The 10 MOST IMPORTANT WikiLeaks Revelations

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The AP has concluded that there is nothing "particularly explosive" so far in the archive of State Department cables that has begun to be released by WikiLeaks. That assertion is debatable in itself. But anyone who takes time to browse through the documents< http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/>
will find both fascinating and solidly new and newsworthy information about U.S. foreign policy and international relations.


WikiLeaks says the documents will be released in stages "over the next few months," so much of what we know now comes through the filter of the handful of media organizations who had access to the full archives. Only a few hundred cables have been released. Here are the top 10 revelations so far:


Diplomats as spies: As part of an intelligence gathering effort, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2009 ordered diplomats overseas and at the U.N. to collect personal information on foreign officials including credit card and frequent flier numbers and biometric information. Read that cable here, and the New York Times' writeup here. While this may not be shocking to foreign policy wonks, it is certainly embarrassing for the United States and calls into question how much -- and how frequently -- the role of diplomat and spy has been blurred.
<http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2009/07/09STATE80163.html>



Secret war in Yemen: The Obama administration has secretly launched missile attacks on suspected terrorists in Yemen, with the Yemeni government taking responsibility and consistently lying about it. While the attacks have drawn relatively little public attention, dozens of civilians along with some suspected terrorists have reportedly been killed. Salon's account of the Yemen revelation is here. The January 2010 cable describing a meeting between Yemen's president and Gen. David Petraeus is here.
<http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2010/01/10SANAA4.html>



Iran and North Korea: American intelligence believes Iran has received 19 missiles from North Korea with a range up to 2,000 miles, making them the longest-range missiles in the Iranian arsenal. The Times' story on the missiles is here. The Times says it did not publish the cable at the request of the Obama administration. It has not been posted by WikiLeaks.



Gates skeptical on Iran attack: Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, in a meeting with his French counterpart in February of this year, said that "he believed a conventional strike by any nation would only delay Iranian plans by one to three years, while unifying the Iranian people to be forever embittered against the attacker." That cable is here.
<http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2010/02/10PARIS170.html>



Saudis want U.S. to bomb Iran: Several Arab leaders have privately urged the U.S. to launch an attack on Iran to stall or stop its nuclear program. Most memorably, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is reported to have "told you to cut off the head of the snake," according to a Saudi diplomat . That cable is here. And here is the Guardian's write-up.
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/150519>



Israel bluffing on Iran threats? The government of Israel, which has been publicly vocal about the possibility of launching airstrikes against Iran's nuclear program, was not considering such an attack, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told his Russian counterpart on a trip to Moscow in June 2009. The cable describing Lieberman's trip to Russia is here. A story on the cable from the Israeli press is here.
<http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2009/06/09MOSCOW1488.html>



Fears of uranium in Pakistan: The U.S. has since 2007 tried to get enriched uranium at a Pakistani nuclear reactor out of that country, fearing that the uranium could fall into unfriendly hands and be used to make a bomb. The effort has been unsuccessful. The Times' story on this is here. The cable has not been published.



Fatah had warning of Gaza invasion? Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told an American congressional delegation that Israel had asked Egypt and Fatah, the Palestian movement that governs the West Bank, "if they were willing to assume control of Gaza once Israel defeated Hamas" prior to Israeli's devastating attack on Gaza in late 2008. That revelation comes in a June 2009 cable that you can read here. Haaretz's writeup is here.
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/209599>



Afghan corruption: The U.S. government deals regularly with a brother of President Hamid Karzai whom it believes to be corrupt and a drug trafficker. That's the conclusion of a cable from October 2009 about Ahmed Wali Karzai, who has also been reported to be on the CIA payroll. This does not come as a shock, but it amounts to official recognition that a U.S. partner in Afghanistan is implicated in criminal enterprises. AFP has more on this story.
<http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2009/10/09KABUL3068.html>



Undiplomatic name-calling: This is probably less important than the revelations above, but it is already making waves in the international press: Several of the cables have U.S. diplomats describing foreign leaders in unfriendly terms -- from comparing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Hitler to calling Russia's Vladimir Putin "alpha-dog" and French President Nicolas Sarkozy "the emperor with no clothes." The CBC has more.
<http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2010/11/28/wikileaks-release.html>




<http://www.salon.com/news/wikileaks/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2010/11/29/wikileaks_roundup>

[BeyondGeography]

1. "Undiplomatic name-calling" makes the top 10

That's how thin this is.

