"Big Brother, constantly on the advance in the U.S and Europe,
has analogues elsewhere that are much worse and more faithful to the
totalitarian Cold War model inspired by George Orwell. We refer to countries
like China, where audiovisual and cybernetic hyper-control of citizens is
combined with military and police controls."
Founder, spokesperson and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks Julian Assange: Still somewhat of a mysterious figure, the native Australian may be one of the heralds of a brave new world.
What
a blow little David WikiLeaks has issued to the forehead of Big Brother - who knows and
controls everything! It's understood that the U.S. government has tried to
minimize the damage. It also follows that friendly governments as well as some
media have been unable to access the documentary torrent provided by Julian
Assange's organization. But the more news that emerge about this mine of
information, the more difficult it will be to hide the public interest in its
contents, as well as the dents and damage that the revelation of such carefully-guarded
secrets can cause.
From
the outset, we note that U.S diplomacy comes out of this damaged, as former CIA
agent Robert
Baer explained yesterday in the pages of TheFinancial Times.
Baer focused his assessment of the damage on the special channels of
communication that many heads of state, particularly in Arab countries,
establish with the president of the United States, who is normally a person
foreign leaders can trust.
Assange
has pressed the reset bottom, and now in this arena, Washington will have to
start from scratch. If anyone in this country understands such things, it is Javier Solana. [Solana is
the E.U.'s high representative for common foreign and security policy]. He has said
that this leak will force diplomats to change their work habits and methods - something
that will also affect many citizens, businessmen, reporters, judges and
politicians, all of whom must adopt a new culture of caution in their contacts
with diplomats from all nations. Solana's observation is that out of this
affair, comes an implicit criticism of methods that don't correspond to the times.
And this isn't just about an erroneous use of communications; nor is it about failed
safeguards on the part of a superpower that deigns to give lessons on future
cyber war. This is about a decaying and inappropriate style of doing business still
used by some diplomats in this new globalized, multi-polar world.
For
the moment, the simultaneous publication of the first round of cables from the
WikiLeaks archive has forced the State Department to mobilize all of its
resources to cushion the impact and prepare for additional revelations. This is
the fourth blast aimed at the U.S., in a bombing campaign that has been
increasing in intensity: the first was the video of collateral murder, with
voices and images from a U.S. military helicopter strafing a group of civilians
in Iraq [watch below]; the second and third were 90,000 and 400,000 documents from
the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively.
Informed
of the magnitude of the fourth blast a few days in advance, embassies and
consulates around the world staged a rear-guard action through their contacts
at all levels and with friends and partners affected by the revelations. But once
the spigot was opened and the news flowing, there were two contradictory
reactions: one to minimize and the other to threaten. But the most important
reaction, which will be discreet and even unknown to the wider public, will be to
repair the damage to the diplomatic vehicle. There is yet a bigger political
breakdown that will be even more difficult to repair, which has to do with the
global power shift and the future of the American superpower.
The
international credibility and prestige that the U.S. had recovered thanks to
Obama - and that was some of the most precious political capital of his
presidency - is slipping away in full view of everyone, via the open channel of
WikiLeaks.
Cultivated
during the Cold War and amplified under President Bush, the worst stereotypes
are clearly on display with this informative leak, which reveals the mentality,
forms of pressure and even the embarrassing expressions of arrogance by some
U.S. diplomats. It also exposes the deferential attitude of their counterparts
from various countries, including Spain.
Posted by
WORLDMEETS.US
Big
Brother, constantly on the advance in the U.S and Europe, has analogues elsewhere
that are much worse and more faithful to the totalitarian Cold War model
inspired by George Orwell,
creator of the literary character. We refer to countries like China, where audiovisual
and cybernetic hyper-control of citizens is combined with military and police
controls that are the tradition for dictatorships. That such a leak hasn't
reached this even-more sinister and totalitarian version of Big Brother is not to
discredit the revelations about the U.S. Nor does it mean that such disclosures
won't someday reach China. Technology and globalization will contribute to
this, and hopefully soon. So will, no doubt, new powers - or emerging non-state
counter-powers that arise out of global and technological civil society, of
which WikiLeaks is only the first and most spectacular example.
