I am not sure why James Rubin is using the WikiLeaks controversy to attack the ‘hard left.’ It seems like a distraction from the main points of his essay, which I happen to wholeheartedly agree with. Even if we place someone like Glenn Greenwald in this ‘hard left’ category, I don’t think Rubin’s critique is on target. If Greenwald is at fault in his analysis it is in his assessment that WikiLeaks wears an unambiguously white cap.
The central goal of WikiLeaks is to prevent the world’s most powerful factions — including the sprawling, imperial U.S. Government — from continuing to operate in the dark and without restraints. Most of the institutions which are supposed to perform that function — beginning with the U.S. Congress and the American media — not only fail to do so, but are active participants in maintaining the veil of secrecy. WikiLeaks, whatever its flaws, is one of the very few entities shining a vitally needed light on all of this. It’s hardly surprising, then, that those factions — and their hordes of spokespeople, followers and enablers — see WikiLeaks as a force for evil. That’s evidence of how much good they are doing.
That’s the kind of lazy manichean thinking that Greenwald usually eviscerates. I mean, sure, it sounds good to have this swashbuckling Robin Hood out there stealing from the information-rich to give to the information-poor, but many of us don’t like to see the diplomatic wing of our foreign policy apparatus disadvantaged. This is especially the case when the damage takes the form of carpet bombing rather than precision strikes.
What possibly justifies putting Greenwald in a hard left category isn’t some insistence that America leave other countries to govern as they see fit. It’s this:
In sum, I seriously question the judgment of anyone who — in the face of the orgies of secrecy the U.S. Government enjoys and, more so, the abuses they have accomplished by operating behind it — decides that the real threat is WikiLeaks for subverting that ability. That’s why I said yesterday: one’s reaction to WikiLeaks is largely shaped by whether or not one, on balance, supports what the U.S. has been covertly doing in the world by virtue of operating in the dark.
Again, the fault in this lies in its either/or structure. I don’t have to decide that there is one true ‘real’ threat, and then dismiss everything else as harmless. I do not have to support what the U.S. government has done under the cloak of secrecy to prefer the State Department’s general approach to the world to the CIA and Defense Department’s. I can enjoy and benefit from the information provided by WikiLeaks while still believing that they did more harm than good. And I can maintain my sobriety and not claim that WikiLeaks has somehow ‘subverted’ our government’s ability to do bad things behind closed doors.
Greenwald says that one’s views on the WikiLeaks controversy are “largely shaped by whether or not one, on balance, supports what the U.S. has been covertly doing in the world.” That is probably a true statement, but it ought not to be. My view is shaped by what I think was accomplished by the leaks and whether it will lead to better U.S. foreign policy.
In the short term, the State Department has taken their communication system off the classified grid, which greatly reduces how many people in government have access to what the State Department is thinking. Greenwald shows no inclination to concern himself with such details, and appears to be satisfied that the thumb of Julian Assange has been well-placed in the eyes of people who richly deserve it. For me, that’s an immature attitude worthy of a teenager in search of revenge. And, yes, it does amount to placing yourself in complete opposition to your own country’s establishment and system. If that’s warranted, then that’s fine. I have felt the same way at times, particularly in the 2002-2009 period. But I think it’s fair to call this a ‘hard left’ position when it is applied to the WikiLeaks case.
For some reason, Rubin thinks ‘hard left’ means something else.
By and large, the hard left in America and around the world would prefer to see the peaceful resolution of disputes rather than the use of military force. World peace, however, is a lot harder to achieve if the U.S. State Department is cut off at the knees. And that is exactly what this mass revelation of documents is going to do. The essential tool of State Department diplomacy is trust between American officials and their foreign counterparts. Unlike the Pentagon which has military forces, or the Treasury Department which has financial tools, the State Department functions mainly by winning the trust of foreign officials, sharing information, and persuading. Those discussions have to be confidential to be successful. Destroying confidentiality means destroying diplomacy.
See, I don’t see why this is a ‘hard’ left position. It’s my position. It seems to be a position shared by anyone with a shred of faith left in any part of our government.
Isn’t Rubin married to Christiane Amanpour? Does Rubin realize that some of the calls from his fellow establismentarians will make doing his wife’s job a lot harder(or maybe even make her pointless)? Also, didn’t the CBO estimate that approximately 3 million people(ie. the Security state .. meaning Booz Allen Hamilton and others) have access to most, if not all, of what WikiLeaks posted?
“Greenwald shows no inclination to concern himself with such details, and appears to be satisfied that the thumb of Julian Assange has been well-placed in the eyes of people who richly deserve it. For me, that’s an immature attitude worthy of a teenager in search of revenge. “
nice strawman you set up there. here’s what Greenwald really said:
It’s not about being “immature”, it’s about exposing criminal behavior by political elites. It seems that some people think that laws are for little people. And I’ll add this, also from greenwald:
your response is the strawman.
