Posted on 11/29/2010 8:56:18 PM PST by smoothsailing
The Huffington Post is running an interesting article today entitled “The WikiLeaks Release: Blame the State Department, Not the World’s Media,” by a writer for the Guardian and the London Sunday Times, Simon Jenkins. He pointed out that the material leaked by WikiLeaks, and published by the New York Times and other newspapers, not only lacked top-secret classification. The State Department itself had made them available to some 2-3 million authorized users of the State Department’s own worldwide intranet.
Jenkins observed that the material went out uncensored, with names and sources disclosed, on the State Department’s intranet with an unsophisticated coding system. The material was downloadable and presumably capable of being forwarded on to anyone.
In short, Jenkins concluded,
The recklessness of such a casual approach to secrecy beggars belief… If I were an American source, I would be far more afraid of the State Department than the world’s media.
I think that there is even more to the story about the WikiLeaks releases than Jenkins does. I believe that the leaks serve the Obama administration‘s purposes to get certain so-called confidential materials out in the public arena, knowing that the media outlets most likely to publish the materials would spin them in a way that would help buff Obama’s image of himself as a strong leader even if it meant embarrassing foreign leaders and diplomats in the process.
Obamamedia like the New York Times would be expected to use the materials to show the Bush administration’s foreign policies in the worst possible light, and the Obama administration’s policies in a highly favorable light.
Previous WikiLeak releases regarding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, have been spun as supporting the Obama administration’s narrative that Bush had acted in an irresponsibly unilateral, militarist manner. The current selective leaks of State Department materials run through February 2010. Theyappear designed to show the futility of Bush policies towards our enemies and to elicit sympathetic media analyses emphasizing the virtues of Obama’s “multilateralist engagement” approach.
And that is precisely what the New York Times has done with its reporting on the first batch of leaked cables.
In explaining its decision to publish the diplomatic documents, the Times says that for it:
to ignore this material would be to deny its own readers the careful reporting and thoughtful analysis they expect when this kind of information becomes public.
But what passes for “careful reporting” and “thoughtful analysis” at the New York Times is to blame the Bush administration for whatever has gone wrong and to give credit to the Obama administration for supposedly fixing the mistakes of the past. The leaked cables are used as a pretext to portray the Obama administration’s brand of multilateralism, such as the offer to Iran of unconditional negotiations, as a success.
As summarized by the New York Times, for example, this narrative holds that while “the Bush administration had never forged the global coalition needed to impose truly painful international penalties on Iran,” the Obama administration decided to use “engagement” with Iran, China and Russia as part of its plan to build such a coalition. Note that these conclusions are not verbatim quotes from the cables themselves. They represent the Times‘ unchallenged conclusions.
I guess the idea is to convince us that, far from being naive and inexperienced in dealing with our adversaries, Obama is really a brilliant Machiavellian strategist. If only we knew the real Obama as envisioned by his dwindling number of admirers!
In trying to write a revisionist history of Obama’s policy of unconditional negotiations with Iran from the bits and pieces gleaned from the leaked cables, the Times reports,
The decoding of Mr. Obama’s plan was apparently all the Europeans needed
Obtaining China’s “cooperation” (if you want to call it that), by getting Saudi Arabia to guarantee China that it would supply any lost oil if Iran cuts China off, was described by the Times as a “dazzling success.”
Obama also got Russia to “cooperate” on stiffer sanctions against Iran, so the story goes. How did Obama accomplish such a stupendous feat? He ”removed the burr under the Russians’ saddle” – the Times’ words in trying to extrapolate the meaning of the leaked cables dealing with Obama’s decision to scrap the planned ballistic missile defense site in Poland and the Czech Republic as Russia had demanded.
The only problem with all of this is that Obama’s policies of lethal engagements with our enemies have failed miserably. We’re being suckered.
Iran is closer than ever to achieving a nuclear arms capability. China is doing little to restrain North Korea from its course of aggression. Moreover, while not reported by the New York Times, a State Department official noted recently that Peking has been helping Iran with both its ballistic missiles and its nuclear weapons program. For its part, Russia has supplied Iran with a nuclear reactor and has negotiated with Venezuela – a strong ally of Iran – to do the same.
