Secrets
Tuesday, November 30th, 2010
I am growing increasingly sick to my stomach over the “outrage” by government officials and members of Congress over the release of diplomatic cables by the watchdog group Wikileaks.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman weighed in first. In fiery language he:
“…condemned the release, saying, “Wikileaks’ deliberate disclosure of these diplomatic cables is nothing less than an attack on the national security of the United States, as well as that of dozens of other countries. By disseminating these materials, Wikileaks is putting at risk the lives and the freedom of countless Americans and non-Americans around the world. It is an outrageous, reckless, and despicable action that will undermine the ability of our government and our partners to keep our people safe and to work together to defend our vital interests. Let there be no doubt: the individuals responsible are going to have blood on their hands.”
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went even further:
“Let’s be clear. This disclosure is not just an attack on America — it’s an attack on the international community,” Clinton said Monday at a State Department news conference. Such leaks, she said, “tear at the fabric” of responsible government.
“There is nothing laudable about endangering innocent people, and there is nothing brave about sabotaging the peaceful relations between nations,” she added.
But the loudest vitriol came from New York’s Rep. Peter King, the ranking Republican on Homeland Security, who said that: “This is worse even than a physical attack on Americans, it’s worse than a military attack…”
King maintained that WikiLeaks is “engaged in terrorist activity.” He said that by releasing secret documents, the organization is “enabling terrorists to kill Americans.”
“… if the lives of some Americans are endangered by the illegal release of classified information by the Wikileaks website, then the government should “go after” the people who control WikiLeaks for violating the espionage act.” 1
King wants Attorney General Eric Holder “to prosecute Assange under the Espionage Act and has also called on Clinton to determine whether WikiLeaks could be designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.”
It is astounding to me that anyone who has the slightest connection to these released cables should have the unmitigated gall to stand up and decry their release. Comparing Julian Assange and Wikileaks to a terrorist group for making public acts of diplomatic indiscretion, hubris, and outright governmental duplicity is like seeing Hannibal Lechter stand up and express outrage that his recipes have been published online.
Am I calling the U.S. State Department a bunch of cannibals? Of course not. I am merely saying anyone who has committed acts they are not proud of – acts that could even be illegal – has no right to express outrage when those acts are made public.
The silly part about Clinton, Lieberman, and King’s vitriolic attack on Wikileaks is the innocuous nature ofmost of the material released. For example, according to the Guardian the cables contain such earth shattering revelations as:
-alleged links between the Russian government and organized crime.
-claims of “inappropriate behavior” by an unnamed member of the British Royal Family.
-the fact that Muammar gaddafi never goes anywhere without his “voluptuous blonde” Ukranian nurse.
Even the potential bombshells such as the revelation that the State Department has been engaging in clandestine spying against members of the UN and the fact that London and Washington has grave fears over the security of Pakistan’s nuclear program are not all that shocking. While the scope of both of these revelations – collection of biometric data such as DNA from UN officials and even plans to remove nuclear material from Pakistan – will undoubtedly raise some eyebrows around the world, they are not exactly news.
For example, in a New York Times article from May 2009, David Sanger wrote:
“As the insurgency of the Taliban and Al Qaeda spreads in Pakistan, senior American officials say they are increasingly concerned about new vulnerabilities for Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, including the potential for militants to snatch a weapon in transport or to insert sympathizers into laboratories or fuel-production facilities.
And this from the Observer in March 9, 2003:
The United Nations has begun a top-level investigation into the bugging of its delegations by the United States, first revealed in The Observer last week…The operation is thought to have been authorized by US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, but American intelligence experts told The Observer that a decision of this kind would also have involved Donald Rumsfeld, CIA director George Tenet and NSA chief General Michael Hayden.
The fact that so much of the content of the cables that has been released is of the mundane, watercolor gossip variety – Prime Minister Silvio Belusconi is described as the “mouthpiece of [Vladimir] Putin”, Nicholas Sarkozy is “an Emperor with no clothes” and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il is called a “flabby old man,” – makes Secretary Clinton’s protestations seem even more bizarre.
The real damage, if damage there is, from the Wikileaks revelations is better described by Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee:
“The catastrophic issue here is just a breakdown in trust,” he said Monday, adding that many other countries — allies and foes alike — are likely to ask, ” ‘Can the United States be trusted? Can the United States keep a secret?’ “
Here lies the real nut. Like a shiny porcelain cap that falls off revealing the stub of a rotten tooth, the real sore point for the U.S. Government is simply that the cables give the world a clear look at just what a bunch of duplicitous liars we are.
In the Words of historian and writer Norman Solomon:
“No government wants to face documentation of actual policies, goals and priorities that directly contradict its public claims of virtue. In societies with democratic freedoms, the governments that have the most to fear from such disclosures are the ones that have been doing the most lying to their own people.
The recent mega-leaks are especially jarring because of the extreme contrasts between the government’s public pretenses and real-life actions.”
As Solomon rightly points out, the standard response when leaks occur is to blame the leaking messengers. Like that scene in “Casablanca” where Claude Rains says: “The major has been shot, round up the usual suspects.” The U.S. Government is saying “We got a custard pie in the face. Round up Wikileaks and accuse them of attacking our national security.”
Solomon’s response is as poignant as it gets: “…what kind of ‘national security’ can be built on duplicity from a government that is discredited and refuted by its own documents?”
In the end, the Representative Hoekstra comes close, but he doesn’t win the cigar. The question revealed by the diplomatic cables shouldn’t be “can the United States keep a secret?” The real question is: “should the United States be keeping secrets?”
