WikiLeaks publishes full cache of unredacted cables

[Vanir Ausf B]

Payback is a biatch, huh?

You one of those people who gets a little smile on his face when he hears of some US soldiers killed by an IED, eh.

[JonS]

No.

You one of those people who gets a little smile on his face when he hears of some foreign citizen killed by an airstrike, eh.

[Dietrich]

A rhetorical question (not in response to any preceding post per se):

What if someone hacked into WikiLeaks's database(s) and published everything they found therein?

Some anticipated responses:

"WikiLeaks isn't a national government that makes money starting totally unjustified wars and killing many thousands of mostly noncombatants, so the comparison is ridiculous."

"WikiLeaks doesn't have the sort of secrets a national government has, so exposing of said secrets wouldn't be nearly as detrimental to them."

"Publishing WikiLeaks's secrets would put its personnel and ts supporters at risk of persecution, arrest, imprisonment, etc., at the hands of the governments they've angered, so yes, WikiLeaks would have a fully justified basis for protesting said publication."

Is it really true that whenever the government doesn't publish something, it's because the publishing of such would expose corruption/human rights abuses/etc., and thus that anything a government keeps secret should be exposed?

http://wikileaks.org/IMG/jpg/ja-main.jpg

Is WikiLeaks keeping governments open? Has WikiLeaks made governments open in the first place? :confused:

To the extent I can discern, it's far too early to tell if WikiLeaks's leaking will be beneficial overall, let alone to the extent its proponents would have others believe.

[Vanir Ausf B]

No.

You one of those people who gets a little smile on his face when he hears of some foreign citizen killed by an airstrike, eh.

Not any foreign citizen, but I was pleased when OBL got whacked. I am pleased when those who share his cause, or something close to it, meet their end, e.g. the Taliban.

I have no problem admitting which side I am on.

[Vanir Ausf B]

A web search of with the words "Blair" and "Wikileaks" will give you a pretty fair overview of the case. Essentially, there is plenty of evidence there supporting the argument he was in fact a poodle cheerleader that helped W. push an unjustified war on their respective countries, and further supported fun things like rendition and enhanced interrogation techniques.

My Google-foo must be weak. With regards to Wikileaks my search didn't bring up anything more salacious than the size of Blair's speaking fee since he left office.

As to people in Wikileaks being named, in the first place, pretty much all of these messages are US State department essays where one US State department employee writes something to inform others, and also to make himself and his boss and his station look good. More than anything else, Wikileaks exposes how much time and effort US diplomats put into writing reports pretty much no one will read.

Pretty much no one reads the cables US diplomats write? That has the smell of an invented fact.

It may be true these people were "just doing their job". But if their job entailed wasting public funds, justifying their existence, and from time to time doing their little bit to create bogus information - The International Terror Threat is Real, The War on Drugs is Succeeding, this State Department Civil Initiative is Really Helping, etc. - then it absolutely is in the public interest that these wasteful activities be exposed.

If the cables had been full of the public relations-friendly talking points you suggest no one would have cared if they were leaked. If you had actually read them you would know there is a lot of candid assessment contained therein. It is the very lack of diplo-speak that has made it impossible for some of the authors to continue on in that capacity, NOT malfeasance.

As to government worker identities being exposed, if that is a fear then the simple way to avoid that is not to work for the government. It's not like the people in the government are really careful about leaving alone the identities of people not in the government. See the FBI, CIA, IRS, etc. etc.

Let me make sure I have your train of logic understood: The US State Department is working against the interests of the US public. We would therefore be better off if there was no US State Department. The people working there know this or should know this so whatever happens to them is no more than what they deserve.

Assuming for the moment that my reading is more-or-less correct, would it be the case that this is not only true of the State Department, but much of if not all the rest of the US Government? It seems a logical deduction from your premise, unless we were to assume the State Department is somehow much different in it's purpose than the rest of the US government (it would also lead to the conclusion that we would be better off without the US government, period). What about the Department of Defense and its employees, otherwise known as the US armed forces. Are they also engaged in a betrayal of the public trust and therefore deserving of whatever fate their bad karma leads them to?

Of course, all of this ignores the fact that with regard to the State Department, it is not it's employees who are the most at risk. It's the people in the host countries they have been in contact with.

Oversight can really ruin your day.

The day Wikileaks becomes the unelected, unsupervised arbiter of right and wrong in the world is the day we are truly screwed. Fortunately, I suspect this may be their last hurrah.

