How do you end a long holiday weekend? With a big, hot, steaming dump of wikileaks documents! Although I haven’t had the time to read many of the 250,000 documents, I was thrilled that John Nichols of The Nation joined me this morning for a first look at them.
Nichols wrote a prescient piece on Friday, “Official Washington Worries Wikileak Will Reveal Inconsistent Approach to Terror,” and today we discussed just how on-target he was. He hit the nail on the head when he wrote
1. Many, if not all, of the US officials who deal on the international stage tend to like secrecy, as it allows them to play by different rules when dealing with countries that are deemed “allies” or “rogues.” In other words, despite the blunt official talk about how the “war of terror” is a universal endeavor, the United States sometimes casts a blind eye toward—or even works with—groups that are identified as practicing terrorism.
2. These powerful players often feel threatened by transparency, as it reveals when they are allow allied states to act like rogue states. This gets especially messy when “friendly” governments are allowed to get away with actions that the U.S. otherwise identifies as being so serious that might justify economic sanctions or even a military response.
It’s a shame that politics is, once again, getting in the way of what should be the start of an ongoing debate about the things our government does in our name, on our dime, and without our consent. Unfortunately, the meat of what’s contained in these documents is being obscured by charges against PFC Bradley Manning – the guy who’s become the scapegoat. Manning may have released some docs to the people at wikileaks; but to think that this one young man could have had access to this wealth of secret and classified information is almost laughable. Manning is to wikileaks as Lynndie England and Charles Graner are to torturing prisoners — although I think that whomever released these documents (and I believe there are many people involved) did a good thing.
I do hope you’ll click on the player at the top of this post and listen to my conversation with John Nichols, as he knows of what he speaks.
We started hour two of today’s show with a news update from Victoria Jones at TRNS.
And then, since it’s Monday, we checked out the Fools on the Hill (highlights from the Sunday talking head shows) with Nicole Belle of Crooks and Liars. Here’s what Nicole brought us today:
Issues of national security and privacy were of concern this week. Not surprisingly, conservatives come out as hypocritical each and every time.
On The Chris Matthews Show, conservative pundit Reihan Salam says that the invasive TSA searches has caused the right to suddenly start caring about civil liberties. To which I must reply, ‘welcome to the club.’ My only fear is if we have another Republican president before these policies can be addressed that suddenly that concern will get tossed out of the window again.
Meanwhile Liz Cheney (whom we must ask again why her opinion is something the rest of American needs to hear) and Lindsey Graham appeared on Fox News Sunday to say that the leaker(s) responsible for giving information to Wikileaks should be prosecuted. And there are only three words that should be said to Liz Cheney and her pearl-clutching over revealing potentially damaging state interests: Valerie Plame Wilson. Personally, given that we have been dragged into an age where the government has the gall to tell its citizens that we should assume we have the right of privacy, it may not be a bad thing that the government finds that no privacy can be a double-edged sword.
Going further in the concept of instability brought on by the porous nature of electronic communications, Fareed Zakaria discusses the brief moment this year when 15% of all web traffic was routed through China. Apparently, this included military and government communications and there’s no guarantee that they haven’t established a way to continue to monitor the communications. So while we have people concerned about Wikileaks revealing to everyone actions we’ve already taken, what do we say to China over surveilling information for future plans?
Then there is the media’s favorite Sunday show guest, John McCain, making his 25,000th appearance since losing the election. Can you imagine Al Gore or John Kerry being invited even half the times John McCain has? And of course, his buddies in the media (this time, Candy Crowley on State of the Union) don’t blink at his blatant pandering and flip-flopping. He’s still dragging his feet on the repeal of DADT, unbelievably saying that the “inexperienced” Obama should know that DADT is working. Really?
Congressional freshman Austin Scott of Georgia gave the Republican weekly address this week, and although he promised a whole new way of working in DC, if you listen carefully to his address, there’s nothing new to what he says, which is replete with all the same platitudes and tired trickle-down economic policies that we know don’t work.
And finally, on a positive note, Christiane Amanpour interviewed billionaires like Bill and Melinda Gates, Warren Buffett, Ted Turner and hedge fund manager Tom Steyer about their commitment to The Giving Pledge, promising at least half of their income to charity. (Relevant portion of the tape is at 3:40) Steyer talks about his commitment to making things better for others and gets choked up about how he is obligated to pay his good fortune back. While it’s easy to get cynical over weepy billionaires, I think that Steyer (and Buffett, Gates and Turner, who all also agree that their taxes are too low and that they SHOULD be raised) represents the kind of wealthy people we should admire, rather than the Paris Hiltons and Real Housewives.
Tomorrow, Jason Leopold of Truthout with more on wikileaks, and fun with the news with GottaLaff of The Political Carnival!