There are no names or specific information. US agencies themselves concluded it does not put any personnel at risk.
Don't buy that line of garbage. The only reason they're saying that is because WikiLeaks and the media outlets they've released to (including
Al-Jazeera) have been pretty cooperative about the timing of the releases, and have probably even cooperated in cases where a given document would expose an agent or ring. That said, people will certainly die because of this, if they can't be removed.
Waging war for dubious geopolitical reasons on the other hand is proved to be significant risk and kills thousands.
I agree with that. And I'm certainly not a bellicose 'neo-con' or whatever. I'm just a fairly cynical realist who usually says nothing about what's going on, because nobody wants to hear it.
However we're not living in a world where everything is going to go peacefully, there really are regimes that are playing for high stakes. In my opinion, we're entering an extremely dangerous period for humanity. If this stuff wakes people up, that's a good thing, even if they don't approve of what's been done or why things are the way they are.
Whats more interesting is information that US orders its own diplomats to spy on anyone - from UN to various allied countries.
That's SOP for all diplomatic personnel, moreso for democracies (we have problems getting agents into dictatorships, amongst other problems).
I'm sure that exposure of the French, British, Russian, Egyptian etc. diplomatic messages would reveal the same things, frankly. It's just part of being a diplomat- they're supposed to be our eyes and ears, quite openly, but everybody knows that they're also tied heavily to the intelligence community. That's why embassies and their personnel are legally sacrosanct and have those diplomatic bags that cannot be opened by local police, amongst other things.
If you're shocked by this, you've obviously never read our spy thrillers, where our authors talk about this stuff explicitly
Or that other gulf countries want Iran pacified more than US really wants.
Not terribly shocking at all.
Why do you think we went to war with Iraq? Only part of it was Colin Powell's explanation to the U.N.- but a lot of it was unfinished business. That's why I was supportive at the time- Saddam needed to go, and I was pretty annoyed we didn't remove him the first time.
The Saudis practically demanded it, amongst other players. The Iraqis were on their doorstep during the first Gulf War, after all.
You've got to understand what a mess that area is. They're all various flavors of bad government propped up by handouts from the oil-wealthy states and various other players, and nobody there wants a regional Power strong enough to make a bid for control.
The various tribes and cultures hate each other, mainly for ancient reasons, but also because of things that happened when the Europeans partitioned the region and the evil stuff the U.S. and the Soviets did during the Cold War.
And, unlike Europe, they have neither the prosperity nor have they had a big land war to convince them that yes, they're all going to have to get along in some sort of confederation, quit undermining each other's economies and political systems, and join the modern world.
Even the shock of Iraq's change hasn't been enough, largely because the post-war situation has been handled fairly badly. The regime's just another weak, corrupt state that will probably fall to the first group that gains a firm hold over their military. If there's anything I'd like to blame our own government for, it's that unsatisfactory result.
So it's a lot of semi-feudal warfare atm- assassinations, incidents, and public hogwash handed out in job lots. But if they didn't spend so much time re-affirming their hatred of the foreigners and 'death to Isreal', there'd be various wars in the region within a year. It's pretty sad, really.
And the Iranians have been doing everything they can to make sure that the regimes stay on the edge of instability, and they're awash in Chinese cash, so they're a real threat, simply because a confrontation with them really means a possible confrontation with the Chinese. Which is why everybody's stalling while they build their nukes- we don't have a firm enough grasp of what the Chinese really want to make a deal.
It's quite likely that the next thing that will happen is that the Iranians will announce that they have the Bomb during Obama's second term (yes, I'm betting he wins one). At that point either the Egyptians, Turks or the Saudis will start building them (or all of the above), and the Isrealis will probably explicitly announce that they have had them for some time now. And Europe will continue to prevaricate and do nothing useful at all, because it's so much cheaper for them politically than redirecting enough GDP to defend themselves or be players again.
And we're in the middle of this mess, because nobody else is willing to be involved, the threat's pretty dire... and we need the oil, or we won't be able to feed the world, which is an increasingly dangerous problem.
I'm hoping that the need for oil will be the common interest that keeps the U.S. and China aligned for the next two decades, but it's unclear how things will play out. I think the Chinese may prove to be their own worst enemy, by not making a clear deal with us about how to handle the geopolitics of the region.
But we don't have a better solution for this mess that doesn't involve a huge military operation, and we're too poor to do that for another generation at least- and everybody knows that.
Like I said, we're entering a period of extreme danger. The U.S. is so weak that any number of wheels may fall off, frankly.
Or that there are silly obscure deals to trade guantanamo prisoners.
Again, not remotely shocking. Nobody wants those people, and we're haven't been willing to just kill them, so they're a continual embarrassment to our government. Worse yet, many of them have disappeared right back into the terrorist organizations after being released. So, it's no surprise nobody wants a human time bomb on their soil.
In short, if this stuff is shocking, it's good for you; the real world is pretty messed up. None of this was news to me.
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