Mettle said:
The irony here is palpable:
Wikileaks' strongest argument is that a democracy cannot run without an interested and fairly suspicious populace looking after its government. In short, that we cannot take the government's word for it.
And so we must take Assange's word that he's smarter than the legions of military and intelligence analysts and diplomats on what's dangerous or not to operatives in the field?
Wikileaks got middlemen killed in Afghanistan when it exposed America's tribulations with Pakistan. And while even that, while controversial, was arguably important for the American populace to understand Pakistan's double-dealings, I fail to see the big secret exposed in this latest data dump on diplomatic missives.
All the latest exposition has served is to give American diplomats a black eye: The American people learned nothing new about the world, diplomacy is not going to be dramatically changed for the better (indeed, this is pretty much how diplomacy has been done since time immemorial), and the government now knows how to hide its stuff better if we're ever to really do some realpoliticking.
In fact, it kinda seems like Assange is doing it to stroke his own ego more than any deep philosophical underpinnings - indeed, he certainly seems to be enjoying his newfound celebrity. Jon Stewart's and the NYTimes' analyses were spot-on: Far from being this generation's Pentagon Papers, all Assange and Wikileaks have succeeded in doing is making it difficult for the administration to conduct straight-forward diplomacy.
And, like the GOP's current stonewalling vis a vis tax cuts, Assange is undoubtedly contributing to making government ungovernable.