[Vanir Ausf B]

http://wikileaks.org/IMG/jpg/ja-main.jpg

Is WikiLeaks keeping governments open? Has WikiLeaks made governments open in the first place? :confused:

Clearly they have caused some short-term embarrassment, some of it well-justified, some of it not. The long term effect, I feel, will not be towards the voluntary publication of internal diplomatic communication and intelligence sources. Rather, I think it will lead to the greater compartmentalizing of information, i.e. less communication and more secrecy.

[dieseltaylor]

The day Wikileaks become the unelected, unsupervised arbiter of right and wrong in the world the is day we are truely screwed.

Hugely unlikely to happen - and in fact I can think of a way to prevent it. Govt's and politicians and corporations become more honest and responsible in what is being done being a start.

And lets just remember that whilst its nice to rabbit on about the US Wikileaks has also revealed the financial duplicity of Baer Bank and Barclays Bank which is actually kind of useful to people like me.

Wikileaks sat on the Citibank info and regrettably that has now been lost through sabotage. The Citibank info was meant to be dynamite and I suspect would have revealed huge amounts of info that the banking community and Govt would prefer to be buried. So is it right that the tax-payer forks out to save these guys bacon? Or would the evidence of collusion and criminality lead to a major shake-up and the nationalisation of BoA.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/22/us-bankofamerica-wikileaks-idUSTRE77L55P20110822

It seems strange that insults are hurled on rejoicing on death but it is without a doubt the very lack of whistleblowing and more openess that allowed the US and UK to get involved in a truly stupid tragic war. The only pre-Iraq war whistleblower in the UK ended up dead apparently hounded to suicide. Great result for Blair when your leading expert tops himself.

[JonS]

Not any foreign citizen, but I was pleased when OBL got whacked. I am pleased when those who share his cause, or something close to it, meet their end, e.g. the Taliban.

As I understand it, Blackstone's formulation was "better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer," not "better that over 100,000 unrelated people in the wrong country be killed, and then ten years later a guilty man being hidden by our friends is killed too."

[dieseltaylor]

Nice one Jon : )

And for those who would prefer openness this just today becomes knowledge:

Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is godfather to one of Rupert Murdoch's young children, it has emerged. Mr Blair was present last March when Mr Murdoch's two daughters by his third wife, Wendi Deng, were baptised.

The revelation comes in an interview with Ms Deng in a forthcoming issue of fashion magazine Vogue.Tony Blair's office declined to comment on the report, which sheds new light on Mr Blair's ties with the media mogul.

Mr Blair, who is said to have been "robed in white" during the ceremony, is the godfather to Grace, the second youngest of Mr Murdoch's six children.

The nine-year-old was baptised with her younger sister Chloe, on the banks of the river Jordan, at the spot Jesus is said to have undergone the same ceremony, according to Vogue.

Photographs of the event, which took place a few weeks before the UK general election, were featured in Hello magazine, but Mr Blair's involvement was not revealed at the time.

Australian actors Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman were named as godparents to the two children but there was no mention of the former Labour leader, whose presence at the ceremony has only now been revealed by Ms Deng in a rare interview.

In the Vogue article, Mr Blair is described as "one of Murdoch's closest friends".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14785501

[Bigduke6]

My Google-foo must be weak. With regards to Wikileaks my search didn't bring up anything more salacious than the size of Blair's speaking fee since he left office.

Here's some possibilities I pulled up in about five minutes. I'd call it enough to make one decide there's evidence in Wikileaks Mr. Blair was up to no good when it came to Iraq:

US diplomats report Gordon Brown government considers Blair's expedition into Iraq a mistake: http://news.scotsman.com/wikileaks/Wikileaks-Gordon-Brown-39wanted-to.6779847.jp

US diplomats report Blair government in cahoots with big oil to grab Iraq: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/secret-memos-expose-link-between-oil-firms-and-invasion-of-iraq-2269610.html

US State department cable: Secret deal with Blair government to protect US interests during Chilicot inquiry: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/30/wikileaks-chilcot-iraq-war-inquiry

This hasn't directly to do with Blair, but it does directly undermine the Blair assertion prior Iraq that the Iraq war was moral, rightous, and something the British public should get behind:

US and Britain ignored torture of Iraq suspects: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/22/iraq-war-logs-military-leaks

As to the rest:

Yes, I'm guessing no one in the bureaucracies reads those cables. I suppose I should qualify that to, no one who makes any meaningful decisions.

