Just scanned the early stories on the Wikileaks document dump — which are themselves scans of the Wikileaks document dump, given that a colossal 251,287 State Department cables have been released in this Internet/media robbery/fencing information-operation.
How to assess this release of information at this point? Surely, document security has been damaged — but has our national security — or, better, our national interest — been damaged as well?
Some of the early items that have been highlighted at this early stage are numbingly obvious (Afghan government officials are corrupt! Saudis finance Al Qaeda!). Over at the Gloria Center, Barry Rubin notes that the Wikileaks documents pertaining to the Middle East thoroughly prove points he’s been making for years. Interestingly enough, the documents make clear, as AFP quotes an Israeli official as pointing out, that Arab countries including Saudi Arabia have been pushing the US to take military action against Iran more forcefully than Israel. (Which makes you wonder what all that military hardware Saudi Arabia buys from the US is really for.)
Some of the items are of curious, watch-that-space interest — Berlusconi and Putin are big pals, for example. Then there’s a category of items I count as being of urgent public concern. For example, North Korea has smuggled advanced Russian-made, nuclear-capable missiles to Iran. That’s important to know. Our government hasn’t told us already because it wants to ignore key aspects of the Iran problem, not to mention the North Korea problem. Another example: Leaked cables confirm that Syria supplies Hezbollah. This not only underscores (again) Syria’s status as a jihad-terror-supporting state, but deals yet another blow to the canard that Sunnis (Syria) don’t connive with Shiites (Hezbollah) against infidels (the rest of us). Then there’s Pakistan, which, we now learn, isn’t cooperating with our (formerly) secret plan to secure its nuke materials. (Which should make us wonder what $18 billion in “aid” to a sharia state really buys these days.)
At this very early stage, the greatest “damage” done seems to be mainly to the fictions of “engagement,” “outreach,” and other utopian canards destructive to the continued well-being of this nation. As such, and along with gossipy personal assessments of world players that were also released, the doc dump is embarrassing to the US government. (And no doubt worrisome to the 854,000 Americans with top secret security clearance.) The State Department ordered US diplomats to obtain credit card numbers and frequent flier numbers of foreign dignitaries — what’s up with that?
Lawrence Auster wonders why he is on the whole unmoved by the whole event. The answer may well have something to do with the fact that there is nothing, at least so far, about the leaks per se that is more injurious to the United States of America than our own foreign policy.