Restart

It has been a long time since I made a post in my blog. I guess the whole "Wikileaks dump" has led me to want to restart it. The reaction to the current leak of US diplomatic cables has been more telling than the actual contents of the documents, most of which are mundane opinions that most people assumed anyways. Where was this level of outrage earlier this year when the Iraq War documents showed damning evidence of civilian death and indiscriminate slaughter? Now, we see Wikileaks figurehead, Julian Assange being dragged into a well orchestrated smear campaign, most notably the supposed "rape" charge. I'm thinking there must be some really juicy leaks coming in the future that is causing governments to react so loudly this time, because the diplomatic cables releases are no Watergate.

Here in Australia, Assange has pretty much been left out to dry by the government. I was watching the news the other day, and the "news" commentators on the station I was watching were basically falling in line with the government line, and basically spewing off about the rape charges. I will probably post more about the sensationalism in the news media here in Australia (keep in mind that Rupert Murdock still owns a lot of the newspapers here).

As for the leaks themselves, the sheer volume of documents kind of overstates the significance of the release. While I don't really agree that these should have got out into the public, the blame for this leak falls squarely on the bureaucratic structure that allowed a lowly private in the US Army to gain access and download all the documents. With the ease of access, imagine the likelihood that these documents have already been leaked to spy services of competing nations. If there are two million people with access to the cables, the chances of some covert operative gaining access is incredibly high. The only difference with Wikileaks getting it is that the documents are out there for everyone to see. Though with the things that have come out so far, I doubt there is much intelligence to be had from diplomatic cables.

I am interested in hearing about this "near environmental disaster regarding a rogue shipment of enriched uranium", though.