WikiLeaks: Is It
News to Embarrass U.S. Diplomats?
"Does
anyone doubt that the Lula government is a 'heap of leftist militants,' as
stated in a cable from then-Ambassador Clifford? … the Lula Administration is
proud of having leftist militants in its midst, just as the leftist militants
are proud to be there. No one needs a foreign ambassador to discover this."
Founder, spokesperson and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks Julian Assange: While his organization's latest data dump is more gossip than news, he and WikiLeaks appear to be in much more hot water than they were after releasing Iraq and Afghanistan war logs.
The disclosure of secret
documents from North American diplomacy by the Web site WikiLeaks, greatly amplified
by the consortium comprised of some of the biggest brands in global print
journalism, is all a journalistic spectacle.
[Editor's Note: The
consortium of newspapers publishing the WikiLeaks data include The New York
Times (U.S.), Der Spiegel (Germany), Le Monde (France), El
País (Spain), and The Guardian (U.K.)]
As stated by Spain's El
País, one of the members of the consortium, "these secret and
confidential papers allow us an eye through the keyhole look to discover, for
the first time, the behind-the-scenes maneuvering" of United States
diplomacy.
In other words, it throws
light on the shadows, and light is always a great disinfectant. Too bad there isn't,
strictly speaking, anything new. Not at least in what has been released so far
by the news magazine Der Spiegel, which is also involved in the
operation.
According to the summary written
by the creator of the WikiLeaks site, Julian Assange, in a special text for Folha,
"the documents show the infiltration of U.S. policy into almost all
countries, even those considered 'neutral,' such as Sweden and
Switzerland. Embassies closely observe local media, the intelligence service,
and the arms and oil industries, and strongly lobby for all kinds of U.S.
companies."
Does anyone out there doubt that
this is how embassies of the United States work? As a matter of fact, not only U.S.
embassies. All global and regional powers work in the exact same way, including
Brazil. Of course, the scale may be different because the United States has a
global presence.
Or, do you believe that the
Brazilian Embassy in Buenos Aires doesn't send cables (I know it's no longer
technically a cable, but it continues to be called one) about political life in
Argentina, with value judgments on relevant personalities in the country?
Unless the publications of
the consortium have committed a crime against journalism by leaving the most
important information for tomorrow or after, that which has been released so
far gives the impression that U.S. diplomacy is guided by the media, not vice versa.
For example: the curiosity
about a supposed "hidden agenda" of the Muslim prime minister of Turkey,
Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Whenever I read about Turkey, this expression appears in
analyses from specialists or editorials in the Turkish press. The suspicion,
therefore, is public, so we can dispense with "bringing our eyes to the
keyhole." Furthermore: neither the U.S. Embassy nor the specialists I speak to have been able to discover anything beyond "circumstantial
evidence" of this "hidden agenda."
Likewise, one doesn't need a
confidential document to know that the primordial drive behind U.S. diplomacy
is to stop Iran from obtaining an atomic weapon.
Of course, it's
shocking to see the crude manner in which the leaders of Arab nations refer to
the need to contain Iran, even by force. King
Abdullah of Saudi Arabia even preaches cutting off the "head of the
snake."
It must be this type of
revelation that El País is referring to, because the antipathy of a substantial
part of the Arab world toward Iran has frequented newspapers for years. This
gives an official stamp to what were, up to now, newspaper articles.
Nor is it a secret that
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi throws "wild parties," as
one of the leaks says. Or that the Lula government is a "heap of leftist
militants," as stated in a cable from then-Ambassador Clifford Sobel and recovered
by Fernando Rodrigues - another beautiful piece of journalism from Folha.
Setting aside the "heap"
that is derogatory, the Lula Administration is proud of having leftist
militants in its midst, just as the leftist militants are proud to be there. No
one needs a foreign ambassador to discover this.
In any case, El País implies
that yes - there is news here related to Spain's politics. It says that the
reproduction of conversations with U.S. diplomats leave Spanish colleagues,
"in areas that are ethically borderline or compromised before public
opinion." The newspaper would offer, it adds, "destructive
information about senior personalities of state."
But it didn't disclose any in
the Monday edition, despite the fact that it has dedicated almost the entire
front page plus 13 inside pages to the WikiLeaks papers.
Thus, the lack, so far, of
substantive news, doesn't take away from the value of the leak, simply because
it sheds light on the gestures and words that had been in the shadows. The problem
now is that no one will ever want to talk to U.S. diplomats again.
Clovis Rossi is a special correspondent and member of the Folha
editorial board, is a winner of the Maria Moors Cabot award (USA) and
is a member of the Foundation for a New Ibero-American Journalism. His column
appears on Thursdays and Sundays on page 2 and on Saturdays in the World
Notebook section. He is the author, among other works, of Special Envoy:
25 Years Around the World and What is Journalism?
