One of the released Wikileaks documents is of Kerry's meeting with teh Amir of Quatar

[karynnj]

Reading through it, there is nothing that conflicts with things Kerry has publicly said of Middle East issues. Kerry's speech at Doha was the previous day. Nothing here makes Kerry look bad. However, it does illustrate why these releases are harmful. The Amir gave Kerry his opinions on many surrounding states. Both his and Kerry's comments were meant to remain private. I can't imagine that all the leaders and countries spoken of will welcome everything being public. It really is likely to make peace even less likely.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/250177

[wisteria]

1. I think they have taken the entire Wilileaks too far and I am becoming resentful of those

behind these leaks. As you said, so things are not meant to be heard by everyone.

[karynnj]

2. The NYT has a nice article that describes in broader details

the type of information that the cables contained. They also explain that many are from past decades, but were not yet made public. I am sure that there will be many examples where US diplomats did not see what was coming - as happened in one example the NYT references. They speak of a cable from a diplomat in Iran months after the current government came to power and it did not see the risk of being taken hostage. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/29cables.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

I think the left jumped the gun in calling the pfc who downloaded these documents and gave them to Wikileaks a hero. Given the breath of the leak, this is not someone - like Ellsberg - who saw one thing being written internally and the people being told something radically different. This is someone who saw a chance at 15 minutes of fame. This morning, CNN's Kiran ? was already asking if the Iran disclosures show that Obama's policy is a failure. If there is a political motive, I would suggest that it is from the right with the goal of destroying Obama's foreign policy initiatives.

In addition to potentially burning foreign leaders and others, I suspect that the right will blame the State Department for not having practices in place to prevent a massive downloading of documents by someone way too junior to possibly have a need to know on all the issues. I had thought that these next two years could potentially have their successes in foreign policy - as the President, for the most part, has more ability to act without Congress than on most domestic issues. That still may be, but the middle east peace chances were already not good and North Korea is worse than ever.

[MBS]

3. I also am not happy about these leaks.

If not the release of top-secret material, the leaked material nevertheless would have to do damage to the many delicate nuances of diplomacy. . . especially where, as in these leaks, so many issues and personalities involved in the powder-keg areas of the Middle East, Central Asia, and arab African states. Some things really ARE left unspoken, or kept confidential between the parties involved. Like these things.

There's no way I consider the leaker a hero. In fact, I have to say that I wouldn't consider punishment inappropriate.. . dishonorable discharge, at minimum, if he hasn't already left the Army. Sorry, I guess I'm not cool enough. But I think his actions, and those of WikiLeaks, were wrong.

[Inuca]

12. Are they still talking about a single leaker?

Sorry, I am still away and very busy, not much time to follow what's going on. And I 100% agree, definitely not heroes. I just spent a few minutes now perusing some of what is being written about this, the first time I got the chnace, and it looks pretty scary in terms of possible implications.

[MBS]

13. so far as I know,only one person accused as the original leaker

decribed in newspapers as a "disgruntled Army intelligence officer". They mentioned on Hardball last night that he's in military prison, and widely expected to stay there for a long time.

But then the role of Wikileaks is another matter. Since they're not based in the US (Australia, I think: yes?), that's one problem . According to MSNBC, the founder of wikileaks is also far from stellar in his personal life -- something about being accused by police of sexual malfeasance of some sort..

I may not have facts straight, as this is info I picked up from half-listening to Hardball while I was doing chores: their info might not be 100% correct, and I may not have heard it correctly.

So anyone with more authoritative information, please correct my probably imperfect rendition!

[karynnj]

4. Here is a Kerry comment on it (in the Indian press)

"The release of classified information under these circumstances is a reckless action which jeopardises lives by exposing raw, contemporaneous intelligence," said Senator John Kerry, Chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"This is not an academic exercise about freedom of information and it is not akin to the release of the Pentagon Papers, which involved an analysis aimed at saving American lives and exposing government deception," he said.