[emulatorloo]

4. But now we know there is a 'Voluptuous Blond Ukranian Nurse" in Gaddafi's entourage

and that Putin and Berlusconi are having some kind of "bro-mance"

As to diplomatic spying, hasn't that been going on since the Cold War?

[BeyondGeography]

12. Which reminds me, what good are these leaks without pictures?

[emulatorloo]

18. LOL - n/t

[Celtic Raven]

24. Found her

:evilgrin:

[LostInAnomie]

8. That's exactly right.

That's why I don't believe the "It's about exposing secrets and crimes!" line people are throwing out. If that were true, include all the name calling communications? It's just for embarrassment.

[Uncle Joe]

19. It seems to me, this makes the top 10, particularly coming after Bush's masturbatory book.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9642724

A classified document obtained by SPIEGEL shows notes from a meeting between a top German diplomat and Condoleezza Rice just weeks before the Iraq invasion. It indicates steps by the German government to prevent the war and undermines claims in George W. Bush's memoir that Gerhard Schröder indicated he would support the president should the US go to war.

[Catherina]

2. The 10 most important according to the US media. There are more important ones than that

with plenty more coming.

The US government won't be able to yawn its way out of this one, no matter how many yawners it conjures up. Rec'd as a start.

[Segami]

6. Oh, I agree. This docu-dump could be just the tip of the coming storm.

[emulatorloo]

7. Well they go all the way back to the 60's, surely there will be some scandalous

stuff in there.

[yowzayowzayowza]

10. Yawn. n/t

[ProSense]

13. Not impressed with the list?

Me either.

[Catherina]

15. On the contrary. In fact I dinstinctly recall using the words good start,

But don't let that interrupt your yawning.

[MattSh]

25. Yep....

Some people need to catch up on their sleep while the USA circles the toilet for the last time.

[cali]

27. what are the "more important ones"?

to date what wikileaks has produced re diplomacy really isn't much.

[BrklynLiberal]

3. Lots and lots of embarrassment, but I do not see any REAL National Security issues

I doubt there was ANYHTING in these documents that those involved were not already aware of...only the public is treated like mushrooms...I.E....kept in the dark and fed bullshit.

One more pseudo-crisis for the repukes to scream about, and the "Dems" to knee-jerk react to with equally strident and meaningless whining.

For sure, the repukes will make this all Obama's fault.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[EFerrari]

14. I think it's a national security issue when our government enables

the toppling of democratic governments because there is always blowback. And that's apart from the fact that it's both illegal AND immoral and then, there are all those dead people.

DUer rabs reports that a Honduran paper said Manuel Zelaya is taking his case back to the UN, probably on the strength of the cable released that shows the United States concluded almost immediately that his outer was illegal.

[jberryhill]

21. "the United States concluded" Really?

I'm curious about that phrase.

I have no doubt it was illegal, but since when did the opinion of one person at an embassy become a conclusion of "the United States"?

[Qutzupalotl]

20. I could see a potential issue with bombing Yemen and getting their govt to lie about it.

It obliterates what credibility the U.S. did have, inflaming passions further and increasing the likelihood of more bombing attempts, etc. And it lessens credibility for the Yemeni government, which could destabilize it.

Granted, bombing someone and lying about it is rarely a good thing in itself.

[harun]

5. People have known for some time Saudi's want Iran attacked.

It was written about in the book "The Persian Puzzle" as well.

[emulatorloo]

9. And I think embassies have been spying on each other since the Cold War

if not earlier.

[TheWraith]

17. Loooooong before that, actually.

Organized spying out of embassies has existed as long as there have been embassies. Diplomats as spies have existed as long as there have been diplomats, going back centuries.

[TheWraith]

16. Only three of these are actually intriguing, in my view.

The North Korean missiles to Iran, the Saudis trying to get us to strike Iran, and the Pakistani uranium problem. All the rest is stuff we more or less already knew (Afghan corruption, spying), or which was highly predictable (Israeli bluffing, undiplomatic diplomats).

[jberryhill]

22. It's interesting information

But the Pentagon Papers revealed a massive deception of the US, in that official pronouncements of progress in the war were at stark odds with the assessment of the DoD.

What, in any of this stuff, demonstrates actions by the US in conduct of foreign policy in conflict with the stated objectives of US foreign policy?

[Hannah Bell]

23. none of those are particularly revelatory. diplomats = spies? that's been the case

since the founding of the republic.

secret war in yemen? non-msm sources have been reporting that.

etc.

[Angleae]

26. These are revelations?

Most of these fall under the classification of "No shit sherlock".