I want to unreel a line of thought I hinted at in my earlier post, namely that the WikiLeaks docudump didn't reveal anything terribly interesting about specifics of American diplomacy. First, to clarify what I meant by interesting: I meant policy-changing, or, because I hate hyphenated adjectives, mutative. Certainly many of the details in the documents are titillating, rude, or simply embarrassing to the parties involved, including us. But I stand with Peter Beinart in saying that they are not more than that. Simply put, they just confirm what we already knew. And by we I mean not just the informed public, but the people at whom the docudump is really aimed: cabinet ministers, presidents, prime ministers, and chief diplomats. China tacitly and materially supports Iran? Israel plays the U.S. against China? The Saudis share goals with Israel? That's not news. And the WikiLeaks documents are therefore not revelatory, but simply evidential. WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange wrote that this latest release will help create "a new world, where global history is redefined." Drop the "new," the comma, and the "re-," and I think he's got it. Because it's still business as usual, except that everyone's in on the U.S. government's business.
Or, you know, not. Consider for a moment the tools at U.S. diplomats' disposal....
Source: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/cable-gate-wikileaks-4037482?src=rss
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