The latest WikiLeaks episode is no more than a distraction from these harsh realities.
I’m not prepared to say at this point whether the Obama administration itself purposely leaked any of the materials to WikiLeaks. But in complaining about the damage that WikiLeaks may be doing to America’s interests abroad, it seems like the Obama administration “doth protest too much” since its own partisan interests are being so well served by the leaks.
Have you actually read any of the leaked material yourself? It’s not very favorable to the Obama administration.
But this leaks thing is much bigger than any domestic political situation with Obama. There are over 250,000 diplomatic cables, from diplomats and officers all around the world. There are the honest views of the various governments in areas of foreign policy in every continent - estimates which have been hidden from the citizens of the countries that are represented by these men.
This is going to change everything, on a global diplomatic scale. This is so much bigger than the Obama administration that such a suspicion misses the point entirely. Whoever leaked these wanted to completely upend all world diplomacy, just toss it in the dumpster. Obama doesn’t benefit at all by that.
The GOP might, though, because they can point the finger of blame at Obama.
Always check to make sure the candy is in the Original Wrapper.
This is Hussein. It is not the gay PFC or Auburage or whatever his name is. This is the usurper.
No one will do anything as he controls SCOTUS and TV including Al Waleed’s Fox NEws and Al Waleed’s CNN and Al Waleed’s ABC NEws and the other 3 networks he has deals with.
That’s the “information sharing” system that was put togther during the Bush administration. It’s supposed to let the various formerly-stovepiped intelligence agencies share information to spot threats.
I noticed Cankles doesn’t seem too worried about it.
As much as he’s “spread the wealth”, I’m amazed the guy who dreamed up this WikiLeaks crap hasn’t already become closely acquainted with a high-velocity rifle round...
It’s supposed to let the various formerly-stovepiped intelligence agencies share information to spot threats.
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2-3 million????????????????????????
Uhhhh.... this doesn’t help Obama one bit.
It shows you what level security these messages were given. They weren’t quite “top secret.”
Yep, 2 to 3 million is a lot. And it only take one disgruntled employee with a thumb drive to steal confidential info that can bring down governments or corporations. The leaks won’t be stopped - actually, there’s little way they can be, unless the world declares war on Iceland.
This week the diplomatic circles, next week a major bank or two. This Assange guy has some stones, whatever else you think of him.
Zer0 could have acted to prevent this dump of classified material.
Why has Zer0 been less than outraged?
Hmmm?
The whole leaky wiki 1 and 2 episodes are a set up to bolster the liberal statist national socialist agenda of the pan-leninists. Nothing in the releases sheds unfavorable light on leftist causes, except their apparent inability to conduct government business in a confidential manner. Most of the material boosts the anti-US liberal bent. It has to be a set up. Otherwise the Omullah would say more than nothing about it. All he could talk about was playing basketball with the children. Has to be a set up. There iappears to be so much misinformation and disinformation no one can dissect any truth from it. All of this was done to discredit America further and push forward the new world order thing.
2-3 million is barely FOUO.
What exactly do you want Obama to say? Declare war on one man? That worked out well in capturing Bin Laden, didn’t it?
This information is already out there. You kill Assange and someone else will leak it. You dont think Assange thought about that already?
As bad as this could be for the USA or as denigrating as to USA government there could be a brighter side for the USA in that the citizens might just be awakened to the fact that the USA has been, is,can be and will be a great and respectable Nation on It’s own track set by the Founding Fathers.
As bad as this could be for the USA or as denigrating as to USA government there could be a brighter side for the USA in that the citizens might just be awakened to the fact that the USA has been, is,can be and will be a great and respectable Nation on It’s own track set by the Founding Fathers.
assange is a sideshow. He is being used.
A goal, of course, shared by Obama and his et al peers and Marxist-loving Soros,Inc. heirarchy.
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Right... but it's enough to damage the right. Is anyone on the left being hit by this?
Assange better have a good serurity detail around him.
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