5 ms·

I've read the "best of" coverage of the leaked cables, and honestly, speaking as somebody who usually doesn't have a problem getting interested in world affairs

by dkarl 16y ago

I've read the "best of" coverage of the leaked cables, and honestly, speaking as somebody who usually doesn't have a problem getting interested in world affairs, it didn't seem like there were any big revelations. The coverage was all along the lines of, "Everybody knew this, but it's humorous/scandalous/juicy that somebody got caught saying it." If Anonymous finds anything shocking in the cables, they will make the MSM look lazy and incompetent.

jackvalentine 16y ago
This is a comment I see a lot of American forums, for those of us elsewhere though the things that our diplomats and politicans have been saying to you guys have been large revelations. Like how one of our mining companies sunk Chinese investment in one of our other mining companies, or how our government really feels about the prospects for Afghanistan. How one of our federal political powerbrokers has been feeding information to the USA about the inside tussles of his party. The revelations won't have any kind of mind-blowing effect, but the cumulative picture they paint is VERY important.
ezyang 16y ago
This can still have an important effect. > Most of the cables that have come to light so far have not provided new information. It was no great secret that Libya had probably put pressure on the UK over the Megrahi release, that the US was doing strikes in Yemen etc, even if no one was prepared to confirm this in public. But if this was reported by the US government - and then pushed into the mainstream of public debate by journalists for highly respected news organizations, it became common knowledge that could not easily be ignored. Not only did everyone know it - everyone knew that everyone else knew it too. This explains Rachman's paradox - why apparently banal revelations can have very important political consequences. http://www.themonkeycage.org/2010/12/wikileaks_and_the_difference_b.html http://www.themonkeycage.org/2010/12/wikileaks_and_the_diffe...
- ryanwaggoner 16y ago
  I think you're really being optimistic if you expect any kind of insightful geopolitical analysis or even recognition from the Anon army. I doubt 99% of them even know what they're looking for in these cables.
jacquesm 16y ago
For now the fraction of the cables that has been released is actually pretty small.
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  Except to the Guardian, Der Spiegel, and the NYT. They got them all.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    That's true. I don't think they're going to pass them all on except on a much longer timescale (decades, likely). If the whole cache is ever going to hit the streets in plaintext it will likely be through wikileaks.
  - goatforce5 16y ago
    So at what point at those organisations going to start getting heat for being in possession of classified documents? Why is Assange taking so much heat (yes, I know he wanted to be the lightning rod)? Is it merely that it would look bad to go after 'name-brand' news sources?
    - steveklabnik 16y ago
      Yep.
    - blasdel 16y ago
      Assange is getting the heat because he's purposefully seeking it out — even with the case in Sweden he fanned the flames earlier this year so that it could blow up now
      - borism 16y ago
        any reference on how he "fanned the flames"?
ThomPete 16y ago
As I understand it the point of the leaks or not the documents per se but the actual leak of them. As stated elsewhere According to his essay, Julian Assange is trying to do something else. Because we all basically know that the US state — like all states — is basically doing a lot of basically shady things basically all the time, simply revealing the specific ways they are doing these shady things will not be, in and of itself, a necessarily good thing. In some cases, it may be a bad thing, and in many cases, the provisional good it may do will be limited in scope. The question for an ethical human being — and Assange always emphasizes his ethics — has to be the question of what exposing secrets will actually accomplish, what good it will do, what better state of affairs it will bring about. And whether you buy his argument or not, Assange has a clearly articulated vision for how Wikileaks’ activities will “carry us through the mire of politically distorted language, and into a position of clarity,” a strategy for how exposing secrets will ultimately impede the production of future secrets. The point of Wikileaks — as Assange argues — is simply to make Wikileaks unnecessary. http://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/julian-assange-and-the-computer-conspiracy-%E2%80%9Cto-destroy-this-invisible-government%E2%80%9D/ http://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/julian-assange-an...
- zachrose 16y ago
  There's a similarly interesting line of thought going through the Rubberhose encrypted file system, an earlier Assange project. In both cases, the moral victory is not an immediate part of the action or product. It's about the secondary effects of living in a world where coercive force is no longer rational.
- pbhjpbhj 16y ago
  This seems naive to me in at least two ways. That revealing past secrets will somehow make governments more transparent - they'll use encryption and off-record remarks, watch what they say, ensure records are destroyed, tighten security protocols. But IMO, and it is just that, they will still keep the same secrets and have the same covert conversations and exchange the same messages.
  - ThomPete 16y ago
shykes 16y ago
I think you're mistaken. As an example, here's coverage of how "the Embassy of the United States in Madrid wielded powerful resources in an extraordinary effort to impede or terminate pending criminal investigations in Spain". http://harpers.org/archive/2010/12/hbc-90007836 http://harpers.org/archive/2010/12/hbc-90007836
- dkarl 16y ago
  Attention has focused on three separate matters, each pending in the Spanish national security court, the Audiencia Nacional: the investigation into the 2003 death of a Spanish cameraman, José Cuoso, as a result of the mistaken shelling of Baghdad’s Palestine Hotel by a U.S. tank; an investigation into the torture of Spanish subjects held at Guantánamo; and a probe into the use of Spanish bases and airfields for extraordinary renditions flights, including the one which took Khaled El-Masri to Baghdad and then on to Afghanistan in 2003. I didn't know about any of these cases in particular, but as an American I see nothing surprising (sadly) in the fact that the U.S. tried to obstruct these investigations. In two cases American acts are the target of the investigation. In the other case it is the acts of people helping the U.S. government, whom the U.S. has even more powerful incentive to protect. So I guess it was a surprise to Spaniards how much the U.S. was able to affect the investigations? I don't know enough about the Spanish justice system to know what standards to expect, but criminal investigations into another nation's actions in other countries (the first two cases) seem explicitly political to me anyway, hence naturally amenable to diplomatic "pressure."
- auxbuss 16y ago
  More than that, the editor of El País said [0]: All in all, it's been the biggest story I've had in my five years as editor of El País, without any doubt. And measured by its international impact, it's probably the biggest story this newspaper has ever been involved with. He also mentions the impact in Latin America. [0] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/09/wikileaks-cables-huge-impact-spain http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/09/wikileaks-cables...
smokinn 16y ago
No big revelations? What about DynCorp? US-based private security contractor DynCorp, who was hired by the US to train Afghani police, was apparently supplying drugs and young boys for a sort of sex party. The details are horrifying. The Afghani interior minister apparently went to US officials to warn them that reporters were sniffing around this story, and urged them to try to kill the story. He specifically warned that this would look bad if the connection to DynCorp was made clear (he called them "foreign mentors"). Apparently, US diplomats told him not to worry, and the eventual story was in fact watered down greatly (until now, of course) calling the whole thing a "tribal dance," rather than a party where young boys wear "scanty women's clothes" and "dance seductively" before being "auctioned off to the highest bidder" for sex. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101208/00221812176/so-wikileaks-is-evil-releasing-documents-dyncorp-gets-pass-pimping-young-boys-to-afghan-cops.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101208/00221812176/so-wik... There's also the fact that everyone knows the Afghani election was rigged but while the Canadian ambassador wanted to do something about it the US didn't. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/250218 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/...

