WikiLeaks: The good, the bad
More than 250,000 secret American government documents have been released by Julian Assange on his web page WikiLeaks. Is this a bad thing or a good thing? It depends on who you are and what you believe in.
The worst situation that can happen from this leak is that some people who work for the secret service (every country has them) stand a very real possibility of getting killed because of these leaked documents, hopefully they will take measures to protect themselves. We are at war with a vicious enemy, terrorists who do not care about killing women and children. The only way to stop them is to find them and attack them before they attack us. And, the only way to find them is with undercover people who may now be revealed to these enemies because of these leaked documents and so all their efforts will be lost. This will weaken the whole effort to stop these dangerous terrorists.
Since the person responsible for this leak of information, Julian Assange, claims that he did this to stop governments from illegal undercover operations and so force them to have open governments that are more democratic. This is clearly a smoke screen to cover-up his support of terrorist organizations. If he were against terrorists he would have removed the names of undercover agents before publishing these documents. Assange must now be declared an enemy of humanity and be arrested, tried and hopefully thrown in jail along with all the people in his organization. But this is difficult because he is not an American citizen and nobody knows where he is. His hiding proves he knows what he did is wrong and that he is putting peoples lives at risk for the sole purpose of achieving fame and fortune for himself. Disgusting.
Listed below are nine leaks as reported by some news organizations and some comments about them.
1. Yemen President to America: “We’ll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours.”
Surprise. Some Muslims are actually against terrorists; they know the terrorists are dangerous and must be stopped, so with their help we may yet win the war against terrorism. But the president of Yemen may now be in trouble with his own people and so may be removed from office or worse.
2. China is hacking computers.
The fact that China does not care about the law or morality when it comes to its self interest is not new, it unfairly manipulates its currency, does not honor intellectual property rights, it has a long history of human rights violations such as: throwing people in jail without just cause, censorship, confiscating private property and selling dangerous weapons (missiles, nuclear technology) to nations like North Korea, Iran and Syria. So, this may finally change some peoples ideas about letting China become a model to other nations. China must be declared a rogue nation and sanctions must be applied against them.
3. Hillary Clinton wanted diplomats to spy on other diplomats, get their credit card numbers etc.
Again, politicians doing this is not new, but this does raise some questions about how trustful this woman is.
4. The Italian President Silvio Berlusconi likes to party and is friendly with the top Russian Vladimir Putin.
Who cares.
5. Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah wants America to attack Iran before they acquire nuclear weapons.
Saudi Arabia wants America to do the dirty work for them by attacking Iran while they continue to support terrorist organizations. Saudi Arabia is a snake pit; again, no news here.
6. Afghanistan’s vice president Ahmed Zia Massoud was found carrying 52 million dollars in cash in his luggage on a visit to the United Arab Emirates.
So, another Afghan government official is found to be corrupt, again this is not news. It’s also not news that America is not doing anything about this.
7. America is willing to pay foreign countries to take Guantanamo prisoners.
President Obama made a campaign pledge to close Guantanamo to please his anti-American supporters, and he’s trying every trick he can think of to keep that pledge. In my opinion, if he has Americas interests in mind, he should keep them in Guantanamo where we can keep an eye on them.
8. It was revealed that America and South Korea want to reunite the two Korea’s.
Most of the people in North and South Korea want to be reunited as one nation again, so maybe this will give them a reason to work together for the same goal. But the WikiLeaks show that the main obstacle to reunification is the nut case of the North, Kim Jong-il, who wants unification by having all of Korea under his sole complete control. Since this is not acceptable to the freedom loving people of South Korea, this is a no go. But, the WikiLeaks may make the people of the North and South realize who their real common enemy is and so work together for unification.
9. The German Chancellor Angela Merkel was described as “risk averse and rarely creative” also, “short on substance.”
Angela Merkel should feel complemented by this since her adherence to established solid economic policies have made Germany a prosperous nation. But this makes America look really bad because of Americas desire to be “new and creative” with economic policies like “zero down mortgages” and “adjustable rate mortgages” that almost destroyed the worlds economies. Perhaps instead of insulting Angela Merkel, America should ask Angela if she could provide America with some of her tried and tested advisors to work for America and straighten out the American economy; since the American government apparently can not fix the mess it’s in, and so is not in a position to criticize Anglea Merkel for her success.
Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of this whole affair is the fact that WikiLeaks has leaked secret information in the past and has stated that it will continue to do so; this raises the question; why hasn’t America done something to stop them. Perhaps America wanted these leaks because these leaks appear to show that a majority of Arab nations around Iran want America to attack Iran and so this will give America justification to attack Iran, (remember the Tonkin Golf Resolution that started the Viet Nam War). If this is true, then we may be in for a terrible and bloody war with Iran while its Arab neighbors who want the war just sit aside unharmed. I hope this is not true, but the WikiLeaks prove that nobody in the diplomatic world can be trusted and this in turn raises the question as to why we continue to support this form of government that created situations like this. Can’t the human race think of a better and more peaceful way to organize things.
America was founded as a “government by the people, for the people” so as to be a beacon to other people who want to be free; but how can this be if the American government uses lies and dirty tricks just like other nations. Maybe, WikiLeaks did us all a favor by opening up the American government, but if they can do this to all other nations as well; then all of humanity will realize that being governed by liars can only lead us all to disaster. With a realization like this, maybe then humanity can make a real leap to a better world for us all by finishing the work that the founding fathers of America started and perfecting the concept of a “government by the people”. Not the politicians.
Jose Lugo lives in Spring Hill and can be reached at [email protected].
