On Diplomacy

This whole Assange thing has been very interesting to watch unfold.

There is the smear campaign orchestrated by the world's governments to switch the attention from WikiLeaks to the founder, Assange. People are much easier to villianize than institutions or organizations.
The world's media were quick to splash "Rape" at first and "Sexual Assault" later in connection with Assange, but now they are toning it back without ever explicitly stating what he is wanted for.
What is Assage wanted for in Sweden? It's not rape. From what I've read, the two women in Sweden felt like he should have used a condom, and didn't take an STD test. Obviously this is a bad thing to do and I think he should be held accountable by those women if he really did wrong them. However, for this crime he was added to Interpol's Most Wanted list? How many Al-qaida operatives are still out there? How many traffickers in people or drugs? Point being, Assange exposed a lot of governments in their underwear, and this really pissed them off.

The funny thing is that the documents are not shocking at all. I actually found them encouraging as they actually sound like the US kind of has an awareness of what is going on in the world and not this blandly optimistic "US has productive talks with Pakistan" message common to the media covering international diplomacy.

I don't think this was a particularly useful cache of leaked documents- it basically amounted to the publishing of notes passed in class ("Ahamenajad has smelly feet"). I don't think the relationships between nations will be harmed- its like an ambassador farting loudly in a meeting with a national leader. Embarrassing and unprofessional, but both parties had an understanding of people as biological organisms. Of course after the leaks, some foreign government mouthpieces have to get up and bluster and do some podium pounding, but at the end of the day, they want to have normal relationships with the US. They already knew of what the US thinks about them, and everyone will be encouraged to quickly forget this gaffe. So I don't think the US is really concerned about this leak harming relationships or diplomacy.

It does definitely harm the capabilities of the US diplomatic intelligence gathering agencies, in all shades of gray. Sources were exposed. People will be more unwilling to speak as the trust of anonymenity is broken. Right now I would be there are secret witch-hunts going on in governments around the world to find the people who talked who were exposed. I could see this really angering the US.

But I think what made the US really angry is that it exposed government workings in a way that could not be controlled and was not intended for the public view. It is the suggestion that governments should be watched and should not consider themselves to be the be-all, end-all. The US government cannot abide WikiLeaks because it suggests that they can be held accountable.