Guardian: How WikiLeaks Altered The Way We See The World In Just A Week

[Hissyspit]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/04/wikileaks-world-week-cables

How WikiLeaks altered the way we see the world in just a week

A torrent of information was released, leading to howls of protest from leaders and WikiLeaks being hounded offline

Robert Booth and Haroon Siddique
The Guardian, Saturday 4 December 2010

Shortly before 6.30pm on Sunday night, the first cracks appeared in the dam. The largest ever leak of US government classified documents streamed out online, revealing never publicly seen details about Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan and Russia.

Throughout the week the stream became a torrent of information about how US diplomats and foreign governments see the world. According to these classified cables, Saudi Arabia wanted Washington to bomb Iran, the UK harbours "deep concerns about the safety and security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons", and Russia is considered a "virtual mafia state" with its president, Vladimir Putin, accused of amassing "illicit proceeds" from his time in office.

But perhaps most embarrassing for Hillary Clinton who, as US secretary of state, is ultimately responsible for the content of most of the cables released so far, was a cable that revealed Washington is running a spying campaign targeted at the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon and the rest of the UN leadership, as well as the permanent security council representatives from China, Russia, France and the UK.

Clinton has spent much of the week trying to justify the operation – which was looking for top UN officials' passwords and credit card numbers , even DNA samples – to the press and in person to the UN secretary general.

As startling as the exposés were – the Saudi king urging America "to cut off the head of the snake", to launch a military attack on Iran's nuclear programme – it was as much the sense of a curtain lifting to reveal the world leaders not as wizards but as all too human, and that the private positions of those in power were often diametrically opposed to what they said in public, that made the cables so gripping – and perhaps so dangerous.

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[TheWraith]

1. HOW exactly did it "change the way we see the world"?

Because I for one am not seeing at all what's revolutionary about this. Diplomats and diplomatic privileges are used for spying: old news going back to the 1500s. The Russian government is corrupt: known that since about 1985 or so. Pakistan is unstable--wow, breaking news. Diplomats sometimes despise people they have to pretend to like for diplomatic reasons. Also not exactly a shock.

So where is this sudden revelation? It seems to me that the cables are only shocking if one lives in an astonishingly naive world where everyone is what they officially say they are.

[Goldstein1984]

2. Many Americans DO live in a shockingly naive and uninformed world

I see at least four levels of truth associated with the release of the documents:

The truth of:

The documents themselves.
The duplicity they reveal (not diplomat on diplomat, but government on citizen).
That one person/organization CAN stand up to power.
That the government will become tyranical when truth becomes an enemy of the state.

Time will tell, but there may also be the truth that the citizens will go about their business as if their treasure, children and futures were not being sacrificed to wars that are other than what they pretend to be.

On edit: Fixed typo

[OregonBlue]

4. Those same shockingly naive and uninformed Americans could care less about the story. They're too

busy raising kids and paying the bills to care who said what to what diplomat.

[Goldstein1984]

9. I'm pretty busy doing all those things, and I still find the time to stay informed.

If you're implying that democracy is just too tough for Americans who have jobs, children and bills, then there are huge implications if it's true.

And if you're implying that lies, duplicity and crime by elected officials isn't relevant then, unlike me, you've never had a son deployed in the Middle East fighting a war based on those lies, duplicity and crimes.

I totally reject the idea that what's happening in the world today is just not important to those who are charged with selecting the members of government who are responsible for what's happening in the world today.

[OregonBlue]

14. I'm implying that a large percentage of Americans could care less. They don't read, they don't watch

the news and they don't VOTE. You can hope it will change the world but that doesn't make it so.

[Goldstein1984]

19. Well, I can't argue about the gap between what is and what should be

It's why we're in the mess we're in. But I don't believe it's the time they spend working, raising children and paying bills that is the problem, it's the time they spend being entertained and distracted. We could argue that they're victims, and that distraction is part of an evil plan to keep them preoccupied, and I think that pop culture and cheap bear are probably part of that plan, but they still make choices, and the willfully ignorant and disengaged are responsible.