Instead, these sensitive cables contain candid assessments and analysis of ongoing matters and they should remain confidential to protect the ability of the government to conduct lawful business with the private candor that's vital to effective diplomacy, he said.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/outraged-us-lawmakers-demand-wikileaks-be-shutdown/717630/

[Mass]

5. I think it is his official comment as it is also in the NewsHour website.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/11/leaking-of-secret-state-department-cables-us-and-south-korea-kick-of-military-exercises.html

Here is another link to a conversation of Mubarak with Kerry (under the Bush administration)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/28/egyptian-president-wikileaks_n_788974.html

I think the media make too much noise on this issue, in part in the goal of embarrassing the administration. Manning will be court-martialed and probably end up in jail for a very long time. The other issue that is relevant is to know why the security mechanisms which apparently existed were not activated. This certainly would require an investigation.

But there are many more issues that are more immediately important and relevant to people's life, and it is irritating to see so much time spent on that in the media.

[MBS]

6. Sen. Kerry is spot-on.

thanks, Sen. Kerry :thumbsup:

[TayTay]

7. I have extremely mixed feelings on the Wikileaks releases

1: It is illegal to download classified government documents on a whim. A duly sworn service-member who did this, which breaks his oath to serve his country, has committed an act that could, debatably, be called treason. I don't see how else to call it.

2: The documents themselves reveal that diplomacy is a very difficult art form, which few can practice. The documents also seem to reveal that there is no US policy for the Wars, the Middle East or anything else. The paralysis that we have noted in the US Congress seems to extend to US foreign policy.

3: I think the real nuggets here are things that we in this group already know because we paid attention when things were said originally. From the Guardian newspaper:

Some stars shine through the banality such as the heroic envoy in Islamabad, Anne Patterson. She pleads that Washington's whole policy is counterproductive: it "risks destabilising the Pakistani state, alienating both the civilian government and the military leadership, and provoking a broader governance crisis without finally achieving the goal". Nor is any amount of money going to bribe the Taliban to our side. Patterson's cables are like missives from the Titanic as it already heads for the bottom.

The money‑wasting is staggering. Aid payments are never followed, never audited, never evaluated. The impression is of the world's superpower roaming helpless in a world in which nobody behaves as bidden. Iran, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, the United Nations, are all perpetually off script. Washington reacts like a wounded bear, its instincts imperial but its power projection unproductive.

There are whole shelves full of books that could be written about what those two paragraphs mean.

4: It is irrelevant that some of the releases are embarrassing. I sincerely doubt this will have any lasting effect. Even the revelations about Yemen are not "new" news. Governments do embarrassing things all the time. The press prints them all the time. Life goes on. So it will here.

5: My first thoughts on this went to the http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/">Washington Post stories from last summer about a bloated, ineffective and over-zealous Security apparatus in the US that doesn't know what it is doing. If anything, these Wikileaks releases reinforce the image of a security system that is out-of-control and is dangerously ineffective. We haven't improved anything since 9/11. Things are much worse, there is too much secrecy, too much hidden that shouldn't be and we have whole agencies that operate at cross-purposes with other agencies. The Wikileaks docs just reinforce the idea that we have policy drift, not action. There is no war on terror, there is simply an excuse to spend more money on stuff that doesn't work.

6: Pres. Obama and his team have resisted efforts to draw America into a confrontation with Iran. Good.

[beachmom]

10. I don't know. Maybe the U.S. has always been in trouble to a certain degree.

The difference is that confusion was always kept secret.

Here is my take on leaking and Wikileaks. If someone thinks a Great Lie is going on (like the Gulf of Tonkin & the Vietnam War), then they might have to follow their conscience and do a leak, BUT they better know that there will be consequences for their actions. There is the law, and there is doing the right thing. Sometimes one cannot do both. I think leaking is RARELY the right thing to do, and is only right under extraordinary circumstances.

I have not found any of these leaks to be doing the right thing. I find them detrimental and destructive, and am really turned off by Wikileaks. For me open government has never been about lawlessness. I always believed in it being a conversation between the government and the governed, coaxing the former to reveal more. But the way Wikileaks is doing it? NO. WAY. To undermine DIPLOMACY, not even war, but just the work our diplomats do is wrong, and I see no good coming out of this.

