Hooray For WikiLeaks

[poliphilo]

1. I've returned to reading the papers online. That's mainly because I want to keep abreast of the WikiLeaks saga. Today we're hearing about Russia- and how the Government and the mafia are hand in hand. 

2. A little of nugget of British interest is this. Britain signed up to a treaty banning cluster bombs. The US didn't. The House of Commons was told that all supplies of the bloody things would be removed from US bases on British territory, only- behind the scenes- the Foreign Office cooked up a wangle which allowed things to carry on as normal. David Miliband is choosing not to comment.

Cluster bombs are foul. The bomb bursts and distributes lots of little bomblets which can hang around forever. People in Vietnam are still being killed by bomblets that were dropped over 30 years ago. 

3. The US government has pressurised Amazon into pulling the plug on WikiLeaks. The methods are different, but I don't see- morally- that this is so very different from what happens in China. Either you cherish freedom of speech- or you don't.  

4. Here's an article- from the L.A. Times in which two federal agents argue that WikiLeaks (if it had existed back then) might have stopped the 9/11 attacks. 

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's Utopian, I know, but if governments were obliged to do their business in public there would be much less corruption and skulduggery.

One of the things that has emerged from the material published in this morning's Guardian is that Britain's allies- Afghan and American- think the British military have been doing a crap job in Helmand. This is in direct contradiction to all the "brave boys" stuff our government has been feeding us. When governments lie about a matter that is costing soldiers'lives I believe the public's right to know is absolute.

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

I disagree.

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

And this article gets the specific problem with Assange, right down to his motives based on what he's actually said, precisely correct.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, Assange's actions have a downside. I wouldn't deny it. I suppose it comes down to the belief that the good he's done outweighs the evil.

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

The problem I have with it is that, after working inside the government, I have an appreciation of just how much good has to be done in secret.

My impression over the years has been that we have a lot to fear from brazen thuggishness because it commands respect; no one ever really hides it. But even thugs will do the right thing, so long as you don't tell anyone. It might ruin their reputation.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's a game: the powerful try to hide things and journalists try to find them out. Recently there's been a falling away of the kind of investigative journalism that delivered the Watergate scandal. WikiLeaks is making good the democratic deficit.

No doubt, after this, it will be made harder for this kind of leak to occur- and those whose job it is to find things out will have to try other methods.

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

That's the difference, though: investigative journalists worked hard to find actual wrongdoing and expose it. WikiLeaks just exposes things en masse, damaging secret do-gooding and do-wronging alike.

I mean, do you honestly think that we could publicly develop a post-North Korea contingency plan with South Korea and China? Hell no. But that whole region is infinitely better off with it in place.

Actually, that revelation alone gave me a very positive view of our diplomatic efforts. I'm glad to know that something I considered a huge World War III level problem was secretly solved.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Megan McCardle is a joke, though, a pseudo-intellectual pseudo-libertarian turning tricks for her corporate masters. No sensible and sane person believes that the US military should be "nation building", yet that is just one of the greater goods McCardle claims is threatened by Assange and his gang of hacker hooligans.

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

Why don't you give examples rather than fulminate?

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

I already did, actually. McMegan advanced "nation building" as one of our military's missions threatened by wikileaks. It was one of the first supposed negative consequences of the leaked cables she cited. Setting aside whether the claim is true -- it isn't -- either the woman believes in "nation building" or she mouths the words because others believe it. Ergo, she is either stupid or dishonest.

And having followed McMegan for some years, now, I am quite convinced that it is the former. The woman is a useful idiot and this article is painfully typical of her work. It might make sense to those unaccustomed to questioning the conventional wisdom of the hour, but unravels like a cheap sweater on examination.

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

That doesn't match up. McArdle doesn't profess doesn't profess support or opposition to nation-building here. She's just citing it as one non-violent military activity which is potentially hampered by WikiLeaks in contrast to drone attacks, which probably aren't.

I think you're really overinterpreting here.