Frankly, I think democracy is lost and beyond fixing. I still vote, but my reasons don't include any hope that the system can be changed from within. The fact is, I believe it's beyond self-repair, and I'm preparing for the events that will cause real change.

No matter how busy those willfully ignorant citizens are, I think we're heading for a place where distraction will be replaced by hopelessness, and when they're no longer distracted and have nothing left to lose, they will become dangerous. Any smart leaders planning for our future should be thinking about ways to organize that energy when that time comes.

That's what I think. Of course, we may just be heading for something like "1984." It feels that way.

[OregonBlue]

21. I think most people believe they live in the "worst of times". Listening to my folks who actually

grew up in rural poor Texas during the depression, I think Americans have it pretty good all in all right now. So, I am not nearly as doom and gloom. I'm 61 and I remember being much more concerned when Reagan was in office than I am now. I also lived in Seattle during the Carter admin and remember the "will the last person leaving Seattle please turn out the lights" billboard on I-5.

Most people just don't devote much time and energy to politics. That's neither good or bad. It's just the way they are and it's not gonna change. No sense in being down about it.

I loved John Stewart's sentiment. We can vote with our remotes. We can stop watching 24 hour doom and gloom from the left or the right.

[Goldstein1984]

22. We can also vote by keeping our wallets closed

Which is what I'm doing.

Surprisingly, I'm not all doom and gloom, although what I write might make it seem that I am. I'm jazzed by what I think is coming.

I'm in my mid-fifties, and I remember how my grandparents and parents lived. People today are more pacified. I don't believe they are happier or better off. I don't remember homeless people standing on so many streetcorners. I lived in the shaddow of one illegal war, not two. There was the Cold War, but now there are "Wars on Drugs" and the "War on Terror." McCarthyism was behind them, a repeat is ahead of us.

What people have now they accumulated during the credit bubble. They don't own their "affluence," it owns them

Edit: Removed some content inappropriate for a security state.

[defendandprotect]

47. Americans aren't political because they've been taught not to be ....

"It isn't polite to discuss politics or religion in polite society" --

Remember that --

and in fact there couldn't be two more serious subjects to pay attention to!!



Patriarchy -- and its underpinning =

Organized Patriarchal Religion -- and its economic system =

Capitalism =

The Unholy Trinity

[Duppers]

52. then why are you reading and posting on DU

as if knowing more about current events, etc. is just inconsequential "doom and gloom"?

[defendandprotect]

46. They are not voting because they are being given nothing to vote FOR ....

all populist messages have been cut from political debate --

28 million expected voters didn't vote in this past election --

No politicans are addressing these non-voters -- over decades --

Wouldn't you think it would interest them?

Actually, THESE corporate politicians benefit when these voters stay home --


Nor do I agree that we have lazy citizens who shun reading and news --

they are being purposefully confused by right wing propaganda -- intentionally so.

[malaise]

16. Excellent post n/t

[RaleighNCDUer]

11. It means, if we start a war with Iran now, we will NOT be able to say

it was because we fear their nukes - because the truth is already out that it is at the urging of the people who keep our cars running.

What if this came out before we invaded Iraq - and they proved there were no WMDs, and we KNEW there were no WMDs?

THAT's the difference it makes. Those naive and uninformed Americans would NOT send their sons and daughters off to fight a war that was only wanted by an ideological few for no reason.

[OregonBlue]

13. Those naive and uninformed Americans don't even read newspapers and could care less. That's my point

[defendandprotect]

48. "dumb, stupid animals to be used" as pawns for foreign policy .... Kissinger

Not something our corporate-press is going to tell parents -- !!


Here's the actual quote:

"In Haig's presence, Kissinger referred pointedly to military men as 'dumb, stupid animals to be used' as pawns for foreign policy."


-- Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein, The Final Days, p. 208



And from reports I've been reading - evidently Kissinger is close to Obama and still

involved with our foreign policy!!

[krabigirl]

32. Yes, but sadly, I don't think those will be the ones that will be open to stuff like this.

[defendandprotect]

45. +1000% ---

I look at Wikileaks as a new effort to restore a free press, if we ever had one --

albeit on the internet --

US looks at Assange as a threat to releasing a dam of "whistleblowers" who have info

they don't want Americans to know --

[calimary]

3. You just answered your own question with the "astonishingly naive world" part.

THAT'S the answer.

