In late 2008 Blackwater, already under fire because of accusations of abuse of his security guards in Iraq and Afghanistan, reconfigured a 183-foot oceanographic research vessel to a pirate-hunting ship for rent and then began looking for business from shipping companies seeking protection from Somali pirates. Company's CEO, Erik Prince, plan a trip to Djibouti to a promotional event in March 2009 and Blackwater had hoped that the American Embassy who would help, according to a secret Ministry of cable.
But with the Obama administration just weeks old, American diplomats in Djibouti is faced with a problem they are supposed. in order to be advocates for u.s. companies, but this was the Blackwater, a company that the Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had proposed ban from war zones when she was a presidential candidate.
The Embassy "would appreciate the guidance Departments at the appropriate level of engagement with Blackwater," wrote James c. Swan, the American Ambassador in Djibouti, in a cable sent on Feb 12, 2009.Blackwaters plans to enter the piracy business has reported in the past, but not the US Government's concern about the affair.
According to the cable had Blackwater outfitted its United States-flag ship with 50 caliber machine guns and a small, unarmed drone aircraft. Ship, named Mortensen, would make a crew of 33 to patrol Aden 30 days before returning to Djibouti to resupply.
And the company had already determined that its rules of engagement.' Blackwater does not intend to take any pirates in custody, but want to use deadly force against pirates, if necessary,» says the cable.
At that time, the company still pending approvals from Blackwater lawyers for its planned operations, since Blackwater had informed the Embassy there was "no precedent for a paramilitary operation in a purely commercial environment."
Lawsuits filed later of crew members on Mortensen made life on the ship sound slightly improved from Blackbeard days.
A former member of the crew according to legal documents, said that the ship's captain, who had drinking water under a port call in Jordan, ordered him "is placed in the irons" (handcuffs to a towel rack) after he was accused of giving an unauthorized to his hometown newspaper interview in Minnesota. Captain, threatened, according to the lawsuit, also to place the seaman in a straitjacket. another crew member, who is black, argued in court documents that he repeatedly was subjected to racial epithets.
Finally found the Blackwater Maritime security services no tax in the company of a pirate-chasing never attract potential clients and the administration of the Obama chose not to break the American government relationship with the company, North Carolina-based, which has collected more than $ 1 billion in security contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. Blackwater renamed itself the XE services, and earlier in the year, the company won a $ 100 million contract from the Central Intelligence Agency to protect the spy agency's bases in Afghanistan.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — less than a month after President Obama assured testily journalists in 2009 that Pakistan's nuclear materials "remains of the militant hands," his Ambassador here sent a secret message to Washington suggest that she remained deeply concerned.
The Ambassador concern was a stockpile of highly enriched uranium, sit in years near the aging research nuclear reactor in Pakistan. There were enough to build multiple "dirty bombs" or in the qualified hands, possibly enough for an actual atomic bomb.
Cable, dated May 27, 2009, reported the Ambassador, Anne w. Patterson, the Pakistani Government once again was dragging its feet on an agreement concluded for two years previously United States remove the material.
She wrote to the senior US officials that the Pakistani Government had concluded that "the ' sensational ' international and local media coverage of Pakistan's nuclear weapons made it impossible to continue at this time." A senior Pakistani official said she warned, if the word is leaked that the Americans will help remove the fuel, the local press would probably "to describe it as the United States." take Pakistan's nuclear weapons
Fuel is still there.
It may be the most unnerving proof of complex relationship — sometimes co-operative, often confrontational, always cautious — between the United States and Pakistan, almost ten years to the US-led war in Afghanistan.Cables, produced by WikiLeaks and made available for a number of news organizations make it clear that lie underneath public insurances deep clash over strategic objectives on issues such as Pakistan's support for Afghan Taliban and tolerance of al-Qaeda and Washington's warmer relations with India, Pakistan's Archenemy.
Written from the u.s. Embassy in Islamabad, reveals the cables American diplomats maneuver which try to support an unpopular elected Government that is more responsive to the American targets than is the real power in Pakistan, the army and the Intelligence Agency so crucial to the struggle against militant.Cables show how weak the civil government are: President Asif Ali Zardari told Vice President Joseph r. Biden Jr. that he worried that the military might "take me."
Frustration over American lack of ability to persuade the Agency's Pakistani army and the intelligence to cease to support the Afghan Taliban and other militant runs through the reports of the meetings between the American and Pakistani officials.
That frustration busy the Bush administration and became a problem for the incoming Obama administration, cables, document, during a trip in January 2009, Mr. Biden has carried out Pakistan 11 days before he was sworn in. in a meeting with General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Army Chief of staff, Mr. Biden asked several times about Pakistan and the United States "had the same enemy as we further."