by dkarl 16y ago

jackvalentine 16y ago

This is a comment I see a lot of American forums, for those of us elsewhere though the things that our diplomats and politicans have been saying to you guys have been large revelations. Like how one of our mining companies sunk Chinese investment in one of our other mining companies, or how our government really feels about the prospects for Afghanistan. How one of our federal political powerbrokers has been feeding information to the USA about the inside tussles of his party. The revelations won't have any kind of mind-blowing effect, but the cumulative picture they paint is VERY important.

ezyang 16y ago

This can still have an important effect. > Most of the cables that have come to light so far have not provided new information. It was no great secret that Libya had probably put pressure on the UK over the Megrahi release, that the US was doing strikes in Yemen etc, even if no one was prepared to confirm this in public. But if this was reported by the US government - and then pushed into the mainstream of public debate by journalists for highly respected news organizations, it became common knowledge that could not easily be ignored. Not only did everyone know it - everyone knew that everyone else knew it too. This explains Rachman's paradox - why apparently banal revelations can have very important political consequences. http://www.themonkeycage.org/2010/12/wikileaks_and_the_difference_b.html http://www.themonkeycage.org/2010/12/wikileaks_and_the_diffe...

ryanwaggoner 16y ago
I think you're really being optimistic if you expect any kind of insightful geopolitical analysis or even recognition from the Anon army. I doubt 99% of them even know what they're looking for in these cables.

jacquesm 16y ago

For now the fraction of the cables that has been released is actually pretty small.

steveklabnik 16y ago
Except to the Guardian, Der Spiegel, and the NYT. They got them all.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  That's true. I don't think they're going to pass them all on except on a much longer timescale (decades, likely). If the whole cache is ever going to hit the streets in plaintext it will likely be through wikileaks.
- goatforce5 16y ago
  So at what point at those organisations going to start getting heat for being in possession of classified documents? Why is Assange taking so much heat (yes, I know he wanted to be the lightning rod)? Is it merely that it would look bad to go after 'name-brand' news sources?
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    Yep.
  - blasdel 16y ago
    Assange is getting the heat because he's purposefully seeking it out — even with the case in Sweden he fanned the flames earlier this year so that it could blow up now
    - borism 16y ago
      any reference on how he "fanned the flames"?

