Erdogan Needs 'Anger Management' Due to U.S. Diplomatic Cables
"He
seems to believe that every leaked cable should be personally vetted by him -
and he's threatening to sue. Not only U.S. diplomats (impossible), but
virtually any newspaper printing these reports which are available across the
planet (almost impossible.) … This is the information age, Mr. Prime Minister. Your
reaction serves no one, except possibly Mr. Assange."
Make no mistake. As journalists,
we're fascinated with the ongoing revelations of U.S. diplomatic cables from
WikiLeaks. We believe that the release of many of them serve the public
interest. And we will continue to share what insights we can derive from them with
readers - in context, pointing out the presence or absence of evidence behind
the allegations they contain, of course.
But we also have an
obligation to discern the outlines of the paradigm shift and challenge to the order
of things that this “WikiWeek” represents. In this journalistic endeavor, we
confess to the difficulty of making conclusive pronouncements about the grand
meaning of it all.
On the one hand, the political
potpourri of Julian Assange, the high WikiPriest, blends Italian-Marxist Antonio
Gramsci’s “cultural
hegemony” with French neo-anarchist Michel Foucault's thesis of the “archaeology of
knowledge.” In a word, weird.
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
When it comes to tactics, his
playbook seems to be that of the 1975 Brian Garfield novel Hopscotch,
a book that emerged in the U.S. in the 1970s during hearings on CIA dirty
tricks. In the book, and in a subsequently unsuccessful (but very funny) film, rogue agent
Miles Kendig mails his memoirs from hiding places around the world, as he's
pursued by the CIA, the KGB and Chinese intelligence - all vowing to get him. Wherever
Assange is hiding now, he should rent the movie.
Against this backdrop of
intellectual clutter, murky goals and motives, we have offered our view that
the result is unlikely to be greater transparency, which is what WikiLeaks’
fans claim to seek. Rather, the circles of diplomatic information will close
ranks and withdraw further from public accountability.
Now we offer a further
opinion: Of all the reactions of governments in Turkey and elsewhere, the
approach of Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu is the right one. So is that
of U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates. They have taken the allegations in
stride, laughing them off and moving on with more important work.
This contrasts with the thinner-skinned
reactions from, for example, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But the
winner of the over-reaction prize goes to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan.
Mr. Erdoğan seems to
believe that every leaked cable should be personally vetted by him - and he's
threatening to sue. Not only U.S. diplomats (impossible), but virtually any
newspaper printing these reports which are available across the planet (almost
impossible.)
“Those who have slandered us
will be crushed under these claims. They will be finished and disappear,”
Erdoğan said.
We understand his frustration,
given such nasty comments hurled from behind a shroud of anonymity. Just examine
the comments that regularly accumulate below this column and elsewhere on our Web
site, and you'll see the source of our sensitivity. It's the phenomenon of our
age.
This is the information age, Mr.
Prime Minister. Your reaction serves no one, except possibly Mr. Assange.