"The United States need to be able to make an objective assessment of Pakistan's part of the deal," said Mr. Biden, according to a Feb. 6, 2009, cable.
General Kayani tried to reassure him said, "we are on the same page in Afghanistan, but there can be different tactics."Mr. Biden replied that "results" would tester.
The cables reveals at least one example of increased cooperation, previously undisclosed under the Obama administration.Last autumn, allowed the Pakistani army secretly 12 American Special Operations soldiers to deploy with Pakistani troops in the violent Tribal areas near the Afghan border.
The Americans were prohibited to lead combat missions.Even though their number was small, had their presence in the army headquarters in Bajaur, South Waziristan and North Waziristan, a "sea change in the way of thinking," the Embassy reported.
The Embassy added its normal prudence: implementations must be kept secret or "Pakistani military will probably stop making requests for assistance."
In recent years, however, Pakistan and the United States began to publicly acknowledge the role of a very American field advisors. Lieutenant Colonel Michael Shavers, a u.s. military spokesman in Islamabad, said in a statement that "at the request of the Pakistanis," small teams of Special Operations forces, "move to different locations with their Pakistani military counterparts throughout Pakistan."
In addition, the last week in a report to Congress on operations in Afghanistan, the Pentagon said that the Pakistani army also had accepted American and coalition advisors in Quetta.
The cables do not address the sharp increase in Mr. Obama in the drone attacks against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in the Tribal areas of Pakistan's tacit approval. This is because the cables is not classified at the highest level.
A deep scepticism
Of all the visible manifestations of the cables, however, deep scepticism that Pakistan will ever fully cooperate to fight the full range of extremist groups. [citation needed] this is partly because Pakistan sees some of the strongest militant groups such as insurance for the inevitable day United States military to withdraw from Afghanistan and Pakistan — want to exert maximum influence inside Afghanistan and against Indian intervention.
In fact, Consul General in Peshawar wrote in 2008 that she believed that some members of the Haqqani network — one of the most deadly groups attacking American and Afghan soldiers — had left the North Waziristan to escape the drone strikes. Some members of the family, wrote she moved to the South of Peshawar; other fine in Rawalpindi, where senior Pakistani military officials also live.
Jane Perlez reported from Islamabad, and David e. Sanger and Eric Schmitt from Washington. William j. broad and Andrew w. Lehren contributed reporting from New York.
The King told a top White House aide, John o. Brennan, that the United States should implant is an electronic chip in each prisoner to track his movements, which is sometimes performed with horses and Falcons.
"Horses need good lawyers," said Mr Brennan.
That was unusual discussion in March 2009 among hundreds portrayed in a cache of secret State Department cables produced by WikiLeaks and made available for a number of news organizations that reveals the painstaking efforts of the United States to safely reduce the population of Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, so it will eventually be closed.
American diplomats went looking for countries which were not only willing to take in the former prisoners but also could be trusted to keep them in full.In a Global Bazaar of sorts the US officials-sweet talked and haggled with their foreign counterparts in an effort to resettle the prisoners who had been cleared for release, but could not for the repatriation of the fears of abuse, the cables Show.
Slovenia, is seeking a meeting with President Obama, were encouraged to "do more" on the prisoner resettlement, if it wanted to attract attention from the overlying "Washington"; its Prime Minister, later "linked to the acceptance of the prisoners to ', a 20-minute meeting with the President '", but the session — and prisoner transfer — never happened.Maldives bound acceptance of prisoners to American help in obtaining THE IMF assistance, while the Bush administration offered the Pacific nation of Kiribati "an incentive package" of $ 3 million to take 17 Chinese Muslim prisoners, cables show. in discussions about creating a rehabilitation program for its own citizens, President of Yemen repeatedly asked Mr Brennan, "how many dollars will bring the United States?"
Mr. Obama won praise from all over the world when, shortly after the Office in 2009, he ordered the Guant?namo Bay prison closed within a year says, it was in conflict with the American values, and a symbol for terrorist propaganda.
By then, the Bush Administration had already transferred more than 500 pasted it had sent to Guantanamo Bay, and the Obama administration has since winnowed the population to 174 from 240, with help from Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Belgium and other countries.But Mr Obama missed its deadline, and the goal is faded as a priority, with domestic opposition to move some detainees to a prison inside the United States and other countries which condemned Guant?namo Bay prison reluctant to take in the detainees.
While Mr Obama went to Norway to collect a Nobel Prize, for example, is called the Norwegians resettle Guantanamo prisoners ' clean.the responsibility of the U.S.. "Germany and several other European countries, who had criticized prison finally accepted a few prisoners, but balked at takes as many as United States had hoped.
