dagblog - Comments for "Wikileaks: America's senior moment "

Quinn, you're on it. It is

Oxy Mora — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 21:08:11 +0000

Quinn, you're on it. It is the enormity of it we're not getting. And it was predictable. And if Assange didn't exist he would be invented.

Bruce,I'm not at all ready to

David Seaton — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 16:34:55 +0000

In reply to Oleeb:I think that the

Bruce,

I'm not at all ready to say the Israelis are behind this business. If they form part of "the usual suspects" it is because they have a reputation (of which they are quite proud) of being clever, professional and ruthless. But there are others who fit that description too. And it could be a rogue element of any intelligence service including ours.

What I am almost sure of is that this is not a genuine "amateur-citizen" thing.

Q, this sounds like

Richard Day — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 16:34:07 +0000

In reply to Dagblog Friends:I believe we

Q, this sounds like homosexual terrorism.

http://www.newsy.com/videos/bill-o-reilly-comparing-homosexuals-to-terrorists/

Now I aint sayin you are a homosexual terrorism.

Just sayin!!!

Oleeb:I think that the

Bruce Levine — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 16:21:40 +0000

In reply to David,I find your position on

Oleeb:

I think that the content of the wiki documents thus far have caused many people who are ordinarily skeptical and inclined to distrust government secrecy to see these particular leaks from a different perspective. And I think much of that is content-driven. I cannot remember a time when so many folks on what we classify as "the left" have expressed reservations about government disclosure. Indeed, I can't think of any example since before the Pentagon Papers even when there was so much criticism from "the left" about unauthorized disclosure

In David's case, and I don't mean to pick on David but it is his blogpost and I always read his stuff, he has, as you know, expressed in both pictures and words a conviction that American war policy in Iraq and potentially Iran is driven by the Israelis and supporters of the State of Israel. Thus far, the documents that have been leaked unambiguously suggest otherwise, and tell a story that is entirely different from what I contend to be be anIsrael-centric meme that is derivative an ugly trope with long-standing and consistent historical predicate.

I think we need to look at the wiki disclosure from different angles We should have an inherent distrust of government officials, and we need to support effective and real controls on governmental secrecy. But I also recognize the importance of governmental secrecy in many instances and under all sorts of circumstances. And I think that striking that balance between necessary secrets and our right to know is where this discussion should be focused.

Bruce

Yes yes yes! Or providing

we are stardust — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 16:16:55 +0000

In reply to That is an excellent

Yes yes yes! Or providing disinformation. Seems likje we fall for all of it as some Truth when it may just be more Spin.

Yes, your statement is what

moat — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 16:14:24 +0000

In reply to That is an excellent

Yes, your statement is what occurred to me when learning the size of the group who had legitimate access to the diplomatic cables.

To paraphrase Burns, if you

Donal — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 16:12:28 +0000

In reply to That is an excellent

To paraphrase Burns, if you can fake candor, you've got it made.

That is an excellent

Michael Maiello — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 15:56:08 +0000

In reply to One element in the post that

That is an excellent observation. How do we know that diplomats talk to their people in platitudes but to each other with candor? Everybody assumes that's the case... that with us they're acting but we each other they're genuine. But it makes just as much, if not more sense to assume that they are acting with each other too.

One element in the post that

moat — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 15:46:11 +0000

In reply to Wikileaks: America's senior moment

One element in the post that the excellent debates going on up thread did not touch upon is the following:

Many are shocked by what they read in these cables. They seem to be suffering from a political version of "primal scene", you know, the trauma little children experience when they first discover what mommy and daddy do after they tuck the toddlers into bed.

Looking past the patronizing aspect of dismissing interlocutors as too childish to participate in rational discourse, the conditions of this place "where things really happen" is interesting.

The privacy of the scene allows one to act without concern for appearances. The scene is not intended to be a display. As a measure of candor, the intention to put on a show conceals what is "really happening".

So, in your example of Arab leaders voicing thoughts not in alignment with their populations, it would be naive to think that what was being said to U.S. diplomats was not intended as a display. The kind of thing that really frightens children like me is learning how Hillary Clinton is actually John Bolton with the mustache tucked up behind the bangs.

I would text more on the topic but my home economics teacher says it is my turn to make waffles.

I finally went back and read

Atheist — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 14:39:12 +0000

In reply to Plenty of ire here for both

I finally went back and read (or skimmed through) most of the comments on Ramona's blog. I have to say I didn't really find it to be full of ire. Sure, there were criticisms of Assange and Wikileaks, but I didn't find anything particularly villifying. I can't say I read every single last comment, but I did search on "Assange" (speaking of which - where's dijamo when you need her?), and nothing cruel at all stood out at me. What I did see was a support of my original assumptions about where Ramona was coming from. In her opening paragraph:

While nearly everyone in my world is cheering the release of a staggering 400,000 classified U.S documents by the website, WikiLeaks, in order to expose war crimes and atrocities by the U.S and its allies during both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, I can't help but dread the direction in which we're heading.

So, she's starting from the premise that everyone in her world is already familiar with the benefits of uncovering secrets, but she wants to warn of the dangers, as well. I don't agree with everything she wrote, but I'm fairly certain she was not only not asserting that governments have the right to keep any secrets they please, but that she was also assuming that her audience didn't require any explanation about the benefits of whistleblowing (since she was clearly assuming that they were all, or at least mostly, in favor of it).