The revelations by Wikileaks point for me to a personal nexus.
Because of this, I ask you to trust me; to trust my take on this entire brouhaha. It’s easy to go with the overwhelming push by the government, the media, the powers that be. If one side is all you have ever heard, it should not come as a great surprise if your perception of reality shares the same distortions as those of your source.
Put all of that aside. I’m going to take you around to the other side for a better, clearer look at all of this.
First, what do I mean by personal nexus?
My multifarious trips to the Groves of Academe resulted in an undergraduate degree in Political Science, among other subjects. My graduate work was in international Relations, among other subjects.
I have been a practicing politician, actually holding public office. I was a foreign correspondent. I worked for a military intelligence agency and with the Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. As politician, as journalist, as analyst, I have the background, the education and the experience to look at this from all pertinent perspectives.
Journalism is perhaps the easiest aspect of this to deal with, so I’ll tackle it first. It is not the media’s job to be the public relations arm of the government. The reason for providing the press with constitutional rights in the very first amendment is because the Founding Fathers recognized the role of the press was to counter the government.
Among all of those listed individual rights, they saw the press as the public’s way to be informed. They knew that information was necessary for the citizenry to check the power of the government. It might be more proper to characterize it a bit differently. We need information to keep politicians and agencies and individuals from using the government power to their own perceived advantage.
The media’s role is to be a friend and tool of the people. It’s role is to be our watchdog. The criticism of Wikileaks by the media is misdirected. Why? It is partially because the media is in bed with the politicians. It is partially to cover their embarrassment at being shown up as lazy and incompetent. Wikileaks has been doing their job for them.
If you see the media criticizing Wikileaks, you are well-advised to ignore it. That doesn’t mean that Wikileaks gets a free pass. Their work should be scrutinized. Their sense of responsibility needs to be assessed. Those are aspects of the media’s job on every story. Mindless criticism is not.
The talking heads are foaming at the mouth about the treasonous release of intelligence. Nonsense. What intelligence? The bulk of what was released was fodder for TMZ and the rest of the gossip media.
The Premier of Italy parties a lot. That Russian drinks to excess. The staff of a European country tends to be anti-American. Quick, call all of the gossip columnists.
North Korea is facing immanent collapse. The military of North Korea is in firm control. China is the master manipulator of Pyongyang. China has lost control. Those are all simply guesses by State Department personnel based in Beijing. Guesses by people who are not working in intelligence is not intelligence.
Israel has tried to get us to bomb Iran. Saudi Arabia has urged us to bomb Iran. The Emirates have more than hinted at the pleasure they would derive from our bombing of Iran. Whoops. Somebody’s face is red.
Why would fellow Arabs want to cut Iran off at the knees? Well, for one thing, the Iranians are not Arabs, they are Farsi. Another little detail is that Iran is Shia. So are the majority of Iraqis. Almost all other Muslims are Sunni. It may be a shock to many but all Muslims are not the same. There is no Islamic monolith.
Intelligence? It doesn’t quite fit the definition that we used back in the 50s, 60s and 70s.
The government didn’t want us to know that the CIA eliminated the first democratically elected Islamic leader. That was Dr. Mohammad Mosaddegh, back in 1953. We replaced him with the Shah. Some Iranians felt that represented interference in their affairs. Other than upset the Iranians, the primary legacy of the Shah was to rekindle among some of the Iranian leaders a longing for the good old days of the Persian Empire. That has led to their idiotic pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Why did we get rid of the good doctor? Well, I know it’s difficult to believe but he nationalized the oil industry in Iran. He thought it belonged to the Iranians. Silly, wasn’t he?
There are about 54 million documents classified by the government in a year. Actually, they are classified by people, for various reasons. Sometimes it is because it makes the person feel important. Sometimes, it’s because it’s always been dome that way. Sometimes it is to avoid embarrassment. Sometimes it is to avoid the consequences of someone’s actions.
It’s possible that most of those millions of documents have no business being classified.
Let me provide a little lesson on how to keep a secret. Do not authorize two and a half million people to classify and have access to your secret. Do not, as Homeland Security did, make State Department cables available to Army PFCs. Someone in the little Department of Homeland Security thought it would be safer to share all classified documents as widely as possible. Yeah, sure.
Instead of criticizing Wikileaks, you should be grateful for a look at what is going on in the world in your name, with your money. How often do you get such a candid view?
Wikileaks was not founded to provide a transmission device for treason. It was intended that any whistle-blower at any job in any country would have a way to let the public know. It was intended to empower you and me. It was intended to help implement the purpose of the Constitution’s check on government, to provide knowledge of abuses by corporations.
Treason? Not really. At least not for the founder of Wikileaks. One can only commit treason against ones own country. Julian Assange is an Aussie. He is adamant that research by his staff and outsiders has found no case where a person was killed or otherwise harmed by any release they have made.
I would think it is possible some have been forced to cease doing things they were doing, for personal profit or some other reason. That may qualify as harm. Otherwise, I’m more prepared to accept his word for it than some vague, unsubstantiated accusation that the release of documents will cause damage by a politician or other interested party.
Well, he broke the law. Didn’t he? Let’s take a look at you. Have you said unkind things about Kim Jong Il? Did you know that is against the law, in North Korea. Should that funny little guy have the right to punish you for your lack of respect? You didn’t do it in North Korea. Now, just how did you break the law?
Be careful the next time you visit a lady of the streets in Bangkok or light up something besides a cigarette in Amsterdam. Your local constabulary may come knocking on your door.
Wikileaks released classified American documents while in other countries. They didn’t break any laws of America while in American territory. If you later go to North Korea but do not violate their laws while you are there, I would think they had no justification to arrest you. I’m inclined to let Julian visit the US and explain himself on a few Sunday talk shows. I’m not at all afraid of what he might say. Then again, I am not hiding anything under the stamp of a classified document.
Meanwhile, I find it interesting that politicians and others in the government can get so exercised about a violation of the privacy of themselves. They do this while trying to justify unprecedented intrusions into the lives of the public and violations of privacy supposedly protected by the Constitution. The Constitution is intended to protect us from them and provide us the means to know what they are doing.
Why does the word canard come to mind? We are well on our way to the world described by Franz Kafka.
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