While it's completely reasonable for the US to be concerned with preventing breaches of classified information, the problem with the US reaction to the horrors and gaffes revealed by Wikileaks is that there has been absolutely zero outrage about them, only the attempt to shoot the messenger.
This asymmetry has been a real awakening for me about the level of corruption and moral bankruptcy of the US ruling class, and about the apathy and complicity of the press and the citizenry in general.
I think we are already past the inflection point that historians will one day view as similar to the turning points that led to Nazi Germany and other large scale moral failings of humanity. There is a culture of denial and intentional blindness to the consequences of US actions abroad and a terrible enthusiasm for the leaders who initiate these kinds of things.
I have one friend (a United States citizen) who has spent much of his life living abroad. He has been to dozens of different countries, including the Asian country where I met him. He has not been back to any part of the United States in the last five years, during which time he has been to multiple countries of varied cultural and political background. His reaction to the Wikileaks publication of United States diplomatic "cables" was that his respect for United States diplomats increased enormously. That is my reaction too. United States diplomats have to deal with other governments all over the world, many much more treacherous and duplicitous than the United States government has been even at its worst. Those of us who are Americans who have been abroad, and who thus are especially aware of the consequences of US actions abroad, certainly have our own criticisms of United States policy. We also criticize the actions of United States persons who violate some United States policies, to the harm of foreign persons. But if Wikileaks wanted to so something both constructive for world peace and likely to elicit even more surprised outrage, it should turn its attention to the classified documents of China, of Iran, of Russia, of North Korea, of Belarus, of Venezuela, and of various other dictatorial regimes around the world.
AFTER EDIT: The reply two levels down by pdonis correctly summarizes the single standard I apply to all governments: they all ought to act morally, they all fail to act morally from time to time, I oppose all of those failures, and I would especially like to know more about the activities of governments that don't subject themselves to the discipline of free and fair elections, even if it means an organization like Wikileaks has to reveal their secrets.
Given your eager defense of US I doubt you see how dangerous this kind of reasoning is.
You basically said that US, in general, is a good guy and therefore it's justified in doing illegal, immoral things and then hunting down those who expose this behavior.
So exposing bad behavior of US government is bad and worthy prosecution but exposing bad behavior of other governments, those you deem to be worse than US, is good and worthy praise.
Please explain the rationale for that double-standard.
Please also tell me which which other country dropped two atomic bombs, fought a prolonged, unprovoked political war (Vietnam) and invaded another country based on evidence that is believed to be completely fabricated (Iraq) and destroyed the lives of many creative people during McCarthy's communist witch hunt.
This is not to say that other countries aren't worse but let's not blindly wave patriotic flag and pretend that US government is immune to immoral, corrupt behavior. This kind of blind patriotism is easily exploitable. One thing that the "bad" governments have in common is that blind patriotism is a main propaganda technique used by Nazi Party, North Korea, communist countries to build us vs. evil them (except to them it's the jews or US is the "evil") and explain away their bad behavior (because the other side is even worse).
> You basically said that US, in general, is a good guy and therefore it's justified in doing illegal, immoral things and then hunting down those who expose this behavior.
That's not what he said. He said the US is, on balance, less immoral than the dictatorial regimes he named. Yet those other regimes don't get the scrutiny the US does.
Yet those other regimes don't get the scrutiny the US does.
For better or worse, the US puts itself in that position by acting as the world police. The most visible nation will, of course, be under more scrutiny, and rightfully so. The more power one has, the more safeguards need to be available to ensure that power is used for good.
Also, Wikileaks posts leaks from countries other than the US.
> For better or worse, the US puts itself in that position by acting as the world police.
To an extent, yes, this is a valid point. But I'm not sure "world police" is the right term. The United Nations is supposed to be playing the role of enforcing standards of civilized behavior on all nations, but it has failed miserably. The US is more like one of the more civilized citizens who is getting fed up with the stuff the less civilized citizens get away with without being called on it by either the "authorities" (the UN) or the other supposedly more civilized citizens. Which is not to say that the US always does the "right" thing when it gets fed up like this; but in many situations I'm not sure there is a "right" thing to do. The sad fact is that there are a lot of nations and a lot of people in the world who simply do not care about upholding standards of civilized behavior.
