On Wikileaks and Why It Matters

Excellent piece on the importance of wikileaks. While no one in America really bats an eyelash at the revelation that the US has been using drones to conduct a secret war in Yemen that has cost untold numbers of civilian deaths (partly because most Americans don't know where Yemen is), the revelations on continued American diplomatic duplicity may tug at some ears. Here's a key quote:

"So yes, it may well be true -- and it would be a relief to know it -- that U.S. diplomats no longer routinely engage in epic lying, deceit, and criminality, as perhaps they did during the Cold War. But the war on terror has its own diplomatic exigencies, and the WikiLeaks cables remind us of the extraordinary demands that American officials now make of U.S. allies. Those allies accommodate American demands out of self-interest, of course: Cables printed by the Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar, but not yet released by WikiLeaks, disclose that in 2008 Lebanon asked to have American spy planes conduct surveillance of Hezbollah at a time when the Shiite group threatened to overrun the state. But the Lebanese people would have been shocked to hear of Operation Cedar Sweep, as it was picturesquely known, and the revelation has already produced an outcry."

Ha. An outcry in Lebanon, mind you. Here is the article "The Sunshine Policy."