Once again, Wikileaks is treating us to a huge stash of secret government documents, with the help of The New York Times, The Guardian and three other major newspapers. The decision to make these diplomatic cables public, according to the newspapers involved, was to do what's best for the public interest and to make known what's going on behind the scenes of the US government in this time of war, terrorism and economic troubles. The docs have been sifted for months, presented to officials for comment, and over the coming week will be doled out for all of us to see.
The response from the US government has been urgent: they began performing damage control in previous weeks to inform friendly government leaders of the potentially embarrassing and sensitive information that would be made public. The UK Ministry of Defence has urged the Guardian to refrain from publishing the cables out of concern for the lives of British citizens abroad.
On this first day of dissemination, it's hard to see what's surprising. On one hand, it's embarrassing that criticism of the leaders of US allies is public, but on the other hand who really believes that shit-talk doesn't go down behind the scenes in any institution? There seems to be some shock in reading about US spying on UN officials, but if a 12 year old can't be assured of privacy in an airport security line, why should we believe that top officials aren't being watched?
There are a couple of zingers - like how Yemen has taken the blame for some US bombing raids and how the US pressured Germany to drop arrest warrants for incompetent CIA officers who illegally held a German citizen for months in Afghanistan - but much of the info published today doesn't seem to be that surprising.
Not all of it is embarrassing, either. In fact, what's been seen so far just fills in some of the holes in news about world affairs - something that a good percentage of the US media tends to either ignore or spin. There is grave concern over Iran's nuclear capabilities, something we knew but perhaps not to the extent that we know now. Pakistan has been watched carefully due to the explosive environment enveloping that country, again something we kind of knew but now we know that there is more to the story.
It will be interesting to see what other information the publishing of these leaked documents reveals. Considering that we're still involved in two wars and watching other countries around the globe flirt with the possibility of war, getting a little in-depth news on what's going on will be a refreshing change from the typical political-lite that we get on a daily basis.
What do you think about the recent leaks, also known as cablegate? Are you looking forward to reading more or do you think that publishing the info is irresponsible?
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