[houeto]

Wikileaks will eventually be seen as the most devastating incident of espionage ever against the U.S.

What the hell is THAT supposed to mean?

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

Diplomacy works because there are proper sets of behavior and rules. Most of those rules deal with concepts of discretion and cover.

There is an old saying in diplomatic circles: Never write what you can say, never say what you can nod, never nod what you can wink.

None of the info that has been released is significantly damaging or surprising to anyone at high levels in any country. But the revealing of diplomatic communication strips away discretion and cover from the U.S. Diplomatic Corps. Without those concepts firmly in place, we are weakened in both diplomatic and espionage realms.