It’s completely non-responsive to the sentence of mine that you quote.
Greenwald is all over the place. He says that we can’t critique WikiLeaks because they are the only game in town.
If you argue the fine points of the latest leak, he reverts to defending the last two leaks.
If you complain that this hurts diplomacy to the benefit of more violent solutions, he simply dismisses the culture of the State Dept. as indistinguishable from the culture of the CIA and DIA.
His argument boils down to “these bastards are doing shit in secret and they deserve to be embarrassed.”
Sorry, but that’s immature. Do you think I’d be complaining if the leaks were confined to clear areas of malfeasance and hypocrisy? Hint. I wouldn’t be.
whatever you say, kiddo.
I don’t know why anyone would trust the american government because they seem like such affable, trusty chaps. If there are any such poor souls out there, I guess they’ve been enlightened.
More broadly, I’m unable to detect any significant change in any aspect of foreign policy since January 2009. I guess I appreciate that Obama is apparently not dumb enough to bomb Iran (yet), but other than that it’s business as usual.
A point is constantly being missed by the US media and pundits. Overclassification makes keeping real state secrets (operational and containing personal information) that much more difficult. Because it requires more people to have clearances just to get anything done. No fewer than 2 million people were cleared to view the materials that Wikileaks released. That shows the problem for national security and for demonstrating that Assange needs to be receiving the thanks of the “real Americans” and not being written off as the “hard left”.
The war document drops showed that war was not unending incidents of derring-do (despite the US press’s focus on the few reports that did tend in that direction). The State Department drop does not show that the US is constantly lying to or being catty about foreign leaders. A goodly number of the documents are “scenesetter” briefings of American officials who are going to talk with foreign leaders or counterparts. These profile the country, its history, its current politics and place in US policy, a bio of the person being seen and how he/she plays into the politics of the country on that specific issue. What the US would like to achieve and what the person is likely to want. And most of these visits are pretty pedestrian and the information mostly publicly known or gathered from public sources.
Good lord, Boo! You sound like Jon Stewart. There are two wars blistering–oh, sorry, I forgot that Iraq isn’t a war anymore because Obama said so–and war criminals being protected by The Good Obama and you err on the side of “civility” and “maturity,” which really aren’t civil or mature at all, only disguises that keep you comfortably far, far away from the death and destruction. Bombs are dropping and people–yeah, they’re only Muslims–are dying but we get “tut-tutted” as being immature teenagers. This is so rich!
It’s parsing in the extreme to say that the CIA, the State Dept, and the War Dept are all separate entities, deserving of different levels of respect. They’re all the same…to me at least but I’m just another immature, drooling teenager watching the grownups playing chess.
Please look up facts first.
The US and Iraq has a Status of Forces Agreement.
Obama has followed it nad the Iraq government is also in agreement with the process of removing US troops.
The combat soldiers are gone.
Iraq did ask for help from the US during an attack and the US did help.
Things aren’t so simple as you portray them.
The most recent WikiLeaks are not going to change anything in US foreign policy or change any country’s attitude towards the US and its foreign policy. I think it’s just plain nice to see the complacent, self-satisfied US get shaken up about nothing when its hypocirsy is revealed. Who’s so subservient to power? OUR foreign diplomacy? Oh really, collecting credit card numbers and passwords at the UN on order of the Sec. of State who, by the way, needs now te resign. Simple, isn’t it? If you’re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear.
Hmmmm…lemme see…
Wikileaks exposes the secret machinations of all world governements and possiby the corporations that control them…if of course Assange and the rest of the Wikileaks group survive as functional entities long enough to actually finish the job.
A large part of the sheeple population of he world is thus disabused of the notion that governments and the corporate world are working “for” them.
How much more unambiguous can you get?
And how much more Pollyannaish and/or completely naive can you get after writing the following truly blindered statement?
Please.
The CIA/Defense Department/Intelligence crew do not even make a pretense of any sort of public disclosure…after all, it’s war, right? While the State Department does make that pretense. But that’s all that it is. Pretense. Pretend openness. Smoke and mirrors. Press relations. Back behind the curtain the three wizard entities are hand-in-glove. If you had any doubt of that…a doubt that has never crossed my mind, by the way, not since the Dulles brothers’ tag team actually began the “Secret cop/Public cop” routine w/CIA and State Dept. under Eisenhower’s dotage-crippled nose….the spectacle of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking for DNA samples and other sub rosa info about world leaders should have already disabused you of that notion.
