Julian Assange and Wikileaks: What is lost, what is gained

by Frank Kaufmann - New York

On November 28, 2010, Julian Assange, editor in chief of Wikileaks (founded

2006) released 251,287 US diplomatic cables including many labeled classified
or secret.

Espen Moe
Julian Assange

This is an important matter with serious ramifications, not to be ignored nor taken
lightly. There is much at stake.

Who is affected?

The primary players whose actions now stand trial as a result of the document
dump are the United States, whose diplomats suddenly find themselves as naked
as passengers at a US airport, and the established media, who surely soon will
drag us into their next angst-ridden ceremony of self-examination, trying yet
again to find their own rights and wrongs.

In an important sense, the third community on trial will be all countries, both
major powers and small countries, who dodged the bullet this time. By grace they
were spared for now from the likes of a Mr. Assange, and were not exposed. How
they behave vis a vis the US and their diplomatic counterparts will be important.

US diplomats stand trial for their foibles, their faux pas, their candor, and their
arrogance. But to revel and delight in this, and to wag a soiled finger in 'there-
theres' during America's embarrassing moment is short-sighted, ill-advised, and
plain wrong.

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Is there a soul alive who could withstand having all our most private utterances
exposed? Who among us would pass muster if everything we've ever uttered,
even about family and friends were exposed to enemies, those jealous of us and
wish us ill, and a gang of just plain lascivious, prurient gossips?

Yes, allies, and even opponents and naysayers are hurt by the inevitable
revelations of disrespect and suspicion coming to light from Mr. Assange's dump.
But now is not the time to pile on, to moralize, lecture, and berate the US. Let she
who is without sin cast the first stone.

What is learned?

There is nothing new or to be learned that such communications are the fabric of
international, political relations dominated as they are by unvarnished, national
self interest? Are there people around who actually believe that global, political
affairs are characterized by pure, innocent, upright and forthright, open, sincere
relations? Everyone already knows national self interest and the surreptitious
behavior of governments looks ugly. No one should pretend otherwise. All nations,
including Putin's Russia should exercise restraint, stay quiet, sympathetic, and
thank the good lord above that for the time being, their own diplomatic secrets
have not been put on display by sneaky children like Mr. Assange and his
accomplices.

The real sin and the real crime of the US is not the embarrassing and at times
geopolitically harmful content of the leaks. It is rather the ineptitude and outright
failure to secure sensitive material. If friends and foes are in the mood to lecture
the United States, it need not be in the shallow pretense of shock that diplomacy
is as everyone already knows it is, but rather it should be for what should evoke
genuine anger, namely that the US has proven so lax, disordered, and inept in its
capacity to protect sensitive materials. For those who can't resist the chance to
beat a man while down, and can't resist the chance to gloat, beat and gloat at
least not in a chimera of bogus righteousness. The lecture at his hour is over
security, not over the fact that diplomats act like diplomats, and that international
relations extend the ugliness of national self-interest. On the matter of security,
Paul Kennedy of the Times of London recommends:
The best way to head off this damage would be to instruct all
ambassadors to send confidential reports to the State Department by
the sealed “diplomatic bag”, and handwritten at that, so that there can
be only a single copy. Let’s get back to scribbling. Electronic stuff is
unsafe. It has been since about 1940.

Is Assange a hero?
And what of Assange? Is he a hero? A messiah? A harbinger of a new world of
openness, honesty, and freedom? Of course not. The sure and guaranteed
outcome of his behavior will be just the opposite. Will this dump help a single
everyman who is affected and oppressed by the closedness of systems and
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structures in which we try to carry out our daily lives? No, not in the least. In fact
Assange has just made matters worse in this regard.

We all know our very own Assanges. We meet him everywhere all the time. He is
in the office, the health club, and even at the Thanksgiving table. There he sits,
plainly not to be trusted, obviously up to something, clever, bright, smug, and
dissatisfied. He hates dad, or the boss, or the company. He brings out the best in
no one. Mr. Assange has been around us all our life. While the world has always
been full of its clever sneaks, in this age of Google (3 billion searches a day),
Twitter (50 million accounts), and Facebook (500 million members), Assanges will
look like the one we see now. Whispers, sneakiness, cleverness and self-imagined
heroism of discontent, in our time looks like Wikileaks. While Mr. Assange hides
and speaks through British lawyers, thee individual who actually got the
information presently sits in jail facing a 52 year prison term.

What is the impact of the dump?

It is a gift to journalists who will have "news" stories for a while without the bother
of having to go out and look for them. It is a temporary embarrassment to the
United States. It is an important wake up call about security and sensitive
materials. Perhaps the US government will re-orient itself toward genuine and
meaningful security and away from scanning naked images of grandma and Amy
from the Iowa children's choir.

We might see a faint and fleeting spike in integrity, care, respect, and humility
from the US diplomatic corps, but this will be short lived. Nothing substantive has
been done to help redefine the quality of international relations. We will see far
less effort toward more elevated international relations, and even greater
intensity in the already astronomic habit of diplomats to protect careers and act
and speak with plausible deniability.

The negatively inspired exposure and pointless embarrassment of US diplomats

has drained from our world another drop of the single most needed quality in all
constructive relationships, trust. In dragging us more deeply into fear, doubt,
suspicion, and silence, Mr. Assange has not done a single soul any good at all.
We need more trust. Not less.
This opinion article was written by an independent writer. The opinions and views
expressed herein are those of the author

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