In defence of WikiLeaks

[n2doc]

Nov 29th 2010, 23:27 by W.W. | IOWA CITY

WHILE fascinating in their own right, these WikiLeaks document dumps are also fascinating in the way they draw out fairly fundamental intuitions about the rights and privileges of the American state. Earlier today I attempted to draw up a taxonomy of different ideological/character types elicited by WikiLeaks, but quickly became mired in the complexity of it all. Rather than diagnose the world, I'll just diagnose myself in contrast to my colleague.

In this morning's post, my worldly co-blogger characterises the content of the tens of thousands classified diplomatic cables as mere "gossip", and maintains "that grabbing as many diplomatic cables as you can get your hands on and making them public is not a socially worthy activity". I strongly disagree.

Greg Mitchell's catalogue of reactions to the leaked cables is a trove of substantive information. For example, drawing on the documents made available by WikiLeaks, the ACLU reports that the Bush administration "pressured Germany not to prosecute CIA officers responsible for the kidnapping, extraordinary rendition and torture of German national Khaled El-Masri", a terrorism suspect dumped in Albania once the CIA determined it had nabbed a nobody. I consider kidnapping and torture serious crimes, and I think it's interesting indeed if the United States government applied pressure to foreign governments to ensure complicity in the cover-up of it agents' abuses. In any case, I don't consider this gossip.

I think we all understand that the work of even the most decent governments is made more difficult when they cannot be sure their communications will be read by those for whom they were not intended. That said, there is no reason to assume that the United States government is always up to good. The United States is nominally a democracy, but it's sadly ridiculous to think this means very much. To get at the value of WikiLeaks, I think it's important to distinguish between the government—the temporary, elected authors of national policy—and the state—the permanent bureaucratic and military apparatus superficially but not fully controlled by the reigning government. The careerists scattered about the world in America's intelligence agencies, military, and consular offices largely operate behind a veil of secrecy executing policy which is itself largely secret. American citizens mostly have no idea what they are doing, or whether what they are doing is working out well. The actually-existing structure and strategy of the American empire remains a near-total mystery to those who foot the bill and whose children fight its wars. And that is the way the elite of America's unelected permanent state, perhaps the most powerful class of people on Earth, like it.

more

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/11/overseeing_state_secrecy

[midnight]

1. I agree:

I consider kidnapping and torture serious crimes, and I think it's interesting indeed if the United States government applied pressure to foreign governments to ensure complicity in the cover-up of it agents' abuses. In any case, I don't consider this gossip.

[xchrom]

2. Recommend