SO WE have another WikiLeaks release, and this time it's secret diplomatic cables. So far the interesting material is on Arab states' and America's relationships with Iran. It seems all those fervid background-only reports of Arab states urging America to bomb Iran, which I mistrusted at the time, were true. Call me naïve. One observation by an Arab diplomat cited in the cables seems on the ball:
Zeid Rifai, a Jordanian, is quoted as telling a US official: Bomb Iran, or live with an Iranian bomb. Sanctions, carrots, incentives wont matter.
Fair enough, but the same observation might be made to the Arab officials who want the Americans to bomb. If they want America to bomb Iran, they're really going to have to go the very minimal distance and make the request publicly. If they can't be bothered to take the political risk of publicly making the call, they're just going to have to live with that Iranian bomb themselves.
More broadly, though, this release seems to me to mark another step down for the WikiLeaks concept. WikiLeaks's release of the
"Collateral Murder" video ....>>>YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. ........>>>last April was a pretty scrupulous affair: an objective record of combat activity which American armed forces had refused to release, with careful backing research on what the video showed. What we got was a window into combat reality, through the sights of a helicopter gunship. You could develop different interpretations of that video depending on your understanding of its context, but it was something important that had actually taken place.
Diplomatic cables are something entirely different. It's part of the nature of human communication that one doesn't always say the same thing to every audience. There are perfectly good reasons why you don't always tell the same story to your boss as you do to your spouse. There are things Washington needs to tell Riyadh to explain what it's just told Jerusalem and things Washington needs to tell Jerusalem to explain what it's just told Riyadh, and these cables shouldn't be crossed. There's nothing wrong with this. It's inevitable. And it wouldn't make the world a better place if Washington were unable to say anything to Jerusalem without its being heard by Riyadh, any more than it would if you were unable to tell your spouse anything without its being heard by your boss.
At this point, what WikiLeaks is doing seems like tattling: telling Sally what Billy said to Jane. It's sometimes possible that Sally really ought to know what Billy said to Jane, if Billy were engaged in some morally culpable deception. But in general, we frown on gossips. If there's something particularly damning in the diplomatic cables WikiLeaks has gotten a hold of, the organisation should bring together a board of experienced people with different perspectives to review the merits of releasing that particular cable. But simply grabbing as many diplomatic cables as you can get your hands on and making them public is not a socially worthy activity.
There are echoes here of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's famously aggressive position that society is evolving towards more transparency and less privacy (a belief which is certainly convenient for a social-networking site that wants to be able to sell users' data). Maybe it's something about tech geeks, or maybe it's just related to the self-interest of people and organisations whose particular strength lies in an ability to get a hold of other people's information. But it definitely seems like we're learning a lesson here: while information may want to be free, human beings are usually better off when it's on a leash.
Contributed with thanks to "The Economist"