I think it's pretty funny about the sturm und drang now stired up about the answers Hillary Clinton is having to give. Yeah I'm certain whatever was going on she was in on, but it's truly naive to assume that these are all sins that were only committed once she arrived at the State Department. You think for one instant that the State Department run by contradicta wasn't full of this too? The leaks only happened on Hillary's watch. I'd bet anything I owned that you could go back through MULTIPLE Secretaries of State and find this going on. Ever since the Cold War period, I'd suspect. Back to Truman and Eisenhower. Probably even farther back than that.

The only difference is that WikiLeaks just made it all public - now, as opposed to five years ago, ten years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, etc. Diplomats talk and schmooze and know people and know people who know people and they circulate in all kinds of venues in all kinds of places all over the planet. Theirs is a whole other world, probably much murkier than anything that any of us could imagine. NOTHING any of 'em are up to would surprise me.

[populistdriven]

5. it confirms the certainty we already have that most public political statements are two faced lies

if this is tip of the spear then the spear is the lies and organized propaganda by the 4th estate

[Hissyspit]

8. Actually, it's more about the changes since 9/11 and not since 1500.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=9681036&mesg_id=9681036

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9689685

[HipChick]

10. Biz as normal..

[Hissyspit]

28. Well, if true

I'm sure that makes you very happy.

[northernlights]

23. the psychotic response of the Elites to the release

Their frantic circling of the wagons:

A Prime Minister that is outraged that she and other governments must now search furiously for some law, any law, she can charge Assange with breaking. (Question for ya: if an American possibly broke a *nonexistant* law in, say, Singapore, thereby "embarrassing" Singapore, would Obama direct Holder to find something, anything, with which to charge the American?

An attorney general who hints that since, after extensive research starting months ago -- with the prior release of the American Apache Helicopter murder of unarmed Afghan citizens -- they can't find a law to charge Assange with breaking, they'll invent or write one one.

The heads of the teabaggers plus a high level advisor from our northern neighbor, calling for Assange's assassination. And now, apparently, another teabagger nutcase calling for the assassination or kidnapping of Assange's estranged 20 year old son to "smoke him out."

A "neutral" country that asserts an Interpol alert against Assange for failure to perform coitus interruptus, in one instance, and failure to use a condom (oh, the woman involved knew there was no condom and isn't being charged) in the other. With both women acknowledging the sex was consensual, neither showing any distress *until* they met up days later and discovered he'd been a bit of a cad with them both.

The majority of the MSM melting down, when all Assange really did is what real journalists *used* to do. Fill the gaping hole once occupied by investigative journalists.

The release is disastrous and will cause deaths (unlike, say, our military) and is treason. The information released is just embarrassment and the contents are nothing (nothing criminal here, what that little coup in the Honduras? all a misunderstanding, move along now). All in the same breath...:rofl:

I so totally can't wait to see what the new year brings. BOA, anyone?

[DeSwiss]

24. Well for one thing.....

...it finally settled the question about whether or not we actually have "inalienable rights of free speech."

- We now know without a doubt this to be a load of BS......

K&R

[bread_and_roses]

33. I think you're totally missing the point - it's bolded in the OP

that the private positions of those in power were often diametrically opposed to what they said in public, that made the cables so gripping – and perhaps so dangerous.

That's just become a lot easier to prove. And yes, I think that can change some things - at least, if there's still an honest journalist in the MSM who will use the info - which of course there probably is not.

[tekisui]

34. US Cluster bombed Yemen and killed 21 kids and we covered it up.

Our SoS supported a coup that the President said was illegal.

The Obama WH joined with repukes to block torture investigations.

There is more, you should look into it.

