Who, Precisely, Is Attacking the World?
December 2, 2010
by Paul Craig Roberts by Paul Craig Roberts Recently by Paul Craig Roberts: The War On Terror
The stuck pigs are squealing. To shift the onus from the U.S. State Department, Hillary Clinton paints WikiLeaks’ release of the “diplomatic cables” as an “attack on the international community.” To reveal truth is equivalent, in the eyes of the U.S. government, to an attack on the world.
It is WikiLeaks’ fault that all those U.S. diplomats wrote a quarter of a million undiplomatic messages about America’s allies, a.k.a. puppet states. It is also WikiLeaks’ fault that a member of the U.S. government could no longer stomach the cynical ways in which the U.S. government manipulates foreign governments to serve, not their own people, but American interests, and delivered the incriminating evidence to WikiLeaks.
The U.S. government actually thinks that it was WikiLeaks’ patriotic duty to return the evidence and to identify the leaker. After all, we mustn’t let the rest of the world find out what we are up to. They might stop believing our lies.
The influential German magazine Der Spiegel writes: “It is nothing short of a political meltdown for U.S. foreign policy.”
This might be more a hope than a reality. The “Soviet threat” during the second half of the 20th century enabled U.S. governments to create institutions that subordinated the interests of other countries to those of the U.S. government. After decades of following U.S. leadership, European “leaders” know no other way to act. Finding out that the boss badmouths and deceives them is unlikely to light a spirit of independence. At least not until America’s economic collapse becomes more noticeable.
The question is: how much will the press tell us about the documents? Spiegel itself has said that the magazine is permitting the U.S. government to censor, at least in part, what it prints about the leaked material. Most likely, this means the public will not learn the content of the 4,330 documents that “are so explosive that they are labeled ‘NOFORN,’” meaning that foreigners, including presidents, prime ministers, and security services that share information with the CIA are not permitted to read the documents. Possibly, also, the content of the 16,652 cables classified as “secret” will not be revealed to the public.
Most likely the press, considering their readers’ interests, will focus on gossip and the unflattering remarks Americans made about their foreign counterparts. It will be good for laughs. Also, the U.S. government will attempt to focus the media in ways that advance U.S. policies.
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