Wikileaks Analysis: More Questions Than Answers: "
I can’t put my finger on it, but something feels off about this whole story. There are so many questions:
1. Why only these documents?
2. What is Wikileaks holding back?
3. What info did the New York Times hold back?
4. Why now?
5. Who gains?
Is this just the narcissistic expression of a demented America hater? Bookworm says this (please go read her whole post):
In a way, these leaks give new meaning to Hannah Arendt’s famous phrase, “the banality of evil.” She was talking about the horrible ordinariness of the Nazis, who clung to their middle class lives even as they engaged in unparalleled atrocities. These leaks are a different banal evil: even though the information released is known (Saudi fear of Iran) or stupid (e.g., Qaddafi’s blond nurse), making it mostly banal, the profound damage that results from these leaks (the deaths, the national humiliations, the destruction of necessary diplomatic ignorance) is profoundly evil.
She wonders why this Julian Assange is still alive. I wonder why the President’s reaction has been so mute (and I don’t mean quiet because his mouth is sewn shut because of the elbow to the face). The president values transparency and openness but condemns this action? What mealy mouthed words for such a discrediting breach. Unless….the President doesn’t really care about this leak. Is this more nonchalance in the face of catastrophe?
Good lord. With President Obama one never knows what to make of anything. He seems constitutionally incapable of making a declarative sentence unless he’s vilifying Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin or some other ginned up enemy. Real enemies? They get sweet words and indirect almost-grumpy attitude.
And there’s real reason to be concerned. At the Asia Times Online, via The Anchoress:
How do we explain the gaping chasm between Obama’s public stance and the facts reported by the diplomatic corps? The cables do not betray American secrets so much as American obliviousness. The simplest and most probable explanation is that the president is a man obsessed by his own vision of a multipolar world, in which America will shrink its standing to that of one power among many, and thus remove the provocation on which Obama blames the misbehavior of the Iranians, Pakistanis, the pro-terrorist wing of the Saudi royal family, and other enemies of the United States.
It all feels very strange. There is never any comforting leadership from the President. And Secretary of State Clinton calls them “alleged” cables. Does anyone know what they’re doing?
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