[defendandprotect]

49. Keep telling it -- !! It's truth everyone needs to hear -- !!

[peacetalksforall]

44. It is raw data. If someone took one part of it, say the UN spying, and addressed Sec.

Clinton in a meeting or a press confrerence, we could expect her to deny it. That's the routine. The leaks overrode the opportunity to lie or deflect or squirm out or claim privilege. We get to make our own assessment without out all the dimplomatic rhetoric which puts people to sleep. Listeners tell themselves it's OK to get something to drink when the rhetoric is turned on - they are never missing much. It's a pass around a professional deflector.

I'm on the fence about the motives of Assange, but so far I'm glad he did it. If the banking system closes down or hundreds or people lose money and jobs because of the bank stuff, I may waffle. We are in a wait and see situation - we just can't say we support the leaks until way after they are released.

But their arrogance is thinking they can drive our lives to war in secret and never have to own up is unbelievable.

We are not being well represented when it comes to the killing fields. If this stops the despicable plans to bomb Iran, I will be thrilled. Motive - bomb it to make it easier to give the oil to Exxon-Mobil and the others and build more bases and get a little richer in the short term. The secretiveness protects the motives of war and takeover and Dems are part of it.

What if leaks came out about what the govt is gathering on us and storing in their database on citizens. Good or bad that they did it? Good or bad that it was done in secrecy? Good or bad about the way they were going to use it? And who had access to it and permission to download it and for what reasons?

With the great wealth divide going on and the drastic results showing, we have to say that some revelations could make the country strong or stronger or allow our survivability.

It is very tricky and I might retract everything I say.

But seeing the world change for the postive could be a gift. But, maybe not if there are deaths and a faster economic plummet for innocents.

[skepticscott]

51. Exactly so

The United States had discussions with Israel about plans for bombing Iran's nuclear facilities? Duh. Of course they did. Did any thinking person not already know that such discussions would have taken place? Iran certainly knew that. So what exactly is the big secret or surprise? Same with many of the other things that have been released. People involved in diplomacy every day already know that most of it is a facade of bullshit. This is mainly about loss of face rather than the compromising of national security.

[hedgetrimmer]

6. Looks like the USG went through the body scan! n/t

[Hissyspit]

7. Although not completely analogous, a very important analogy

to make a very important point.

[KoKo]

35. They not only went through the "BS" but they got the "BackSkatter" revealing Private Parts...!

Whatever was Dangling or "pad covering" was revealed.

Excuse my Grossness...but Yeah...it kind of starts one's thought processes off in a new direction that most basic can understand. We Dems usually can't make those astute analogies/observations that FAUX and RW CAN.

But, YEAH... Obama Admin. got hit with TSA's NEW HARSHER RULES! :rofl: Just Like the REST OF US! Let THEM LEARN. Why HILLARY AND BILL didn't learn...that's one for the History Books to be revealed ...but maybe after anyone who remembers is gone! Like the Kennedy Assassination Files...Gone until anyone who remembers is DEAD!

[treestar]

12. Plleeeeeeeeeeese

Everything is so earth shattering. Next week it will be forgotten.

No one's complained for two whole days about the groping at airports that was going to bring about a revolution.

[EFerrari]

15. You don't read the news much, do you? Try searching

security pat down for current stories on groping at the airports.

[OregonBlue]

17. LOL. Not only will it be forgotten, most Americans won't even read the articles in the first place.

So many political junkies loose perspective. They actually begin to believe that the whole world is paying attention to what they have to say. I just read a few days ago that 80% of Afghanis have never even heard of 9/11. It's not just Americans, it's people everywhere.

[DeSwiss]

25. Which is how we got where we now are. n/t

[OregonBlue]

26. Perhaps but I was only responding to the claim that WikiLeaks Altered The Way We See The World In

Just One Week. I think it's a bit of an exaggeration.

[DeSwiss]

29. Hyperbole, maybe. But nonetheless true. n/t

[OregonBlue]

30. It can't be hyperbole and true. I think it's hyperbole. It may have changed the way the DOS

and other departments communicate but I don't really think it's changed the world. Most people will never even read anything about it and the rest won't care. It's a politico's wet dream but I doubt it will have any real affect on world scheming. But that's just my opinion and we all know what they say about that.

[DeSwiss]

39. "Obama is the greatest black president that the US has ever had!!!"

