3 More Cheers for WikiLeaks

Anyone who favors self-government should support the efforts by WikiLeaks to expose official lies. Their latest release of hundreds of thousands of State Department diplomatic cables will hopefully undermine the piety and pretentiousness of U.S. foreign policy for years.

The Obama administration is rolling out the same old “people will die!” hobgoblin in response to the latest disclosures. But as Nancy Yousef notes today in an article distributed by McClatchy newspapers, “Despite similar warnings before the previous two releases of classified U.S. intelligence reports by the website, U.S. officials concede that they have no evidence to date that the documents led to anyone’s death.”

WikiLeaks provides a great litmus test for American politics. The vast majority of congressmen who rush forward to denounce WikiLeaks’ disclosures have themselves done little or nothing to expose or challenge the official lies that have long permeated U.S. foreign and military policy.

It would be wrong to assume that WikiLeaks is disclosing the whole truth and nothing but the truth about U.S. government policy. The leaks routinely show facts and policies that profoundly contradict official pronouncements. But simply because a government document is classified as “top secret” doesn’t mean that it is not full of crap.

This riff by Arthur Silber deftly captures the higher philosophical issues involved in this latest WikiLeaks controversy.

15 thoughts on “3 More Cheers for WikiLeaks”

  1. I'm not buying the latest round of wikileaks, despite initial optimism that wikileaks would expose the evil of the war on terror, its becoming pretty clear with each round of that 'leaks', that the whole thing is carefully stage managed kabuki,

    Not that I think the U.S. innocent of the content of the leaks, but rather that the leaks are being used as cover by other parties, equally, or even more guilty of some of the worst excesses in the 'war of terror'.

  2. The leaks will kill people? But isn't the whole point here that people are needlessly dying and being put through Hell already? Assange is a saint with courage.Keep those leaks coming and stop the wars.

    1. "But isn't the whole point here that people are needlessly dying and being put through Hell already?"

      Yea but not real people, just foreigners. It's like when the police SWAT team say, nobody important got hurt after a night of looting and pillaging.

    1. "Powers That Be", David – not even a close cousin to PB&J, which for me is a power between slices I can respect.

  3. Please send to me John Boultons emails or cables reguarding North Korea. No one has looked into the lies about secret atomic research that stopped the building of light water reactors in North Korea, and its leaving the NPT. The IAEA had it locked down and safe under Clinton's admin. The neocons created the North Korean bomb

  4. Bob Weber, thanks for the smear, your name-calling to my paranoia is right on cue…

    This is what smells funny about this latest round of 'leaks'. Israel has been involved
    in every sordid agent-provocateur aspect of the war on terror, yet none of the 'wikileaks'
    have cause them any grief, all if it is heaped on the U.S.

    Possibly this is due to Assange's 'safe editing' of the document dumps, but its still fishy.

    Analysis: Wikileaks vindicate, don’t damage, Israel http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=1971

  5. Kabuki Zionist propaganda, you're right…the lies about Iran, Pakistan, and the Lebanese…The lies about "WMD actually being found" and 66,051 Iraqis civilians killed when it's more like 1.5 million…It's Zionist counter-intell on a sophisticated scale..

  6. “Despite similar warnings before the previous two releases of classified U.S. intelligence reports by the website, U.S. officials concede that they have no evidence to date that the documents led to anyone’s death.”

    The gubmint is all crying and moaning about wikileaks, and meanwhile six more gullible GI's are wacked by the Afghanis they think they're helping. I am so fucking sick of this and beside myself with frustration, I'll pray to God, Allah, Buddah, Kali or Shiva that our guys finally figure out who is leading them to their deaths. Their officers all need to take responsibility or resign. We"won", already! Come home. Damn!

  7. When has to always ask, cui bono? Concerning Iraq, why no leaks about Mossad conducting interrogations in Iraqi prisons? Or the 55 Zionist companies profitting fm Iraqi blood being spilled? Or hundreds of Mossad agents operating in Mosul..or the Mossad bomb-making facility in Kirkuk? Or the DU tipped IED's of Zionist owned Zapata Engineering which have massacred thousands in Narjaf, Karbala and Tal Afar? Or the Israeli arms dealers supplying guns to CIA trained death squads? Or the evidence pointing to this whole bloody rape of Iraq being engineered primarily by zionists for Israel?

  8. Or Zionist war criminal Paul Wolfowitz importing Shin Bet torture experts to train the US Military…Or Iraq's artifacts being stolen by Zionist agents? Wow, it seems Wikileaks leaves out everything embarrasing about Israel and includes obviously fanciful things about Israel's enemies…Hmmm…Yeah, must be a coincidence..

  9. "The cables reveal how Iran’s ascent has unified Israel and many longtime Arab adversaries — notably the Saudis — in a common cause. Publicly, these Arab states held their tongues, for fear of a domestic uproar and the retributions of a powerful neighbor. best ipod

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