You are however incorrect when you assert I have not read the cables. I have, some of them anyway, and entertaining reading they make, too. For instance...

http://cables.mrkva.eu/cable.php?id=163798

That is the text of a secret US State Department cable circa 2008 about a Russian youth movement that rabidly supports Vladimir Putin, and held a summer camp outside Moscow for its membership to hold prayer meetings and mock stock markets and camfire sing-alongs. As nearly as I can tell, one day a US embassy worker visited the camp along with a press pack.

The cable goes on for 2,500 words describing in painful detail the history, ideology, and political implications of the movement. In the conclusion it mentions that the Nashi movement had 10,000 members out of a Russian population of I think 135 million people last year (in 2007) and this year there were 5,000 members. Further, this US State Department cable conclusion is of an event not just covered by independent media, but attended at the exact time as the US diplomat by the independent media.

In other words, this is a report by a US embassy worker doing the exact same thing the professionals in the media did. The report is about a marginal organization with zero political influence, and the upshot of the report is that the organization got more marginal. Yet, despite the vacuousness and pointlessneess of that conclusion, the report and its contents is classified secret by the US government, and making that report public is a Federal crime.

I for one fail to see a compelling need to consider the contents of this cable a state secret. There is just information about a non-event of little interest to any one. I have over the course of my life come to doubt, sometimes, when government workers tell me they know best and I should trust them. This State Department cable adds weight to those doubts. YMMV.

Is the work that went into the report in the best interest of the taxpayers? Was the US public better off because their public servants with the State Department put no small effort into researching, writing up, vetting, approving, formatting, sending this report to each other, and oh by the way classifying its contents secret?

Before answering that, consider the cable's analytical omissions, which off the top of my head include:

- Failure to draw the screamingly obvious parallel between Russia's Nashi and the Soviet Union's Komsomol.

- Lack of any kind of background on the leader of Nashi, a guy named Borovikov, with whom the US embassy worker purportedly spoke while he toured the Nashi summer camp along with a press pack. What possible use is a study on a fringe political group without some information on the leader, is he a stooge, a rabid facist, an alien, what? Diplomats are supposed to think about stuff like that, not ignore it.

- Not even a hint of guesswork, educated or otherwise, as to who was financing the summer camp and what in the world he hoped to gain by it. (My personal guess, some oligarch trying to curry favor with Putin, no proof, just a gut feeling.)

So all in all, yes, I for one call would that a cable that no one would read, not least because it is worthless.

I would further call the effort that went into producing it wasted. And frankly, I would say the only people that benefit from the report's secret classification, are the government employees who were involved in producing the report, as its main importance in the real world (i.e., outside the government bureaucracy) is that it is a fairly solid piece of evidence of what happens if government workers are allowed to go on a silly field trip to a silly summer camp, without any one to tell them to stop wasting public resources.

That's just one classified US State Department cable. There are what, something like a half million of them?

Here is a linkie for several of the silliest:

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/americas/2011/09/04/wikileaks-five-funniest-cables-about-war-drugs

So yes, to move on to your next suggestion, I do indeed believe that at least some workers in the US State Department have acted and even are acting against the US public interest. Government waste and inefficiency are nothing new.

Of course, one must pick one's enemies, and heaven knows I'm not perfect myself. Heck, I've written plenty of awful reports in my day, but in my defense I never took taxpayer money to do it.

Anway, personally, I reserve my main anger when I'm of a mind to be angry at government for the senior US public servants that lead their countrymen into expensive unwinnable wars lacking moral justification, or waste really serious sums of taxpayer money, or push policies calculated to benefit corporate interests rather than average citizens. It's the government workers like those, in my estimation, that are doing the real damage to the Republic, and mark my words, they are.

Pretty much every great nation that ever was, was undone by venal government bureaucracy. Maybe it's part of the human condition but I don't have to like it when I see self-serving people drawing government pay betraying the public trust. I've read Gibbon, I know where that leads.

I certainly don't think the US would be better off without a State Department. But a State Department spending less time generating cables like that Nashi essay, yeah definately, the US would be better off without that. And yes, the State Department workers involved in producing that piece of horse hockey get no praise from me.

As to other members of other government agencies, I see the question fairly simply I think. There is the public trust. Each person betrays it, or he does not. If he doesn't, he may well be supressed by his agency, that's how bureaucracies work sometimes. If he does, then he may well have a future in the bureaucracy, after all he's one of the boys.