Hyperbolic and yet true.

[OregonBlue]

40. "The bag weighed a ton". Hyperbole helps to make the point that the bag was very heavy although

it did not weight a ton. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, but is not meant to be taken literally.

I believe the post was supposed to be taken literally. Therefore it's not hyperbole. It's just inaccurate.

But hey, I don't actually really care. It's a silly, inaccurate post. Just irritating that this kind of stuff is taken as "the word" here so often.

[DeSwiss]

42. Well, it did alter the way I see the world.

I began reading the newspapers as a kid when I got my first paper route back in 1963. And I'd never thought I'd live to see the day when the press would totally capitulate in their role as the watchdogs of our liberties. But I have, and which is also why a Wikileaks became necessary after the rich and their corporations bought-out the media and began to inundate us with celebrity gossip and reality shows to distract us from the truth.

I never thought that I've live to see the day a black man would become president of this country. Even though my mother thought I would. But I thought she was just trying to encourage her young black son to stay in school and be the best that he could be. And so I lived to see that too. Even though now I see that he appears to be just continuing the same old lies and deceptions that we thought we were sending him to Washington to replace. To change. Remember that one? Talk about your mixed blessings.

And I also mistakenly believed that I'd never see an elected official screaming and clambering for someone's assassination in total contradiction to the rule of law among civilized nations. But I've seen that now, as well.

So yeah, it's changed the way I see things and a lot of other people as well......

[laughingliberal]

18. K & R nt

[xchrom]

20. recommend

[kgnu_fan]

27. Ignorance is a dream in HELL

[sabrina 1]

31. You do get a sense when you start reading the cables,

that the people running the world, are completely unfit for the job.

I have noticed also that few of them speak about the people they represent. So far, and I have not read all of them yet, I have not come across much if anything that demonstrates a realization of who they work for.

It feels like looking in on a high-school where the cool kids are all anyone worries about. Britain, eg, worried about their 'special relationship' with the U.S. Would it change with the new administration? The U.S. slamming British troops (that was a shocker considering how they supposedly revere the allied forces) and the Brits feelings appear to be hurt, but not enough to say 'get lost, we're bringing them home'.

It's all about politics and positioning, who is cool, who is not, who is in, who is not acceptable. But very, very little about the people who elected them. They all seem like weak, foolish people. There is no sign of greatness among them, no sign of high principles.

And what it does do, is make very clear why the world is in the state it is in.

Good article, thanks for posting.

:kick: & R

[tekisui]

36. They are the elites playing games with the peasants' lives.

[KoKo]

37. SABRINA! You Nailed It! Put into words the uneasy nagging questions

that I and probably many of us have been trying to grapple with.

An Excellent Post! AND from you:

"You do get a sense when you start reading the cables that the people running the world, are completely unfit for the job.

Thank you for daring to speak what some of us thought...but we too afraid to speak it and had to push it to the back of our "thinking minds."

UNFIT for the JOB...when they can't relate to Americans Out here...but only to Wall Street and the Latest Retreads of "Economic Guru's" who were FAILURES...FAILURES! ...but then that leads to other nagging suspicions about WHO do "THEY" depend on that "THEY THINK" rules the WORLD?

Frightening. Incompetent or Enabling...Clueless or Complicit?

[EFerrari]

41. Chomsky called it their "bitter hatred of democracy".

It seems more like contempt to me. For everything, but especially for the people and for the law which protects them.

[sabrina 1]

54. They certainly do act like they fear democracy, more and more.

I just noticed when I was reading the cables that not one of them spoke about the people they represent. But, maybe as more come out, there will be some.

[DeSwiss]

43. Very, very well put.

- And quite astute.

[defendandprotect]

50. They are a mirror image of TPB who put them in charge ....

"no-nothings" -- people whose lives are based simply on exploitation of

nature and humanity --

and maintaining that control every day -- by any means.


:)

[leftstreet]

38. K&R

[tomp]

53. and people here fought nearly to the death to have hillary president.

the entire state is corrupt. obama, hillary.... it doesn't matter. the corruption is embedded in the system.