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Comment by aneth | Hacker News Reader

The most interesting thing about reading these cables is how the US comes out well - reasonable, rational, and analytical - not the nefarious evil satan that it is portrayed by our enemies and domestic extremists. This snapshot of the inner workings of American diplomacy actually make me feel much better about how things are being managed, and should undermine efforts to portray some nasty plot to dominate the world. I don't expect our government to act in international affairs with complete transparency or without ulterior motives, but I do expect that they try to act ultimately for good and that there be minimal self-enrichment. I so far see little evidence of serious breaches here.

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I don't think telling German officials to "consider the implications" of enforcing an arrest warrant against C.I.A. officers implicated in the kidnapping of a German citizen makes the U.S. look good.

It was an honest mistake and arresting CIA officers for making a mistake in their job, one which they corrected and admitted to, would hardly be without implications.

Being kidnapped, flown to a prison for five months and possibly tortured, possibly sodomized is more than a "mistake."

And merely admitting to having committed a human rights violation is not a substitute for following due process of law. Threatening a country with "implications" for wanting to bring the people to justice who wrongfully detained one of their citizens does not make the United States look good.

Plus there are other examples, like Hilary Clinton ordering diplomats to collect private information on the U.N. Secretary General, which was likely a violation of international law. This does not make the U.S. look good.

As helium said, my point is not that there is a perfect record. What is not there - a sinister plot to monopolize the world's oil, destroy Muslim society, or assassinate world leaders - is more important.

That said, a broader point is in order - I don't think anyone expects perfect adherence to "international law" by the USA. Despite the weight of the phrase "international law," the actual concept is deeply ambiguous. There is no fully baked world government, so "international law" is not a direct moral parallel to domestic law in a sovereign state. As much as the UN can do for the world, it is not a proper law making body, it's not accountable to it's constituents or fairly representative of the world, and some of its most powerful members don't even represent their own constituents. It's a rough hack at providing a venue for diplomacy and world order - not a supremely powerful entity as many people would wish it to be. The phrase "violation of international law" tastes meaty, but it's just tofu.

> I don't think anyone expects perfect adherence to "international law" by the USA.

> The phrase "violation of international law" tastes meaty, but it's just tofu.

Good and valid points, but mildly tongue-in-cheek my response to your first assertion is "I do!"

I'm not an American, but I deeply appreciate what America has done to move the whole world towards a system that values innate human rights, the rule of law, and representative democracy [1], so when America behaves in a way that contravenes its own publicly stated values I am genuinely disappointed -- even though America owes me nothing. I agree that "international law" can't be easily defined (and therefore can't be adhered to), and it is not always easy to judge the moral value of an act, particularly without the benefit of hindsight (one of the best known examples being the decision to use nuclear weapons on Japan), but there are other cases where it is clear. If America clearly acts against its values, it weakens its credibility when it tries to promote them to the rest of the world.

We can of course distinguish between America and Americans -- admitting mistakes and punishing those who commit them is the way that America can deal with them and keep its credibility with respect to its values in tact.

The case of the abduction of the German citizen seems on the surface to be a fairly clear case where America should allow due process in a friendly democracy to take its course. But perhaps there are other considerations that I don't know about... either way I'm grateful to wikileaks.

[1] However imperfect our democracies are, the current alternatives are a lot worse, and I'd prefer to be optimistic that we'll discover even better methods to govern people in future.

Christopher Reeve delivering the line "Truth, Justice and the American Way" as Super Man is one of the defining memories of my childhood.

I worry that once Americans become cynical and scared enough to stop aspiring to that line, it will then be a short trip to a fascist or pseudo-fascist state.

Naive? Perhaps, but if you don't have high and lofty ideals, then what is to be the counter weight to doing everything and anything in the name of safety?

> I worry that once Americans become cynical and scared enough to stop aspiring to that line, it will then be a short trip to a fascist or pseudo-fascist state.

Ah yes, "fascism is falling on America"

> Naive? Perhaps, but if you don't have high and lofty ideals, then what is to be the counter weight to doing everything and anything in the name of safety?

but it always seems to land somewhere else (typically Europe).

Fascism lands where it is like what has been before and the US hasn't been govt-authoritarian (yet).

> Plus there are other examples, like Hilary Clinton ordering diplomats to collect private information on the U.N. Secretary General, which was likely a violation of international law. This does not make the U.S. look good.