I would add that I'm not condoning assassination of government workers. But what I am saying is, if you are an active member of the group then you are one of the people responsible for the group's actions, and one of the people the group's opponents may very well dislike, and it is pointless to pretend otherwise. You may not like it, you may not think it is fair, but by your membership in the group you make yourself a potential target of the group's enemies. If you don't like that threat, don't join the group.

Finally, I don't think Wikileaks is the arbiter of right and wrong. Far from it. Each and every individual, on his own, is responsible for his actions. Not his organization. Membership in an organization never has made a person immune to responsibility for his acts, for even when a man acts as a member of a group, it is his individual decision to do so.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Well, Bigduke you've done a fine job cherry picking out a few turds to hold up in the air, but I don't think even you would claim they are representative of the majority, and the exceptions to not prove the rule. The problem here, as always, is that Wikileaks does not discriminate between the worthy and unworthy.

It is true that those who join any organization voluntarily assume the risks inherent with that profession, but IMO there is no reason to believe that the majority of people working at the State Department, or any other government agency, are engaged in betraying the public trust.

I will also reiterate my point that most of the people put at risk are not US government employees, but people in the host nations who have been working with them.

[Vanir Ausf B]

As I understand it, Blackstone's formulation was "better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer," not "better that over 100,000 unrelated people in the wrong country be killed, and then ten years later a guilty man being hidden by our friends is killed too."

So the Iraq war justifies "payback" as you put it?

I don't know who's formulation it was, but I have heard that two wrongs don't make a right.

[JonS]

So the Iraq war justifies "payback" as you put it?

There was this thing, in 2001. It happened some time in September as I recall - almost exactly 10 years ago, as it happens. You may have heard about it - it was in all the papers for a few days - and it was used to justify all kinds of oddity, including the Iraqi war.

I don't know who's formulation it was, but I have heard that two wrongs don't make a right.

I must say, I am very pleased to hear that you're against the extra-judicial killing of third-party nationals on friendly but foreign terroritory.

[Michael Emrys]

I don't know who's formulation it was, but I have heard that two wrongs don't make a right.

Which has always been a great defense for those who have committed a wrong and still hope to get away with it.

Michael

[Dietrich]

Though I agree with you, Vanir, for fun's sake I'm going to play advocatus diaboli a little:

I have heard that two wrongs don't make a right.

They do if the first wrong is done by The Man and the second wrong is done against (or to) The Man. In fact, in that context the second wrong can even be painted as a right.

one of those people who gets a little smile on his face when he hears of some US soldiers killed by an IED

If I were a non-American who disliked Americans and believed that they in general were pretty much the most bigoted, unintelligent, and violent people in the western world, I probably would get a bitterly wry little smile on my face when I heard that 17 SEALs died in a helicopter shootdown just three months after the same unit (though none of the same operators; that'd be almost too much of a coincidence) killed OBL.

[Vanir Ausf B]

There was this thing, in 2001. It happened some time in September as I recall - almost exactly 10 years ago, as it happens. You may have heard about it - it was in all the papers for a few days - and it was used to justify all kinds of oddity, including the Iraqi war.

That's right. And it was a poor justification for a stupid war.

But there was, and is, another war in a different country. It's called Afghanistan. You may have heard about it. It was people involved in that war that were affected by the Wikileaks publication of 75,000 Afghan war documents last year.

You can't just keep dredging up Iraq as justification for whatever action suits your fancy in perpetuity.

I must say, I am very pleased to hear that you're against the extra-judicial killing of third-party nationals on friendly but foreign terroritory.

I have said no such thing.

[Stalins Organ]

Here's your chance then - are you against the extra-judicial killing of third-party nationals on friendly but foreign terroritory??

[Vanir Ausf B]

Which has always been a great defense for those who have committed a wrong and still hope to get away with it.

The question is, are the people Wikileaks punishing the ones who have committed a wrong? In some cases yes, but in others no.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Here's your chance then - are you against the extra-judicial killing of third-party nationals on friendly but foreign terroritory??

I already said I was pleased to see OBL get whacked. I can't very well be in favor of that, but opposed to what you say.

[JonS]

It was people involved in that war that were affected by the Wikileaks publication of 75,000 Afghan war documents last year.

The Pentagon disagrees with you.

You can't just keep dredging up Iraq as justification for whatever action suits your fancy in perpetuity.