I am really feeling down about everything in our politics at the moment. I'm worried about 2012. Heck, I am worried about 2014. I hope Pres. Obama finds his voice soon. Right now he seems stunned by the midterm losses and not finding his footing. This Wikileaks fiasco, although not his fault, adds to my nervousness.

I read a quote of Sen. Kerry in the paper today (probably similar to what has been posted here) and it reassured me. He said exactly what I was thinking. Wikileaks and the leaker who has caused this damage is shameless. Leaking just cuz ...

[karynnj]

11. I feel just the same as you on the leaks-

On politics, I am pretty much in the same place. It bothers me beyond words that the Republicans were rewarded for obstructing - and the Democrats blamed for not having already fixed the economy. Now, I doubt that we could have fixed the economy even if they weren't throwing up roadblocks at every stage, but they certainly did not help. It is odd, but the economy's near crash should have been a moment - like 911 - of all working for the country. It didn't happen - and they were rewarded for bad behavior.

It scares me that we didn't have the dominant voice even when we had the President and both Houses of Congress. I do worry that Obama seems dispirited - which is surprising as the loses were forecast earlier and could have been worse - at least in the Senate. But, part of it might again be the media. It could be biased coverage. I watched some coverage of his trip - his speeches in India and Indonesia were incredible - but I think CNN gave more time to a fund raising speech of Palin's, because it was her first "major" speech since the election. (They gave her more time on this than they gave JK on major (and they really were) speeches as the Presidential nominee.

If by 2014, you mean JK, if Obama loses and we lose the Senate, I wonder if he will run. On the one hand, he really doesn't give up, but that scenario would be worse than what happened in 2005-2006. Remember that we have many swing states that we won in wave elections in 2006 and 2008.

[TayTay]

15. I am troubled over the how it was done, but ...

9/11 came as a huge shock to Americans. Too many people accepted the "they hate us for our freedoms" line put out by the RW Republicans. They do not hate us for our freedoms. They hate us for our foreign policy, a foreign policy that includes overthrowing a democratic Iran in the 1950's and installing the Shah who was a brutal and bloodthirsty horror.

They hate us for seeming to back every tin pot despot who promises to aid the US in retrieving natural resources by brutalizing their own people.

I want a press corp that does it's job. That job, like it or not, it to confront and tell the truth to power. It bothers me tremendously that we were lied into a war in Iraq and that the American press cheerleaded that effort. I wanted a press corp that called BS on the Bush plans for war. It didn't happen.

Yes, this Wikileaks thing results in discomfort for the US. I agree. I also agree that the service-member who leaked this info was wrong to do so. But... I am not sorry it happened. I just wish the press would do it's job and tell truth to power, not just when it is lazily handed information but all the time. Maybe if this had happened before we would not have gone to war in Iraq.

Freedom of the Press has always been a very messy business. This is why a John Adams tried to initiate the Sedition Acts when he became President. This is why Jefferson hated the press. Yet, this kind of thiing is exactly why we have a First Amendment.

Yes, this is messy. The tense interplay between government and free press is supposed to be full of tensions and NOT be a buddy-buddy system in which each side hides secrets for the other.

[beachmom]

16. I think you have a point that Wikileaks is filling a gap, left open

in the wake of total failure by the press in the run up to the Iraq War. Although many viewed the new series "V" to be right wing friendly (other than one line about universal health care, I have not found it to be right wing oriented), I actually found its most compelling story line that was different from the old "V" was the transformation of the heroic photo journalist from the '80s miniseries to the totally narcissistic attention grabbing careerist TV journalist in the new series. He actually aids and abets the aliens! Such a story line would not have happened if it hadn't been for the collapse of our media at the beginning of this century.

We have so many disturbing things happening in our media at the moment. At the same time that liberals have become disappointed with NPR in some of their political reporting, it is now under total attack by the Right which is bent on destroying NPR and PBS. They are struggling with how to respond, because they desperately are trying to stay "neutral" but as Jay Rosen has told them, this is a culture war that they are in the middle of and only ONE SIDE is intent on obliterating them. How to stay objective in that case?

