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I am not sure the recent leak is fair on the US.
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Fair? This is serious business. It's not about being fair. It about using the power of the freedom of the press.
The first amendment doesn't include a footnote saying: "Speech that isn't fair doesn't count."
But if you think that the affair isn't fair for the US, maybe you understand why it was in the US interest to release those documents.
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What is the actual bottom line of the new leak?
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Unfortunately we live in a complicated world and you can't reduce the leak to a single line or a single article.
If you want to understand how US geopolitics works instead of just going with the next mentally convenient conspiracy theory or mainstream media perspective you will learn a lot by reading through some cables.
The fact that they published the cables allows people who are interested in the real reality of US politics to understand how the US state department works. The raw cables allow the interested citizen to inform himself about the power structure in a way that isn't only about scandals.
Take the following paragraph:
We were astonished to learn how quickly rumors about alleged U.S. economic espionage ) at first associated with the new U.S. air passenger registration system (ESTA), then with TFTP ) gained currency among German parliamentarians in the run-up to the February 11 vote in Strasbourg. [...] Furthermore, the German public and political class largely tends to view terrorism abstractly given that it has been decades since any successful terrorist attack has occurred on German soil.
Does this show that a scandal exist? No, it doesn't. It however tells you something about how real politics works.
It provides us Germans with a good understanding about which talking points we should run when we try to get our politicians to share less data with the US.
The leak empowers the average citizen and reduces the centralized power of governments.
That the core of what Wikileaks is about.
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I've learned one important thing from this thread: Saudi Arabia wants to go to war with Iran. I see how that is important. Is there more information of that nature?
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WikiLeaks cables: Russian government 'using mafia for its dirty work' | World news | guardian.co.uk is a article about ties between the Russian government and the Russian mafia.
The Governor of the Bank of England is involved in a scandal:
WikiLeaks: Mervyn King should quit over 'political bias', says David Blanchflower | Media | guardian.co.uk
The UK government might have withhold evidence from an UK commision related to US torture:
WikiLeaks: British government promised to 'protect US interests' at Chilcot inquiry - Telegraph
Another handy list with top ten middle East related stories from cablegate:
Top Ten Middle East Wikileaks Revelations so Far | Informed Comment Quote:
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I have a hard time screaming "international crisis!!"
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Given that the US is unable to keep secrets other nations might be less willing to share information with the US. That's why people scream "international crisis".
There also the risk that some people who lives in oppressive regime outside the West who talked to US officials will face reprisals when the host country know about the fact that they talked.
At the moment Wikileaks has published only 553 out of ~250 000. We don't know yet whether Wikileaks retracts enough names/material to prevent this from happening.
The story is still unfolding.
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For example, the former German chancellor said "Bush has no clue...". If they leak such info from the US, then they should also leak other "gossip" from let's say Germany, France, UK and compare.
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Wikileaks can only leak information that someone gives them.
Yes, they have a backlog of unpublished documents and it's a valid criticism that they don't publish more of those documents. How however have to keep in mind that they have to read the documents to authenticate them and think about possible harm that would require the deletion of names.
Over the next year they will hopefully published the hundreds of thousands of documents that they still have in their backlog.
The next target is announced to be a big US bank. Rumors suggest that it's about Bank of America.