In the autumn of 2009, Lithuania's newly elected President backed out of her country previous agreement to resettle a prisoner tekstombrydningsfunktionen a tumult of reports that the Central Intelligence Agency had run a secret prison in Lithuania. the Lithuanian Parliament National Security Committee Chairman, private apologized and suggested using the mutual allies to pressure her to reconsider, cables show.
Other items highlighted difficulties of the Uighurs, a Muslim Chinese resettlement prisoners who had ordered freed by a federal judge. China was considered likely to abuse them, but the Beijing required their return.
Meeting an October 2009 in Beijing be linked to an official Chinese Uighurs American hopes to ensure supply routes through the China of the Afghan war, says, "more prudent actions from the United States on Guant?namo Uighurs would help remove some of the obstacles on the Chinese side to help with downloads."
And an aide to the Prime Minister of Finland's trusted in August 2009 "to Chinese diplomats in Helsinki has repeatedly warned them of the damage on the bilateral relations of Finland should accept any the Uighurs," said, a cable.
Still, some allies was eager to help. After accepting five Chinese Muslims in 2006, offered to the Prime Minister of Albania in 2009 to rehouse three to six prisoners not from China. American diplomats portrayed his offer as "gracious, but probably extravagant."
"As always, the Albanians are willing to go the extra mile to assist with one of our central foreign policy priorities," said a cable.
United States repatriated other prisoners for prosecution at home. Afghanistan, however, be granted pretrial releases to 29 out of 41 such former prisoners from Guantanamo, allows "dangerous individuals to go free or re-enter, the battlefield without ever facing an Afghan Court" diplomats in Kabul, complained in a July 2009 cable.
Charlie Savage reported from Washington and Andrew w. Lehren from New York.
December of last year, the American Ambassador shared an anecdote with Foreign Minister Hillary Rodham Clinton: when the Mayor of Paris Eiffel Tower had stated in Turkey's national colors for a visit by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in april 2009, drivers ' mates to Mr Sarkozy, a staunch opponent of Turkey's entry to the EU, so that he will be redirected for the presidential plane would not see it.
"Elysée contacts have reported to us the great lengths, they will go to avoid disagreement" with Mr Sarkozy "or provoke his disapproval," said cable, signed by Ambassador Charles h. Rivkin. it was a part of a trove of documents obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to several news organizations.
Five years of correspondence between Paris and Washington describe a spectacular record-Iraq turnaround between one of the West's most complex diplomatic pair. Mr Sarkozy, who joined in May 2007, was described himself last year as "the most pro-American French President since the second world war" and a "force multiplier" for u.s. foreign policy interests.
But the cables also convey a nuanced assessment of the French leader as a little unpredictable shape with authoritarian tendencies and a h?jafgiftslande to decide policy on the fly January 2010 wrote American diplomats of a high-maintenance ally sometimes impatient to consult with key partners before the execution of initiatives favouring summits and direct contacts of traditional diplomacy.
Writing to Mrs Clinton Dec 4, 2009, Mr. Rivkin spoke about the need to channel Mr Sarkozy "impulsive proposal for constructive directions."Concessions on sensitive issues like Afghanistan would be best won by President Obama himself, he suggested.
"In my opinion, it would require periodic presidential intervention reassure Sarkozy in our commitment to an ally and partner, and in many cases to close the deal," he wrote.
The French President's Office declined to comment, even though Mr Sarkozy on Tuesday told the Ministers that the release of the documents, there was "the height of irresponsibility."
Paul Patin, an American Embassy spokesman, said on Tuesday: "President Sarkozy has proven time and time again that he is a true friend of France's U.S. is one of our closest allies, and our partnership has only been stronger during his presidency.
In General, few foreign policy disagreements surface between France and the United States under the chairmanship of Mr Sarkozy. a big difference, however, relate to Turkey with Washington, an ardent supporter of Turkey's ambition to join the European Union and fretful that Mr Sarkozy opposition threatens to "intimidate a strategic ally."
Joy among American diplomats by the arrival of a self professed pro-American candidate after years of difficult relations with Jacques Chirac was clearly in the correspondence well before Mr Sarkozy election.
In 2005, told Mr Sarkozy, then Minister of the Interior, Craig r. Stapleton then the American Ambassador, although he would have advised against the Iraq invasion, he still felt it "personally when American soldiers die in battle."Mr Sarkozy said he took it as a personal responsibility to "no U.S. Embassy or Consulate was so much as touched" in anti-American protests.