Now…do I think that she should reign because iof this?
Hell no!!!
She’s just doing her job. The job that is absolutely, positively expected of her.
Is that job…and the system that it serves..itself wrong in some way?
I dunno.
Look at the results of 60+ years of this act.
What do you think?
AG
Tut-tut-tut. Watch your mouth! It’s not a war when a contract has been signed. It’s now the Iraq Status of Forces Contretemp! Just stop calling it a war. Things are not as simple as you and your “hard left” hippy comrades portray them.
i don’t care about the DNA, Iris stuff either. At the UN and embassies around the world, people are spying on each other all the time. It’s not even hypocrisy or really very newsworthy. Oh, I know, it violates some treaty that lays out how everyone is supposed to play nice. Rule of law, and all that.
In any case, I don’t object to divulging that we’ve been doing that. My complaint was that the leaks were just a huge dump of everything they could download, not limited to pieces that help the public understand something, or hold someone accountable.
I don’t think the guy should be jailed or physically harmed. But I wish his highest principle wasn’t that we shouldn’t conduct State Department business on a classified computer system. Of course we should.
Rule of law, and all that.
Quaint crap, just like the Geneva Conventions…
Which is exactly why I read this blog. So that I can see where Obama will sellout next–in the name of “progress,” of course.
bit of a difference between the anti-torture statutes and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. No wait. There’s an infinite distance between them.
We’re supposed to leave the diplomatic pouch alone and refrain from bugging the ambassador’s private residence.
From 1964 Time:
It never stopped. Our Moscow embassy was bugged by unsecured typewriters, pixiedust, and every other goddanged thing all the way to 1991, and probably until today. I don’t care that we spy on what goes on at the UN. People are spying on us, too.
It’s not a human rights issue.
You misunderstood. Society needs structures to function – the Rule of Law being one such structure. International relations also depend on structures – the US government continues to undermine these – domestically and internationally.
All scorn is duly deserved for those racing to the bottom.
Yes, ideally, no one would attempt to figure out what other countries are thinking by eavesdropping on them, breaking and entering, blackmailing their civil servants, etc. However, that is so par for the course that it doesn’t rise to the level of outrage. We have a whole budget for those activities and committees in Congress to supposedly oversee their activities. It’s not the same as torture, at all.
The Left and Right Hands of the Corporate Magician-Watch Not, Gaianne commented:
Well…this Wikileaks movement is precisely that.
“Reality-based” at its very core!
Based on the reality of what is going on behind the wizards’ curtains.
For that reason alone…but not forgetting the indisputable, heroic fact that Assange and those who work with him have put their mortal asses on the line to publicly storm a secret redoubt that has the blood of millions on its bayonets…for that reason alone I support these actions.
Turn over the rocks and let the people see the real machinations that go in in their name. Let the people decide if they can stomach this insect-like war of secrets.
It was the images of Vietnam, the publication of the Pentagon Papers and other acts of exposure that ended the Vietnam War. That movement also hastened the total control of the mainstream media by those in power that we see here today. This Wikileaks act may mean the end of a free internet. But it is worth the price because only the light of truth can defeat evil on this level.
Sorry for the soapboxing, but…there it is.
Deal wid it.
AG
Now, tell me why this information is kept secret from the US public. (My emphasis.) Copy is from the Guardian database.
Because we’re not smart enough to understand how important it is to fight Al Queda in Afghanistan, while they’re in Pakistan. It’s like quantum mechanics.
It actually is somewhat like quantum mechanics.
The border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is so porous in the areas in which the al Quaeda central leadership – Osama bin Laden (if he’s still alive), Zawahiri, etc. – that you don’t know which country they are in until you find them. When the cat is killed, you know where he is.
Of course, we have nothing resembling any control over the border areas, and no amount of time or money will ever change that.
Which is why drone attacks are not paying attention to the niceties of the Pakistani border. The US strategy does not depend on control, it depends on killing the leaders of the various groups opposing the Pakistani government and shielding al Quaeda personnel, what few are left.
There’s no way to tabulate the numbers accurately, but I’d bet my right arm that over the centuries a lot more people have been killed due to an excess of nefarious backroom dealings that took place under the shroud of secrecy, than have been killed by the application of some sunlight. This Wikileaks issue is very complex, but in the end I think it comes down to a question of whether or not you believe our government is run by sincere, competent people acting in the best interest of the citizenry, or whether you believe that our democracy has been hijacked by big money players, special interests, and ideological wackos who seek to impose our will on the rest of the world. I’m firmly in the latter camp.
Until the twentieth century, sunlight was not even an issue. Probably the first statement of it was Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points.
He talked pretty, too.