We've been told--even by people like Kieth Olbermann, who should know better--that theWikiLeaks document dump of State Department cables contains very little serious information. But, of course, that perception is generated by the same press corps that was totally clueless about its own role in fraudulently leading our nation to war against an ideological enemy of those who attacked us on 9/11. Such a press corps has already proven itself professrionally incapable of recognizing what is significant, and what is not--much less what is simply an outright lie. To understand the value and significance of the WikiLeaks document dump, you must turn to those who have a reasonable recor of understanding US foreign policy and international relations in the first place. This is why Tuesday's program of Democracy Now! was so important. First off, Amy Goodman interviewed Investigations Executive Editor David Leigh at the Guardian, who told her that much more was to come:
DAVID LEIGH: These revelations aren't over yet. In fact, they've barely started. We at the Guardian and the other international news organizations will be making revelations, disclosures from now, day-by-day, for probably the next week or more. So, we haven't seen anything yet, really.... In the coming days, we're going to see some quite startling disclosures about Russia, the nature of the Russian state and about bribery and corruption in other countries, particularly in Central Asia. We're going to see a wrath of disclosures about pretty terrible things going on around the world.
AMY GOODMAN: What are your thoughts today? For example, we just played this clip of New York republican congress member Peter King who says WikiLeaks should be declared a foreign terrorist organization.
NOAM CHOMSKY: I think that is outlandish. We should understand--and the Pentagon Papers is another case in point--that one of the major reasons for government secrecy is to protect the government from its own population.... If you look at the papers themselves, there are things Americans should have known that others did not want them to know. And as far as I can tell, from what I've seen here, pretty much the same is true.
Goodman went on to play a clip of Hilary Clinton, trying to spin the cables to US propaganda advantage:
In the early Summer of 2004, I was visiting my late mother in San Jose, and we went to see Farenheit 911 on opening day. We weren't in the dark about what was happening with the Iraq War. My mother had been a campaign volunteer for Helen Gahagan Douglass in her senate race against Richard Nixon in 1950, when I was one year old. She was still plugged into a network of activist friends, even though she wasn't able to be as active as she'd once been. And, of course, I'd been on the Internet continuously for a decade. But we were in a distinct minority, possibly even amongst the crowd assembled there that day. There was certainly no tv news source one could turn to for anything remotely reliable. Indeed, the whole reason that F 911 existed was because the daily news media had left such a gaping hole in the most important story of the day for almost three solid years. And so Michael Moore stepped up to fill the gap.
More than six years later, many others have joined him. Countless lies have been exposed, a Democrat is in the White House. And yet, the same basic policies remain in place, as do the same fundamental lies about why we fight, who our enemies are and why. Our former President and war-criminal-in-chief is all over the place on the tv machine, hawking books and telling lies. It's like Kafka in Wonderland. Nothing has changed, even though everything has. That's why WikiLeaks is so necessary. As before with Michael Moore and Farenheit 911, all the "normal" means of communication have failed. All the "normal" means of truth-telling have been corrupted. All the "normal" means of acting and thinking sanely have been ridiculed and despised. And a lawless government stands unchallenged, lying through its teeth every day--without even having a clear sense of why it is doing so.
Can there be any doubt at all why WikiLeaks is so necessary? Will any of those who are supposed to hold our government accountable do anything remotely related to that job?
Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistleblower.
Carne Ross, a British diplomat for 15 years who resigned before the Iraq war. He is the founder and head of a non-profit diplomatic advisory group, Independent Diplomat
Greg Mitchell, writes the Media Fix blog for The Nation. He was the longtime editor of Editor & Publisher magazine and is the author of 10 books including The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair's Race for Governor of California and the Birth of Media Politics.
As'ad Abu Khalil, professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus and visiting professor at UC, Berkeley. He's the author of "The Battle for Saudi Arabia" and runs the Angry Arab News Service blog.
Above all, what Goodman and crew demonstrated today is that it's not enough just to have previously hiddent information, you also have to have informed and truly independent observers to help make sense of the hidden informaition, explain its significance, along with the significance of its being hidden in the first place.