Actually, collecting such information makes HC look "not stupid".

The UN represents govts, most of which are corrupt bastards killing their citizens. The UN aids and abets such activities.

You can't blackmail an honest man.

Just wondering, do you honestly believe that or do you not believe that, but are just patriotic and want the CIA to look good?

Well it is a rhetorical question, I can guess how you'll answer it...

Neither. Would it make sense that they did this intentionally?

That is true, but I think he meant he was expecting it to be worse. I think most of us were actually.

I was struck by a pretty similar sentiment (and was somewhat surprised by it). Maybe more negative pieces will subsequently come out, but I was surprised to find myself thinking that some of the leaks may actually be helpful in producing a unified, multi-state agreement on how to approach the situation in Iran. I couldn't believe that it was actually other countries asking the US to bomb Iran.

And the fact that some of our most secret communications support that we are not out to destroy Ahmadinejad could be the most powerful weapon we have to actually undermine him.

I expect in the future, there will be calculated "secret leaks" to Wikileaks - who knows - these may be just that.

And here is where we must put the obligatory link to Malcolm Gladwell's New Yorker review of Operation Mincemeat:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/05/10/100...

...in Peter Ustinov’s 1956 play, “Romanoff and Juliet.”... a crafty general is the head of a tiny European country being squabbled over by the United States and the Soviet Union, and is determined to play one off against the other. He tells the U.S. Ambassador that the Soviets have broken the Americans’ secret code. “We know they know our code,” the Ambassador, Moulsworth, replies, beaming. “We only give them things we want them to know.” The general pauses, during which, the play’s stage directions say, “he tries to make head or tail of this intelligence.” Then he crosses the street to the Russian Embassy, where he tells the Soviet Ambassador, Romanoff, “They know you know their code.” Romanoff is unfazed: “We have known for some time that they knew we knew their code. We have acted accordingly—by pretending to be duped.” The general returns to the American Embassy and confronts Moulsworth: “They know you know they know you know.” Moulsworth (genuinely alarmed): “What? Are you sure?”

...

At one point, the British discovered that a French officer in Algiers was spying for the Germans. They “turned” him, keeping him in place but feeding him a steady diet of false and misleading information. Then, before D Day—when the Allies were desperate to convince Germany that they would be invading the Calais sector in July—they used the French officer to tell the Germans that the real invasion would be in Normandy on June 5th, 6th, or 7th. The British theory was that using someone the Germans strongly suspected was a double agent to tell the truth was preferable to using someone the Germans didn’t realize was a double agent to tell a lie. Or perhaps there wasn’t any theory at all. Perhaps the spy game has such an inherent opacity that it doesn’t really matter what you tell your enemy so long as your enemy is aware that you are trying to tell him something.

FYI, none of the most secret communications were leaked.

This was just one layer of an onion.

I'm german, and that was my impression too, the rational style is great. I'm looking forward to read analysis on differences between those reports and official statements (in particular Bush era).

It feels like reading a history book almost in real time - This is the kind of stuff i would expect journalism to deliver as their daily work. If it was a newspaper, I would subscribe for that.

If you think the United States "try to act ultimately for good and that there be minimal self-enrichment", then I am just going to have to frown.

American foreign policy has a very rich history of being very abusive to other countries when their agenda is at odds with ours. The irony of us going after Saddam Hussein recently was thick enough to cut with a knife, after all, we did in fact forcefully put him into power.

I welcome the release of the diplomatic wires personally, because right now all we get is a facade of fake transparency. We only know what they want us to know after all.

What is really the saddest thing, is that wikileaks is absolutely the only oversight/resistance that we have towards abusive American foreign policy, or abusive policy in general around the globe.

The average citizen has absolutely no say in anything.

The best part about reading these cables is seeing that the USG uses Google to search for information before anything else and references searches in Classified cables....

"(S) Note: A quick google check revealed several companies with the name INSULTEC in the title - these may or not be affiliated. Based on the information provided by source (currently in Iran, where he frequently travels), one possible candidate could be "INSULTEC Chitral Ltd." "

http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2009/03/09BAKU179.html

For a moment, I thought you were going to say that someone was using Google trends to see if there were any interesting trends in people searching for information about how the leaks had spread and which of them were interesting to whom.

Of course, someone is probably doing that now....

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