Wikileaks Cablegate: Nothing New But The Truth

By Steve Hynd

This morning I awoke to the latest Wikileaks document dump - some 250,000 secret State department cables and only a fraction of the around 2 million such dispatches Wikileaks is reportedly in possession of. Thanks to our incredible researcher Kat, who in a dozen emails containing upwards of 30 links each presented reporting and reaction on the leak from around the globe, I've been reading ever since. A huge "hat tip" to her for all that follows.

As with previous leaks, the UK's Guardian newspaper is doing the best job of reporting and analysis with Der Spiegel a close second. The "paper of record" in America? Forget it - the New York Times had to rely on the Guardian's charity to even get a look at the documents.

And...yet again I'm left with the feeling that there's nothing newly-new in any of the leaked documents, other than that they provide proof and confirmation of what foreign affairs watchers already knew or strongly suspected.

--Iran isn't always truthful or transparent about the details of its nuclear program. Well, which country is? In any case, the cables reveal that Chinese insiders think Iran's nuclear programme is 'not as advanced as some believe'.

--The leaders of Arab states have found common cause with Israel in calling for an attack on Iran's nuclear program. That's been reported for some time now and the only genuinely intersting and new bit of information in the cables is that the Saudi Foreign Office disagrees with its King that such an attack would be a good idea.

-- The U.S. has been trying to spy on the UN leadership - although at least it seems to have stopped tapping their phones as it did during Bush's term. Again, not a great surprise given past history. Former UK Ambassador Craig Murray says the Brits do it too and I'm sure every other nation with the wherewithall tries.

-- Everybody worries about Pakistan - especially the security of it's nukes and the mind of the numpty who is President. No surprises there.

-- There's a plan for the re-unification of Korea if the North collapses - and China is in on it. O.K., this one's a wee bit surprising to me - maybe not so much to Korea watchers, though.

Other revelations from the document dump are similiarly un-earth-shattering. The US bombs Yemeni rebels but the Yemen government says it did the bombing. Russia's Putin, former KGB agent, has honed in on the most corrupt and corruptable European leader, Silvio Berlusconni, as his entry to the EU. US diplomats sometimes say unflattering things about their foreign counterparts.

In "big picture" terms, none of it will change the world. In the very fact of having such a massive dump of previously secret confirmation of what has already been news....ah, now that's a very different story.

The Guardian's news blog is doing a very fine job gathering reactions from around the world, including Republican calls to designate Wikileaks a "terrorist organisation". However, don't believe the talk of "lost lives":

American officials in recent days have warned repeatedly that the release of documents by WikiLeaks could put people's lives in danger.

But despite similar warnings ahead of the previous two massive 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.

Rather than lost lives, the immediate fallout will be lost confidence and hurt feelings. A massive net of secrets which could be accessed by over 2 million people was probably always a leak waiting to happen. State is already tightening security and assuring foreigners that their private talks with U.S. diplomats won't be splashed on the front pages again. Meanwhile, every nation has so far said the embarassing leaks will not affect their relationship with America - with fingers crossed behind backs.

Comments

[Ron Beasley]

The real embarrassment here is just how arrogant and incompetent the US government is. When I worked for the DIA long before PCs and the internet we used to joke that Confidential meant it was Time Magazine last week - Secret meant it would be in Time Magazine next week. You are right, a data base that 2 million people have access to is eventually going to be leaked.