WikiLeaks strikes again -- U.S. diplomacy stripped naked

[AiR]

I don't believe the world is quite like Jack Bauer wants us to believe, in either case, having diplomats spying at the UN is a clear breach of international law. Will someone take the fall? It'll be interesting to how it all plays out. The documents are up by the way, at http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/. Highly overloaded.

 

[argatoga]

I don't believe the world is quite like Jack Bauer wants us to believe, and having diplomats spying at the UN is a clear breach of international law. Nomix: yep.

It isn't necessary that secretive. A lot of it is gossip.

 

[AiR]

Well the order from Hillary Clinton to spy on the UN isnt gossip, it says so in plain text. But the documents themselves are not that secret no, the Guardian states Sirpnet is accessible for three million people. But it's very embarrasing stuff nonetheless. I wonder how Hillary, the rubbery old woman, will be greeted the next time she's on international business. She's very scary, please get rid of her.

 

[ahpadt]

Isn't it somewhat naive to think all governments don't do the exact same thing?

Exactly. I'm not at all surprised by all this.

 

[Cobol74]

The real question is who does it the best and puts the data so gathered to good (in both senses of the word) use. ...

 

[tigger]

... having diplomats spying at the UN is a clear breach of international law.

How so?

I wonder how Hillary, the rubbery old woman, will be greeted the next time she's on international business. She's very scary, please get rid of her.

She'll be treated the same as she ever was. No one is going to rebuke a senior foreign diplomat for doing the same thing they would.

The real question is who does it the best and puts the data so gathered to good (in both senses of the word) use. ...

True.

 

[phuckingduck]

I'm not gonna go spelunking through the leak myself, but from the excerpts I've seen not much of this is really that bad.

• Efforts to close Gitmo by having other countries take prisoners.
  
• Attempting to get highly enriched uranium out of Pakistan.
  
• Apparently Russia and Italy are butt buddies. Berlusconi and Putin exchange gifts and energy contracts.
  
• Ghadafhi has a busty blonde nurse who travels with him everywhere.
  
• Investigating fraud in the Afghani gov't.
  
• Saudi's pushing us to bomb Iran - us saying no.

Mind you this is all the initial reactions stuff, but I don't see anything so far that's really all that terrible. Most of it is either bad press for other nations or just the sort of thing we all expect from the international political class. Nothing that is particularly bad for America. Yet.

 

[Jay]

What the government should do is nothing; a sort of "well, there it is. Not like there is anything world shaking in there." and leave it at that. But no, they are going to freak out....

I wonder how Hillary, the rubbery old woman, will be greeted the next time she's on international business. She's very scary, please get rid of her.

What if I told she may the next President in a few years? It is a very good chance.

 

[Crazyjeeper]

As somebody who has studied past US foreign relations, sounds just like business as usual.

 

[GRtak]

I find this whole incident rather funny, although by now it really seems that they are picking on the US.

Other countries would hang him for this.

And the US goverment hasn't taken all of the proper precautions on security on computers and networks.

 

[jetsetter]

Approximately 20,000 people has responded to an MSNBC poll and about 2/3 voted that the information should not have been released.

http://msnbc.newsvine.com/_question...ret-us-diplomatic-correspondence-by-wikileaks

 

[mpicco]

I'm sure if they had released european information instead the poll would have been the exact opposite.

 

[Mitlov]

I'm not gonna go spelunking through the leak myself, but from the excerpts I've seen not much of this is really that bad.

• Efforts to close Gitmo by having other countries take prisoners.
  
• Attempting to get highly enriched uranium out of Pakistan.
  
• Apparently Russia and Italy are butt buddies. Berlusconi and Putin exchange gifts and energy contracts.
  
• Ghadafhi has a busty blonde nurse who travels with him everywhere.
  
• Investigating fraud in the Afghani gov't.
  
• Saudi's pushing us to bomb Iran - us saying no.

Mind you this is all the initial reactions stuff, but I don't see anything so far that's really all that terrible. Most of it is either bad press for other nations or just the sort of thing we all expect from the international political class. Nothing that is particularly bad for America. Yet.

Exactly. When I read the WikiLeaks reports on Iraq and Afghanistan, I was incredibly upset, perhaps nauseated. When I read this stuff, I smirked. Come on, diplomats saying mean stuff about each other behind their back? Such is the way of the world. Nothing here that bothers me.

 

[Hidden_Hunter]

In my view, things are kept confidential for a reason. I do not like Wikileaks, if such a thing were around in WWII who knows what would happen?

Jullian Asanage is more than happy to just tear into America and the coalition but when he's called up as a a rapist he calls it slander. To me he is just a slimy git,

Asanage just comes across as a massive douche that isn't doing this for anyone but himself

 

[MacGuffin]

I also don't see any major problems in the relationship between befriended states by this -- some opposition parties will surely have a field day, though Relationships are solid enough and we all know, that the American side also has enough politicians to laugh about in their ranks.

However, it could complicate things in the Middle East -- since some Arabic states now have their pants pulled down diplomatically -- and with countries like Pakistan.

At the least it could become more difficult for the USA to collect intelligence from their human sources, because I'm sure that just about every U.S. diplomat will get to hear this for some time: "Oh, when I tell you, will I read about it on WikiLeaks tomorrow?"

:lol:

 

[hajj]

Other countries would hang him for this.

Sure in other countries Assange would have been thrown into prison after the helicopter video, but the beauty of a proper (western) democracy is that they still obey to their own laws.

 

[MacGuffin]

That might be true but it wouldn't surprise me anyway, if he'd have an "accident" soon.

 

[Hidden_Hunter]

I suspect he's kept the juiciest stuff in escrow to save his own ass for that very reason

 

[Dr_Grip]

What i find interesting is the emphasize wikileaks puts on anti-american releases. While, of course, the disproportionately high involvement of the US (as the world's last remaining superpower) in world politics means that there's more dirt to dig up than with even a leading European nation like Germany, i still wonder what WikiLeaks' agenda might be.

I won't go as far as calling Assange a CIA mole, but the "Ha-Ha look at the US!" content of this leak sure comes in handy to distract the European populace.
While we are laughing at diplomats doing what they are paid for (that is, deliver cutting-edge analysis), our own politicians call for ending the freedom of press (Siegfried Kauder, head of German parliament's justice sub-comittee) or detaining all potential terrorists (read: people who have not done anything, but are suspected by whichever police force to have potential to commit terror acts in the future shall be put into camps - Norbert Geis, expert for interior politics with Germany's ruling CSU).


Apart from this - as said more than once in this thread: Except wiretapping the UN, there's nothing in the releases so far that comes as a surprise. The "scandalous" opinions of U.S. personell in Berlin about our leaders echo the assessment you can hear everywhere people talk politics, it would have been strange if the U.S., for some reason, would be nicer in their assessement then we, the informed public, are.

And seriously, who is surprised by Ghadaffi travelling with a bit-titted nurse after this?

EDIT: (Alleged) Pics of nurse!

 

[ViperVX]

If this is the journalism of the 21st century, I love it. Unbiased, non-analytical, straight-up delivered actually important and interesting information, rather than helicopter shots of Paris Hilton going to or out of prison. The kind of journalism that can get the author shot or imprisoned, great stuff.

Although, I'm not as much interested in International stuff, as in the upcoming release of material about corruption in Russia, with names. Of course everyone here knows "what's going on", just like people "knew" most of the things from these reports, but those things are always clouded, and it's always nice to hear it in comprehensive form, with names, connections and all the rest of it. As always, in Russia, those named would have to either get out immediately or commit suicide, since toleration level is below zero at this point.