WikiLeaks

A cable released by WikiLeaks that is available on the New York Times’s web site underscores the difficulties that both the Bush and Obama administrations have had in transferring war on terror detainees to Afghan custody.

As Bill Kristol was saying, "If Tea Party-inspired Americans—and freedom-loving hackers around the world—can act effectively in cyberspace against today’s threats to our liberties and well-being, and to the liberties and well-being of others—that’s something to be applauded."

Bill Kristol, with Mara Liasson and Charles Krauthammer, last night Fox News:

Yesterday, Secretary of State Clinton called the disclosure of the WikiLeaks documents "an attack on America's foreign policy interests." She and her colleagues in the Obama administration have proceeded, as they must, to try to limit the diplomatic damage, to reassure allies, to improve security procedures, and to launch criminal investigations.

It is one thing if a left-wing human rights organization like Amnesty International cannot tell the difference between a jihadist and a legitimate political dissident. It is quite another if the U.S. State Department suffers from the same intellectual confusion. One diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks contains a startling example of Foggy Bottom’s willful blindness in this regard.

Bill Kristol, with Juan Williams, Mara Liasson, and Liz Cheney, on Fox News Sunday:

Once upon a time I was a member of the policy planning staff at the Department of State, and had a security clearance. It was so long ago that I cannot now recall the level of security my clearance allowed, but it was suitably low. Like most people under such circumstances, I was curious about what would be revealed when I opened my first envelope marked Top Secret: Would I learn that the Czech defense attaché was having a torrid affair with Mary McGrory, or that the Bolivian army was massing on the Peruvian border?

Max Boot has an excellent post on the press, Julian Assange, and WikiLeaks:

The editors at Der Spiegel can’t contain themselves. Even before publication of the WikiLeaks documents, they’ve taken to their website to announce jubilantly that the leaking of these documents “is nothing short of a political meltdown for US foreign policy.”

Nonsense.

The world is once again anticipating a massive leak of classified documents by WikiLeaks. The U.S. State Department is so concerned that it has published a letter addressed to the head of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, and his attorney, arguing that publication of the documents will “risk the lives of countless innocent individuals,” “[p]lace at risk on-going military operations,” and “[p]lace at risk on-going cooperation between countries.”

The latest dump of classified WikiLeaks documents shows a few important facts: (1) The United States military unavoidably classifies a mountain of documents because of the easy loquacity of modern computerized warfare; (2) the release of these documents provides no startling revelations—anyone who’d read the liberal Iraqi émigré Kanan Makiya’s writings in the 1980s and 1990s knew the savage potential for internecine conflict in Iraq; former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his “light-footprint” generals Tommy Franks and John Abizaid were derelict in their duty to preserve order after Saddam Hussein’s fall; and (3) the Iranians have been wicked in Mesopotamia. 

WikiLeaks has posted a massive collection of classified documents pertaining to the war in Iraq on the web. As it did with a previous leak of documents concerning Afghanistan, it provided them in advance to the New York Times, the Guardian, and Der Spiegel.