> Also, Wikileaks posts leaks from countries other than the US.
Yes, this is true, and I didn't mean to imply that the US was the only country being "targeted". As far as I can tell, Wikileaks is an equal opportunity organization: they're willing to piss off anyone. ;)
this is also another really terrible argument that is used to rationalize bad behaviour constantly.
At least we arn't as bad as THAT guy.
If the USA does not have the level of human rights abuses of say china, does that give them a free pass? They cannot be questioned or criticized until china "cleans up its act", and everyone complaining should complain about china instead?
> If the USA does not have the level of human rights abuses of say china, does that give them a free pass?
No, but it means that if your goal is to fix human rights, you're going to get a lot more "bang for the buck" going after China than going after the USA.
I agree with your characterization of the dangerous attitude of moral superiority by default.
If you start with the assumption that the US is generally a better world citizen than most other nations, it's a lot easier to turn a blind eye to the atrocities happening every day on the margin.
I also do not consider the diplomatic cables particularly significant, their release mainly creates personal embarrassment to the diplomats who must apologize in person to the victims of their petty and rude remarks found in the cables... in general nothing revealed was outside the bounds of what is reasonable to discuss if one assumes the conversation will be private (humans are gossipy, petty creatures). They do reveal a somewhat unflattering aspect of diplomacy, but nothing that any realist wouldn't have already imagined.
The meat is in the Iraq and Afghan war logs, so it sort of irks me when the diplomatic cables are discussed b/c they are mostly just gossip column material.
Aside from Collateral Murder, what shocking revelations have come to light as a result of the leaks? Not saying they don't exist, but speculating perhaps some of the 'revelations' weren't so shocking or were even publicly known.
- The complicity of US forces in turning over captive Baathists to the provisional Iraqi officials for nearly certain torture.
- The revelation that information was classified only to prevent bad news from getting out about the progress of the war effort. This counts as propagandizing the American people.
Thank you for actually providing examples. However, I can't help but feel that:
* Preventing bad news from getting out about the progress of the war effort is to be expected of any military.
* Lying about civilian death tolls is to be expected of any military.
* ISI complicity with the Taliban has been speculated for a long time, even before the leaks. Seeing as the religious element of Pakistan sympathizes greatly(read: completely) with their cause, it makes complete sense that it runs high up the chain of command. IMO the only reason they keep up the facade of alliance is because of our money(and, of course, the decently sized Pakistani diaspora who see the fallacy of the fanaticism in their homeland).
The first issue you mentioned seems to be the only true revelation to me, shocking or not.
Things "expected of any military" might actually be crimes. It is against the law for the US Government to propagandize the American people. At present, a few hawkish members of congress are trying to overturn those laws, and clearly both major parties support overturning them in spirit.
It's reasonable for a US citizen to support the wars if he/she feels that overall they are the right thing to do. But it's an insult to our democratic process to hide the bad news and then turn supporters into dupes who cheer on the team without having a clue about what is actually going on.
> Things "expected of any military" might actually be crimes.
Good point, and that's absolutely the case. The question then to me is would anyone be shocked when those things happen anyways regardless of the law? Even if there was an uproar at such revelations, would anyone be held accountable for them? My answer is "no" and "likely not" respectively.
Collateral Murder was not a shocking revelation. The Washington Post ran a transcript of that video, scene for scene, a year before the video was released. The video only shocked people who don't read.
This asymmetry has been a real awakening for me about the level of corruption and moral bankruptcy of the US ruling class, and about the apathy and complicity of the press and the citizenry in general.
I think we are already past the inflection point that historians will one day view as similar to the turning points that led to Nazi Germany and other large scale moral failings of humanity. There is a culture of denial and intentional blindness to the consequences of US actions abroad and a terrible enthusiasm for the leaders who initiate these kinds of things.