ThomPete 16y ago

As I understand it the point of the leaks or not the documents per se but the actual leak of them. As stated elsewhere According to his essay, Julian Assange is trying to do something else. Because we all basically know that the US state — like all states — is basically doing a lot of basically shady things basically all the time, simply revealing the specific ways they are doing these shady things will not be, in and of itself, a necessarily good thing. In some cases, it may be a bad thing, and in many cases, the provisional good it may do will be limited in scope. The question for an ethical human being — and Assange always emphasizes his ethics — has to be the question of what exposing secrets will actually accomplish, what good it will do, what better state of affairs it will bring about. And whether you buy his argument or not, Assange has a clearly articulated vision for how Wikileaks’ activities will “carry us through the mire of politically distorted language, and into a position of clarity,” a strategy for how exposing secrets will ultimately impede the production of future secrets. The point of Wikileaks — as Assange argues — is simply to make Wikileaks unnecessary. http://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/julian-assange-and-the-computer-conspiracy-%E2%80%9Cto-destroy-this-invisible-government%E2%80%9D/ http://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/julian-assange-an...

zachrose 16y ago
There's a similarly interesting line of thought going through the Rubberhose encrypted file system, an earlier Assange project. In both cases, the moral victory is not an immediate part of the action or product. It's about the secondary effects of living in a world where coercive force is no longer rational.
pbhjpbhj 16y ago
This seems naive to me in at least two ways. That revealing past secrets will somehow make governments more transparent - they'll use encryption and off-record remarks, watch what they say, ensure records are destroyed, tighten security protocols. But IMO, and it is just that, they will still keep the same secrets and have the same covert conversations and exchange the same messages.
- ThomPete 16y ago

shykes 16y ago

I think you're mistaken. As an example, here's coverage of how "the Embassy of the United States in Madrid wielded powerful resources in an extraordinary effort to impede or terminate pending criminal investigations in Spain". http://harpers.org/archive/2010/12/hbc-90007836 http://harpers.org/archive/2010/12/hbc-90007836

dkarl 16y ago
Attention has focused on three separate matters, each pending in the Spanish national security court, the Audiencia Nacional: the investigation into the 2003 death of a Spanish cameraman, José Cuoso, as a result of the mistaken shelling of Baghdad’s Palestine Hotel by a U.S. tank; an investigation into the torture of Spanish subjects held at Guantánamo; and a probe into the use of Spanish bases and airfields for extraordinary renditions flights, including the one which took Khaled El-Masri to Baghdad and then on to Afghanistan in 2003. I didn't know about any of these cases in particular, but as an American I see nothing surprising (sadly) in the fact that the U.S. tried to obstruct these investigations. In two cases American acts are the target of the investigation. In the other case it is the acts of people helping the U.S. government, whom the U.S. has even more powerful incentive to protect. So I guess it was a surprise to Spaniards how much the U.S. was able to affect the investigations? I don't know enough about the Spanish justice system to know what standards to expect, but criminal investigations into another nation's actions in other countries (the first two cases) seem explicitly political to me anyway, hence naturally amenable to diplomatic "pressure."
auxbuss 16y ago
More than that, the editor of El País said [0]: All in all, it's been the biggest story I've had in my five years as editor of El País, without any doubt. And measured by its international impact, it's probably the biggest story this newspaper has ever been involved with. He also mentions the impact in Latin America. [0] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/09/wikileaks-cables-huge-impact-spain http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/09/wikileaks-cables...

smokinn 16y ago

No big revelations? What about DynCorp? US-based private security contractor DynCorp, who was hired by the US to train Afghani police, was apparently supplying drugs and young boys for a sort of sex party. The details are horrifying. The Afghani interior minister apparently went to US officials to warn them that reporters were sniffing around this story, and urged them to try to kill the story. He specifically warned that this would look bad if the connection to DynCorp was made clear (he called them "foreign mentors"). Apparently, US diplomats told him not to worry, and the eventual story was in fact watered down greatly (until now, of course) calling the whole thing a "tribal dance," rather than a party where young boys wear "scanty women's clothes" and "dance seductively" before being "auctioned off to the highest bidder" for sex. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101208/00221812176/so-wikileaks-is-evil-releasing-documents-dyncorp-gets-pass-pimping-young-boys-to-afghan-cops.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101208/00221812176/so-wik... There's also the fact that everyone knows the Afghani election was rigged but while the Canadian ambassador wanted to do something about it the US didn't. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/250218 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/...