Sure, and I won't blame the US being responsible for the deaths of over 100,000 Iraqis - and thousands of others - for the failure of my patato crop. Or the flat tire I got on the way to work this morning. Or the three days of especially cold weather we've had recently. That would be silly.

But when, you know, someone releases some documents that reveal exactly how retarded the build up to and justification for the Iraqi war was, for some odd reason I honestly think it's reasonable to point out that the justification was retarded or that the retarded justification resulted in over 100,000 people losing their lives.

I have said no such thing. ... I already said I was pleased to see OBL get whacked. I can't very well be in favor of that, but opposed to [extra-judicial killing of third-party nationals on friendly but foreign terroritory].

So, wait; are two wrongs making a right or a wrong now?

[JonS]

The question is, are the people Wikileaks punishing the ones who have committed a wrong?

mmm. A better question is; are WL doing a 'wrong' in publishing the cables?

[And let it be noted - again - that WL is not on the hook for these ones. This latest, unredacted, flood is all down to the Guardian]

[Vanir Ausf B]

Though I agree with you, Vanir, for fun's sake I'm going to play advocatus diaboli a little:

No problem

They do if the first wrong is done by The Man and the second wrong is done against (or to) The Man. In fact, in that context the second wrong can even be painted as a right.

It could be. Depends on the context.

I do not consider the fact (and I will treat it as a given for the sake of argument) that the US made a mistake in invading Iraq as a blanket justification for anything anyone does against the US in general, or against any individual US citizen. Some may disagree.

If I were a non-American who disliked Americans and believed that they in general were pretty much the most bigoted, unintelligent, and violent people in the western world, I probably would get a bitterly wry little smile on my face when I heard that 17 SEALs died in a helicopter shootdown just three months after the same unit (though none of the same operators; that'd be almost too much of a coincidence) killed OBL.

Speaking for myself, I will readily admit the US has made mistakes. What country hasn't? But that doesn't mean I turn against them. I recognize others don't owe any such loyalty. But I'm open about what side I'm on.

[Vanir Ausf B]

The Pentagon disagrees with you.

No they don't. To the best of their knowledge, no one has been killed because of the releases. But that may be due in part to many of the informants having been moved onto US bases. And they have not located every informant.

But beyond that there are potential secondary effects that are difficult to quantify. What effect has the publication had on the willingness of other Afghans to work with the NATO forces? I don't know, but if I was an Afghan farmer seeing the names of other Afghans working with NATO published, and seeing the Taliban promise to find and punish them, I would think twice. In a COIN environment anything that damages the relationship with the native population is significant.

But when, you know, someone releases some documents that reveal exactly how retarded the build up to and justification for the Iraqi war was, for some odd reason I honestly think it's reasonable to point out that the justification was retarded or that the retarded justification resulted in over 100,000 people losing their lives.

Wikileaks has released relatively little regarding the build up to the Iraq war. The justification for that war was known to be retarded long before Wikileaks came along. In fact, it was known before the invasion even took place.

[JonS]

No they don't. To the best of their knowledge, no one has been killed because of the releases. But that may be due in part to many of the informants having been moved onto US bases. And they have not located every informant.

Or sopme of them might have caught a cold, or being gypped on their change, or any number of imaginary horrors. The fact remains that Pentagon has been specifically asked about this faux-fear of yours, and their response was 'nope, nothing.' The Pentagon. They have a lot more skin in this game than you, and it's in their interests to talk it up.

But beyond that there are potential secondary effects that are difficult to quantify. What effect has the publication had on the willingness of other Afghans to work with the NATO forces?

You say that like it'd be a bad thing.

I don't know

That much is clear.

[Vanir Ausf B]

mmm. A better question is; are WL doing a 'wrong' in publishing the cables?

Too broad. There are some cables, perhaps most of them, that are of little consequence. Others have revealed wrongdoing, although in the vast majority of cases it was malfeasance within the government of the host country that was being commented on rather than by the diplomats themselves. Others serve no purpose but to embarrass and damage the careers of people who are just doing their job.

I am not categorically against "whistleblowing". What I am against is the sort of shotgun methodology Wikileaks uses.

[And let it be noted - again - that WL is not on the hook for these ones. This latest, unredacted, flood is all down to the Guardian]

That depends on whos story you believe. The Guardian says Assange told them the password was temporary and then never bothered to change it. Assange denies this, of course.