re: #34 DaddyG

Having Julian Assuage’s personal e-mails and instant messages published for the world to see would be interesting. Not that I’d advocate such a grevious breach of privacy mind you…

I would.

Julian Assange is the idiot bull in the porcelain shop.

In some ways, I could understand the first two big leaks, though I didn’t condone them. I understood because some of it did reveal some fairly shockingly egregious behavior on the part of government forces which should know better. I disapproved of the methods, but I understood in part the motivation.

This, however, is entirely different. Diplomats don’t go around assassinating civilians. Diplomats are delicately trying, albeit frequently failing, to build a more peaceful world. Sometimes it takes literally years of painstaking work in trust and negotiations to achieve a positive result. Most negotiations are done in absolute secrecy for this reason. For example: The Oslo Accords. And before anyone forgets: Oslo did work for a while. It’s a shame it fell apart, but there was a peace for a few years which was looking good.

Imagine the premature damage that could have been done around the conference table should such leaks have occurred during that time. We’d be worse off now for it. Imagine the damage that could be done by these leaks today should some party decide that they have been insulted enough to get up, walk away, and start shooting again.

I fully remember the Bush years just before the start of the war in Iraq, when people compared him to a bull in a porcelain shop as well - for the exact same reason. Mostly people on the left, mind you. They went on and on about how Bush was destroying the delicate diplomatic ties that were painstakingly built up for years and years and putting all of it in danger with his cowboy attitude.

Perhaps. But he had a far better goal in mind than simply to piss off all the diplomats in the world and embarrass world leaders. And then in walks that scrawny little twit who thinks that he should one-up what he probably sees as a fatal flaw of the Bush administration, purely to “expose”…what, exactly? The fact that diplomats have opinions about each world leader they negotiate with?

All for the aggrandizement and ego of that fetid little puritanical anarchist. What a farce.

He’s supposed to be interested in peace and justice? This isn’t peace and justice - it’s total chaos. That’s what he’s bringing at this point. For somebody who thinks that it’s best not to go to war, he doesn’t leave many other options with this kind of release of information.

A lot of people are jumping on the bandwagon saying that the world has changed because of the internet, and that we have to change the way of doing things because of it. Perhaps yes. But human nature hasn’t changed. Human nature is as fickle and sensitive as it has always been. When diplomats give their frank assessments in private, the last thing they need is for the other party to hear it - and that goes for the other side as well. Only a simpleton who thinks the world is a far less complex place than it really is really believes in this sort of idiotic release of information.

It matters far more what the result of negotiations are, or in some cases the lack of action (I.E. Not going to war) than what the personal impressions are of particular diplomats. But to air the personal impressions puts all those results in jeopardy.

So thank you, Mr. Assange, for getting us a few minutes closer to the doomsday clock striking midnight. There aren’t a lot of people who have accomplished that without pulling triggers in the history of the world, but you’re definitely up on the list now.