Tuesday, August 30, 2011

More Damage From Wikileaks

Since the U.S. has failed to eliminate the threat posed by Wikileaks, it was only a matter of time before it inflicted more damage on U.S. interests.
WikiLeaks has published on the Web nearly 134,000 leaked diplomatic cables in recent days ... the newly published cables included the names of some people who had spoken confidentially to American diplomats and whose identities were marked in the cables with the warning “strictly protect.”
This isn't the first time Wikileaks has callously endangered the lives of people who have worked with the U.S.
Last year, WikiLeaks was sharply criticized by human rights activists for disclosing the names of Afghan citizens who had provided information on the Taliban to the American military.
Supposedly they've been more careful with their publication of stolen files until now. But I guess you can't expect people who solicit treason and publish secrets in an effort to damage U.S. interests to be very responsible. As I've written multiple times before, the U.S. government should be doing everything possible to destroy Wikileaks, a hostile non-state entity that poses a threat significantly greater than many of the terrorists we are killing with the drone assassination program.

4 comments:

  1. I do tend to dislike enemies that inflict damage on the U.S. In the real world secrecy is necessary for the foreign policy operations of states, both to protect & advance national interests, and to safeguard people in other countries who are acting as assets for a different state -- something that is usually regarded as treasonous by their home countries.

    As most adults understand, the truth can be helpful or harmful, depending on the circumstances. Maybe we should publish the location of all sites where we keep nuclear material, the codes for entry into the facilities, and the schedules for the guards. After all, we'd just be telling the truth, right?

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  2. The problem is when there is a coverup (usually CYA of an "embarrassing" consequence by the incompetance people in charge) and it's burried with a classified, secret or top secret tag.

    Wikileaks seems to expose this type of crap from the state dept, however it's like a meat cleaver and not a scapel... stuff that shouldn't be exposed is revealed as well.

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  3. "The problem is when there is a coverup (usually CYA of an "embarrassing" consequence by the incompetance people in charge) and it's burried with a classified, secret or top secret tag."

    That's true, but sometimes it is in the U.S. interest to cover those things up. If the U.S. screws up in some way, from a U.S. perspective, the less people know about it the better. For example, many have argued that Abu Ghraib badly damaged the U.S., and helped recruit terrorists. If it could have been kept secret, that wouldn't have happened. Sure it would be embarrassing when the truth came out 20 years from now, but that would be far preferable to taking a hit to current U.S. interests.

    Also, it is possible for people in government who screw up to be punished by the organization they work for without letting everyone in the world know what they did.

    "Wikileaks seems to expose this type of crap from the state dept, however it's like a meat cleaver and not a scapel... stuff that shouldn't be exposed is revealed as well. "

    That's putting it mildly. They are basically dumping whatever information they can steal and putting it out there for everyone to see.

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