first off, i am amused by the official american responses to this. actually by most of the official responses to it. this guardian blog is the best more-or-less real time compendium that i've found of the reactions. if you follow another and it's good, by all means please post it.
WikiLeaks US embassy cables: live updates | News | guardian.co.uk
here's a summary of the main areas covered in yesterday's release of state department cables and other information, most of which is somewhere between personal and secret:
Wikileaks embassy cables: the key points at a glance | World news | guardian.co.uk
i have to say that i find alot of what i've read so far from the cache(s) of documents to be interesting, particularly the material that's come out about iran, the pressures that are and have been placed on the united states to "do something," where it's come from and the duration of it.
i don't buy much of anything from the american official reactions and think all this conservative whining about "treason" to be laughable. (pace peter king, who's always good for a laugh or two)
what do you think of this leak?
what have you learned from it? are you looking at the material or being a good little american and not looking? because then of course, all the information will just go away. la la la, i'm not listening...
do you think it compromises american positions internationally, as the conservatives and others are claiming?
the way i figure it, the only problem this release causes is embarrassment, and even that is difficult to determine the root of, really. because in this case much of what's in these cables is likely known one way or another. but it does cross networks, make things that may be commonplace in some channels but non-existent in others more evenly present. personally, i dont see that as a problem---quite the contrary. but american officialdom isn't reacting the same way.
what do you make of the situation concerning iran based on this material? this seems to most explosive information yet released...does it change your general view of iran? of american policy toward iran?
again, i don't see this endangering anything or anyone--but it does make things a little bit more transparent.
i'm glad these people are doing what they're doing.
---------- Post added at 07:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:10 PM ----------
here's a different list of the areas of interest covered in the leak. it highlights the spying on the united nations (squalid.) and the secret war in yemen (yeah...):
Quote:
The 10 most important WikiLeaks revelations
From Iran to Yemen to Israel to North Korea to the U.N. -- what the leaked documents tell us about the world
The AP has concluded that there is nothing "particularly explosive" so far in the archive of State Department cables that has begun to be released by WikiLeaks. That assertion is debatable in itself. But anyone who takes time to browse through the documents will find both fascinating and solidly new and newsworthy information about U.S. foreign policy and international relations.
WikiLeaks says the documents will be released in stages "over the next few months," so much of what we know now comes through the filter of the handful of media organizations who had access to the full archives. Only a few hundred cables have been released. Here are the top 10 revelations so far:
* Diplomats as spies: As part of an intelligence gathering effort, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2009 ordered diplomats overseas and at the U.N. to collect personal information on foreign officials including credit card and frequent flier numbers and biometric information. Read that cable here, and the New York Times' writeup here. While this may not be shocking to foreign policy wonks, it is certainly embarrassing for the United States and calls into question how much -- and how frequently -- the role of diplomat and spy has been blurred.
* Secret war in Yemen: The Obama administration has secretly launched missile attacks on suspected terrorists in Yemen, with the Yemeni government taking responsibility and consistently lying about it. While the attacks have drawn relatively little public attention, dozens of civilians along with some suspected terrorists have reportedly been killed. Salon's account of the Yemen revelation is here. The January 2010 cable describing a meeting between Yemen's president and Gen. David Petraeus is here.
* Iran and North Korea: American intelligence believes Iran has received 19 missiles from North Korea with a range up to 2,000 miles, making them the longest-range missiles in the Iranian arsenal. The Times' story on the missiles is here. The Times says it did not publish the cable at the request of the Obama administration. It has not been posted by WikiLeaks.
* Gates skeptical on Iran attack: Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, in a meeting with his French counterpart in February of this year, said that "he believed a conventional strike by any nation would only delay Iranian plans by one to three years, while unifying the Iranian people to be forever embittered against the attacker." That cable is here.
* Saudis want U.S. to bomb Iran: Several Arab leaders have privately urged the U.S. to launch an attack on Iran to stall or stop its nuclear program. Most memorably, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is reported to have "told you [the U.S.] to cut off the head of the snake," according to a Saudi diplomat . That cable is here. And here is the Guardian's write-up.
* Israel bluffing on Iran threats? The government of Israel, which has been publicly vocal about the possibility of launching airstrikes against Iran's nuclear program, was not considering such an attack, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told his Russian counterpart on a trip to Moscow in June 2009. The cable describing Lieberman's trip to Russia is here. A story on the cable from the Israeli press is here.
* Fears of uranium in Pakistan: The U.S. has since 2007 tried to get enriched uranium at a Pakistani nuclear reactor out of that country, fearing that the uranium could fall into unfriendly hands and be used to make a bomb. The effort has been unsuccessful. The Times' story on this is here. The cable has not been published.
* Fatah had warning of Gaza invasion? Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told an American congressional delegation that Israel had asked Egypt and Fatah, the Palestian movement that governs the West Bank, "if they were willing to assume control of Gaza once Israel defeated Hamas" prior to Israeli's devastating attack on Gaza in late 2008. That revelation comes in a June 2009 cable that you can read here. Haaretz's writeup is here.
* Afghan corruption: The U.S. government deals regularly with a brother of President Hamid Karzai whom it believes to be corrupt and a drug trafficker. That's the conclusion of a cable from October 2009 about Ahmed Wali Karzai, who has also been reported to be on the CIA payroll. This does not come as a shock, but it amounts to official recognition that a U.S. partner in Afghanistan is implicated in criminal enterprises. AFP has more on this story.
* Undiplomatic name-calling: This is probably less important than the revelations above, but it is already making waves in the international press: Several of the cables have U.S. diplomats describing foreign leaders in unfriendly terms -- from comparing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Hitler to calling Russia's Vladimir Putin "alpha-dog" and French President Nicolas Sarkozy "the emperor with no clothes." The CBC has more.
What are we missing here? Shoot us an e-mail if you see anything of interest in the documents.
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The 10 most important WikiLeaks revelations - War Room - Salon.com
the linked version is better because you can use this list to access stories about the specific situations and use those to shape access to the documents, should you be so inclined.