Even if Assange and Manning are the most principled people on Earth [HA!] what about the other leakers who are waiting in the wings; the ones who want Assange’s fame and standing and will do anything ot get it?”
This whole affair is like an enraged father shooting a child-molester in a courtroom. The unruly mob pumps their fists and snarls, “Yeah, baby! That’s how to get things done!” utterly forgetting a sober process of civilization. And if I say, “The father should get the electric chair,” I’m somehow defending a child-molester.
I hate anarchy. I hate it deeply.
Depends- is the government protecting the child molester? If a government refuses to do justice, it has no right to condemn those who take justice into their own hands.
Must play the game.
Just how secure do you believe ANY diplomat has ever been in “confiding” to other diplomats. Remember the game of diplomacy is jaw-jaw as substitute for war-war? AND that diplomacy is like fiction writing populated by persons who lie for a living. Diplomats are all VERY sophisticated power players and play by the rules of their game. Else they would not be allowed into the game. I doubt this can be said about their underlings, but these diplomats also know this, so generally have safe-guards to limit underlings activities. EVEN in todays internet world.
With these Wikileaks: Do you believe this is NOT a power play by the “diplomats” in the US State Department. And have you forgotten that the State Department is an office of the Executive. AND that the Executive selects the Chief as Secretary of State. This Secretary of State now portrayed as helpless victim of the disclosures. This very experienced, cynical and ruthless “diplomat” who accepted the job after having been bested in rivalry for the brass ring ? Who has been in the game of politics at all stages throughout her adult life. Pull the other one.
Is international politics and power plays then kindergarten ? .
That one tactic of these “progressives” has been to infantilise entire generations and accepted the necessary time til goal achieved via bread and circuses, public education which of course includes TV and film does not mean that they are infants. Just review how successful they have already been in their goal of destroying the USA as Constitutional Republic in the service of their New World Order.
They’re in endgame time. That time is limited so they must act definitively.
In the game of “diplomacy” as WAR : CIVIL WAR, i.e. citizen against citizen as in race and gender,single and married, those with and those without children, police and law -abiding citizen, civilian and military, and so on, ANYTHING GOES.
Julian Assange is an ally of the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and all terrorists who will get important military information from him. He is himself a would-be tyrant.
What no one has mentioned so far is that, if the media summaries of the cables are true, what they’ve revealed is that the civilian side of the federal government (from the Department of State staffers up to the politicians) is a lying sack of #$%^ toward the American people on many critical foreign issues.
The day that Assange gets ahold of stuff that is actually truly damaging, all of which tends to be above the paygrade of his sources, is the day the “hang ‘em high” rhetoric might make some sense.
The current power structure everywhere is threatened by the internet, but attempts to control it thus far have been unsuccessful because of lack of popular support. Now, with the public enraged, governments will use Wikileaks as an excuse to take control of the internet. Therefore, Assange is either a fool or a tool. But think about it: he has no visible means of support, no home, no car. But somebody is feeding him not only some embarrassing-but-not-too-damaging classified info but enough money to jet-set around the planet and fund the $1.5 million dollars per year it has been estimated to run his website.
I’m going for tool.
The Internet was nice while it lasted.
Assange is the Henri Husson (Belle du Jour) of American foreign policy.
I’m deeply distressed by the position of conservatives like Ms. Rosett who on the one hand denounce Mr. Assange for his destructive activities–while in the very next breath avidly quoting and citing material released by Mr. Assange in support of their own positions.
When Ms. Rosett says that ANYTHING in ANY of the Wikileaks materials should have been leaked, or when
she cites ANYTHING in ANY of the materials released by Assange, she is enabling Assange. She is implying that for those particular documents at least, she’s glad Assange got a hold of them and released them to the public. But someone else might be glad that Mr. Assange released some other documents. So we get to the point that nothing Mr. Assange did is bad, unless it involves the release of information that contradicts or embarrasses us.
I want to see the United States stand up to Iran and stop their nuclear program. But unlike Ms. Rosett and a number of other conservative columnists, I’ll be damned if I will use anything provided by Mr. Assange to help make my case.
Mr. Assange clearly craves publicity, like any other hacker. The best thing we could do would be to ignore him AND the documents he keeps putting out there. Even if some of those documents contain materials that we might find useful to our own political goals.
“here’s a difference between exposing specific wrongdoing, and exposing almost everything you happen to obtain in a massive download (some names have been crossed out, but not enough to protect various people, from Iran to Venezuela, who did no wrong and are now in harm’s way).”
Ha. Ha. Yes, the difference is that your idea of “wrong” is the product of Republican think tanks. All transparency is good, exactly because idealogues and propagandists like you have created a dichotomy of helpful/hurtful information. If a government can’t engage in an activity without keeping it from the people that elected it, then it has no business doing it. That must sound like Martian to authoritarian shills like Rosette.
What’s most amazing to me is that people like Rosette are more than willing to hurt thousands—tens of thousands of people—who will also get hurt in indirect ways from our foreign policy fiascos, so long as the beneficiary is a member of a powerful elite who will help pay Rosette’s salary.
Its true what they say about you tea partying loons. You don’t know what you’re doing, what you believe in, or how to understand the most basic logic. Sad and dangerous people here.
Wikileaks, Bad News and Good News:
Bad News: President Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi claim that Wikileaks proves their administration is the most open of any administration ever.
Good News: Older men with enlarged prostate problems will be able to get a new medicine that promises a better flow with each application. It can be purchased under the generic name Wikileaks.