We have the internet causing creative destruction in all aspects of our media, yet I feel like they are using the internet as an excuse to paper over their decline that started BEFORE the internet started eating at their profits. This is not just true with newspapers, but the music, movie, television and publishing industry as well.

We have up to 40% of our population who prefer to listen to propaganda instead of trying to find out the truth. That is weird to me. I would rather be wrong about things, then willfully be ignorant. Yet so many people would rather be "comforted" that every opinion they have HAS to be right ALWAYS.

Meanwhile, we have two major stories that have hit this week, that I can't wrap my brain around. One is that the Department of Homeland Security seized 82 sites because they were engaging in counterfeit or piracy of intellectual property. Problem: no due process. They just seized the sites, not even giving a warning to the site owners first. And, this is before COICA (the Leahy bill which would legalize seizing sites with a court order only by the Justice Dept.) has even been debated in the Senate let alone signed into law. The other story is about Comcast suddenly deciding to charge extra to a service that delivers Netflix streaming which is in direct competition to Comcast's own Xfinity. That on the heels of Fox blocking hulu.com to Cablevision subscribers when there was a dispute. I find these stories to be major but not getting a lot of attention outside tech circles. I did find some right wing sites talk about the DHS website seizure story but only to give it a pointless partisan spin (Obama wants to seize production and control all aspects of our lives!) instead of really trying to understand what it all truly means. (corporations getting government help without the issue being really discussed by the public in a sane way).

So the media angle -- yeah, I see the way Wikileaks have snuck in. But boy I don't like the way they do it. And given our media environment, I am unsure as to how much good it does the public, for which it will all be used to embarrass the Obama Administration (they are Democrats!) without discussing the underlying policy questions.

Stories cited:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/27/technology/27torrent.html?_r=1

http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/30/what-the-comcastlevel-3-fracas-is-really-about-money/

http://gigaom.com/2010/11/29/forget-net-neutrality-comcast-might-break-the-web/

[TayTay]

17. I have mixed feelings on Wikileaks and Julian Assuage too

I don't think he is a hero. I think he is a flawed man who is doing this for his own reasons and for his own glorification. (Though I do admit, I did like the Wikileaks that, in the past, housed some of the Congressional Research papers done on issues. Wonky, but true. Here was information that should have been in the public domain and was not released because some in Congress just don't want the public to have access to complex information. That Wikileaks I liked a lot.)

Journalism is in the midst of crisis. There is no money anywhere for investigative research into issues. The advertisers for major media outlets have too many divisions in bed with corporate and governmental entities. The very model for how news is collected is falling apart. This is why we have "if it bleeds it leads" TV news and mostly softball stories without depth in newspapers. It costs too much to do more than that and no one will pay for it.

Yet, the need for information has never been greater. (Side argument on how this plays into our current crop of succeeding wave elections set aside for the moment.) This type of document dump is going to become more common. Wikileaks is just the harbinger of the future when information wants to get out and finds a way.

There are a lot of people, globally, who don't care if the info embarrasses Democrats or Republicans. Thye serve their own interests. (Julian Assuage serves his own interests, period.) This is not immoral or ammoral, it simply is true.

[Mass]

8. WikiLeaked: John Kerry calls for Israel to cede Golan Heights and East Jerusalem

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/11/29/wikileaked_john_kerry_calls_for_israel_to_cede_golan_heights_and_east_jerusalem

WikiLeaked: John Kerry calls for Israel to cede Golan Heights and East Jerusalem

[karynnj]

9. The title is overblown, but not inaccurate

It is strange as the article is a fair interpretation, but the title will be troublesome. I agree with Kerry's paragraph on East Jerusalem, they will insist on the mosque - and that will actually be the toughest thing to resolve, because the Western wall is right outside of it. I do understand the Israeli problem with the Golan Heights, as Syria having it makes much of Israel vulnerable.

[TayTay]

14. This should be out there for discussion

I know this will create some discomfort for Sen. Kerry, but this topic should be out there.

I think that the Senator will be attacked over this, but he is more than able to respond and respond well.