"Very much unlike almost all other French political personalities Sarkozy is viscerally pro-American," says a signed by Mr. Stapleton cable. "For most of his peers, the United States is a sometimes reviled or admired, but certainly foreign, other identifies with Sarkozy. United States; he can see his own rise in the world that reflects an American-style saga. "
If Mr Sarkozy Atlantic Outlook was never doubted — even in the most recent leaked the cable from the Jan. 25 years French-American relations is called "one of the best" — concerns about a "tyndhudet, authoritarian" period level, by October 2007, whom he divorced his second wife, Cécilia. two months later, diplomats, talked to Mr Sarkozy "unheard of" concentration of power over the Foreign Affairs Committee and "growing willingness to downgrade to human rights considerations in its relations with foreign leaders."
Praised for its leadership in 2008 Russia-Georgia war, and the global financial crisis, was Mr Sarkozy criticised by the European diplomats referred to in a cable to a "increasingly erratic" last half of his 2008 EU Presidency.
Abdul Qadeer Khan, the nuclear scientist at the door of his house in Islamabad in 2009.
WASHINGTON — Spent at the beginning of 2008, when the rumors section object that Pakistan was about to release from house arrest Abdul Qadeer Khan, the man who created the world's largest black market in nuclear technology, the Bush administration is silent.
Day 3
Articles in this series will examine American diplomatic cables as a window on relations with the rest of the world in an age of war and terrorism.
Updates in response to the leak of diplomatic cables. Editors and journalists answer questions.Struggling to get help for Pakistan in the war against Al Qaeda, it could not risk to remind the world of a case Pakistani officials kept saying was closed.
Private it was another story.
Richard a. Boucher, top State Department official for South Asia, wrote on april 10, 2008, the Embassy in Islamabad should "express Washington's strong opposition to the release of Dr. Khan and call on the Pakistan Government to continue holding him under house arrest. Release him, he wrote, would" undermine "what Pakistan had done to combat the proliferation.
"International security damage by Dr Khan and his voting rights is not a closed book," he wrote, noting that the United States and the other was still processing the Khan network sales of technology to Iran and North Korea "and possible other States."
The world, he said, "the reality that the uranium enrichment technology and nuclear weapons design that was sold to Libya is now available for other States and non-State actors."
Dr. Khan was released 10 months later. Pakistan has prevented him from being interviewed by international inspectors, or the United States, including his assertion that others in the Pakistani Government knew of his work.
The notice said Mr. Assange, 39, was wanted for "sex crimes" on an arrest warrant, brought by the International Office of public prosecution in Gothenburg, Sweden. Interpol is based in Lyon, France. Mr. Assange stronghold was not immediately known.
The development came as several newspapers, including The New York Times, published confidential documents from a mass of some 250,000 diplomatic cables from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Washington, including messages relating to American politics in Iran, Pakistan, Korea and many other places.
The Swedish prosecutor said almost two weeks ago, a court in Stockholm had approved its request for the arrest of Mr Assange facing a hearing on the charges, as Mr Assange has strongly denied.
Marianne New, Director of Stockholm, the public prosecutor's Office, said in a statement at the time she had moved to have Mr Assange extradited to Sweden on suspicion of "rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion."The accusations were first made against Mr Assange after he travelled to Sweden in the middle of August and had a short relationship with two Swedish women, which he has described as consensual. to reach Ms. New Wednesday to clarify the measures taken to ensure Mr. Assange arrest and return to Sweden was kundescenario.
Lawyers acting Mr. Assange requested against the arrest warrant by Sweden's highest court on Tuesday, the Associated Press said in a report, which is also quoted the President Rafael Correa of Ecuador as dismiss an offer residence in his country, made Mr. Assange of a lower official.
According to Interpol's Web site, a red message "is not an international arrest warrant" and it is up to the national jurisdictions to decide how to act on them.
"Interpol's role is to assist the national police forces in identifying or locating persons with their arrest and extradition," said the Web site. "These red notices allow the order to broadcast worldwide with the request that the requested person is arrested with a view to extradition. "
A spokesman for Scotland Yard said the force had received "no intelligence", Mr. Assange was in London, and said that the British police, according to what he described as normal practice in Interpol red notices, was not involved in an active effort to arrest him.
Although officers are not dedicated to find Australian, said spokesman "If that intelligence comes, or we have reason to believe that a person who has a red message out on them is in a specific location, we will find them and hand them as per international standards."
Unconfirmed reports on Wednesday, attributed to WikiLeaks associates, said Australian staying out of sight anywhere outside London. mobile phones of two close of voting rights by Mr. Assange seemed to be extinguished with pre-recorded messages say their owners was outside the United Kingdom.
