Wikileaks, START, and Our Foreign Policy Cred

[Yeggo]

A quick couple of thoughts on the Wikileaks ha-ha that’s currently getting brou-ed by bloggers on both sides:

I have a real problem with some of those on the left that seem overly gleeful about the volume and importance of the information being disseminated in this latest batch of intelligence, and here’s why: for the last few weeks, there’s been talk about the START treaty being held up in the Senate by a few Republican lawmakers - namely John Kyl of Arizona.

Now, I’ve posted on this already, so I’m not going to go into too much detail. Suffice it to say, I agree with a lot of those on the left who say the GOP is playing partisan, stop-the-president games that end up hurting our foreign policy goals and potentially jeopardizing our standing overseas. The START treaty is overwhelmingly supported by politicians on both sides of the political spectrum, and is a measured step down a road that the Gipper himself helped pave decades ago.

But, if you’re going to take the position that obstruction of the START treaty in the Senate endangers our national security, you cannot applaud the Wikileaks documents as merely “transparency,” and some are trying to have it both ways by doing just that.

In an ideal world, I’d be right there with you. I’d be mad as hell that our State Department, the FBI, the CIA, and the military all do things that I wish we didn’t have to. But this isn’t an ideal world. The fact is that the type of intelligence, counterintelligence, international maneuvering that Wikileaks is shining their light on is necessary in this world. And if we’re going to have to do it, I want to be really, really, REALLY good at it. Which is why I have a problem - we need to maintain our credibility with the rest of the world.

We all had that kid in school or in the neighborhood. He wasn’t overtly a bully, but he was the “Alpha Dog.” Seemed cooler than everyone else, captain of the football team, hot girlfriend, but still managed to be smart and funny at the same time. Women wanted to be with him, men wanted to be him… you know the type. We can’t keep being that guy if our sister keeps telling everyone we’re scared of clowns - know what I mean?

Besides, let’s face facts here - we live in a country where the majority of us don’t know whether our taxes went up or down last year. As a populace, we’re completely incapable of parsing hundreds of thousands of documents and give them their proper weight. Blake Hounshell put it best today, calling this dump “information vandalism” - it’s just impossible to properly review these documents before they get irresponsibly and incorrectly contextualized by everyone with a website. I’ve purposefully not attempted to summarize any of the actual intel in these documents for a reason - it’s not my place.

Regardless of what you think of our government, there’s a reason we have one. There’s a reason we trust certain men and women to do things it’s so easy for us to decry from our posterior while in front of a computer keyboard in our living room. It’s because not only are we unable to comprehend the complexity of the world we live in, at the end of the day, deep down in places we don’t talk about at parties, we really don’t want to.

Anyway, just my opinion. If you want to share yours, the comments are wide open.

http://conversation101.squarespace.com/russia/2010/11/28/wikileaks-start-and-our-foreign-policy-cred.html

[RandomThoughts]

1. You probably should not say you want monsters on the wall

Without understanding the depth of the comment. Although it might not be your place to understand that, why people are trained to make command decisions without breaking laws, at least in better systems.

[Arctic Dave]

2. So we need to sit down and shut up because we are way too stupid

to ever understand the workings of government.

Whoever wrote this can go get fucked with a pineapple.

[JVS]

3. No sale. Our national security apparatus and the politicians who oversee it have proven so inept...

at the prosecution and reigning in of those who are committing abuses, that I no longer trust them to decide what needs to be kept secret and what doesn't. I would be perfectly happy with the government keeping secrets, if I could trust that them to police themselves. They can't, so at the very least I want them exposed and I don't care how embarrassing that is for them.

[Yeggo]

4. That's a fair point. n/t

[EFerrari]

5. You trust the government?

:)

[RaleighNCDUer]

6. Authoritarian bullshit.

"They know more than we do so we should trust them" is the source of power in every authoritarian nation in the world.

In our democratic republic we elect people to lead the country in the directions we, as voters, choose. When leaks like these come out they less impact 'national security' than expose the fact that the leaders don't give a fuck what we voted them into place to do. We want to put an end to rendition, and close Gitmo, and leaks reveal us pressuring countries into receiving prisoners in redition. Whoops.

This is just like the Catholic Church's problems with little boys - it's not what they did that bothers them, but the embarassment at being caught at it.

[Greyhound]

7. You got it.

How anyone can have lived more than 20 - 25 years and still believe that "they know what they are doing" completely eludes me. I mean really, how many times do you have to be suckered by the same bullshit before you catch on that they are nothing but fucking con men?
:kick: & (symbolic)R for your reply

[Greyhound]

8. Got any sane explanation of these so-called reasons? n/t

[Yeggo]

9. The reason we trust our security to other people?

Yeah, the same reason we trust our health to doctors, our food to chefs, our entertainment to actors - it's their job. We COULD do these things ourselves, but we never do. I just don't see any way this country - the one that doesn't know where Iraq is on a map, the one that doesn't know who's in charge of the UN, the one that watches Two and a Half Men - is capable of handling this themselves. Someone else has to do it. All this does is make it harder for those people.

Individually, we can handle it. Individually, we're smart. As a populace, not so much.

[Greyhound]

10. Quite a range you got there, but consider this;

An actor that is not entertaining won't find any parts available, likewise a chef that makes bad food and poisons people. And a doctor that consistently kills his patients is not allowed to practice.

Yet, you would have us 'trust' in a government that has not just failed, but has actively worked against us for generations. A government run by people that have failed up for their entire careers and with every failure they are penalized with a better position, more money, and more power to fuck up ever greater portions of the world, economy, and population.

[Yeggo]

11. But government evolves.

... maybe you disagree with that, actually.

Government's not a person, or a group of people, it's a constantly changing thing. Yes, a shitty actor won't get much work, but I don't punish all of Hollywood for Keanu Reeves. You don't stop eating because you get food poisoning. You don't stop seeing a doctor when you're sick because of Mengele, do you? I get the 'mad at government' thing, but your rhetoric makes it seem like you're bordering on anarchy or nihilism, neither of which, to me, is an appealing option.

[bemildred]

12. Why should we not reciprocate their animosity?

The government sees "those on the left" as enemies, the public as its enemies, they are picking the fight. When the government decides to restore its own legitimacy by resuming its mandate and duty to serve all of its citizens, then it will have a right to my approval and support.