A Web report by the British Guardian newspaper, which has developed close ties with Australian during those months, the guardian, the New York Times and other publications have preparing stories based on the documents, WikiLeaks, said on Tuesday, Mr. Assange was "in a secret place anywhere outside London with colleagues hackers and WikiLeaks enthusiasts."
An American journalist based in New York, told The New York Times he had had contacts with the aides to Mr. Assange in recent days about a possible interview and had been told to prepare for a meeting with him in the United Kingdom sometime in January.
Other reports suggest that he may have fled the United Kingdom, prior to the Interpol notification to another country, where he was less likely to be arrested, but these can originate with Mr. Assanges own statements in recent weeks suggests that he could have to flee to Moscow or Havana-statements, which left open the possibility that he dramatizing the difficulties he has found in to find a safe haven, rather than the actual outlines a plan.
Nor was it clear exactly how Mr Assange situation had been amended by Interpol in the notice.
John f. Burns reported from London and Alan Cowell from Paris Ravi Somaiya contributed. reporting from London.
Over an official lunch in late February kabelsl?et a top South Korean diplomat confidently told the American Ambassador, Kathleen Stephens, the decrease would be "two to three years" after the death of Kim Jong-il, the country's ailing leader, MS. Stephens later Washington. A new, younger generation of Chinese leaders predicted "would be comfortable with a reunited Korea controlled by Seoul and anchored to the United States in a benign alliance," a diplomat, Chun Yung-woo.
But if Seoul were intended to control the entire Korean peninsula for the first time since the end of the second world war, China — the powerful allies, that keep the North Live food and fuel — should be reassuring. South Korea already plans to assure the Chinese companies that they would have ample commercial opportunities in mineral-rich northern part of the peninsula.
As for the United States, said the cable, "China would clearly not welcome any American military presence in the North of the DMZ," heavily mined the demarcation line now divides the two Korea 's.
This trove cables ends in February, just before the North Korea began a series of military actions, which have cast some of Asia's most prosperous countries in crisis. a month after the lunch, the North is believed to have launched a torpedo attack on Cheonan, a South Korean warship, which killed 46 sailors.
Three weeks ago revealed the existence of a uranium enrichment plant, potentially give it a new pathway to make nuclear bomb material.And last week the shelled a South Island, killed two civilians and two Marines and injured many more.
None of that was predicted in dozens of State Department cables on North Korea produced by WikiLeaks, and in fact, the people's Republic of China'S closest allies, has often been amazing incorrectly, the cables Show. But the documents help explain why some South Korean and US officials suspect that the military outbreaks can be the past snarls of a dying dictatorship.
They also show to talk about the Northern collapse can be docked more in hope than in any real strategy: similar predictions were made in 1994, when the country's founder, Kim Il-sung, suddenly died, leaving his son to run the most isolated country in Asia and an expert in Chinese have been warned, according to an American diplomat said that Washington would be deceiving themselves again if it tr?de that "North Korea would implode after Kim Jong-Il is dead."
Cables on North Korea — some originate from Seoul, some from Beijing, many based on interviews with officials and others with academics, defectors and other experts — are long on a qualified guess and short on facts, illustrates why their topic is known as the "black hole" Asia. because they are Foreign Ministry documents, not intelligence reports, they do not include the most secret u.s. assessments or the u.s. military plans in the case of North Korea guerillakampe or lashes.
They contain loose talk and confidence to the predictions of the end of the dynasty, North Korea has held for the age of 65. These discussions were fueled by a rash of previously released defections of ranking North Korean diplomats, who secretly sought refuge in the South.
But they were also influenced by a remarkable period of turmoil inside of North Korea, including an economic crisis set off by the Government's failed effort to regulate currency and lean intelligence suggests that the Northern military cannot abide the occasion of Mr. Kim son Kim Jong-un, as was recently done a four-star general, despite has no military experience.
The cables reveals that private Chinese, long seen as North Korea's last protectors against the West, occasionally gives Obama administration with colourful assessments of the situation in North Korea. Chinese officials, even laugh sometimes also about frustrations dealing with North Korean paranoia. in April, 2009, just before a North Korean nuclear test, he Yafei, the Chinese Foreign minister, vice versa, told us officials on a lunch, to the country you want direct negotiations with the United States and to make them act as a "child" to get the attention of "adult".
When James b. Steinberg, the Deputy Secretary of State was in september 2009, with one of China's most powerful officials, Dai Bingguo, State councilor for Foreign Affairs, Mr Dai joked that in a recent visit to North Korea he "does not dare to" being too frank with the ailing and mercurial North Korean leader. But the official Chinese reported that although Kim Jong-il, apparently, had suffered a stroke and, of course, had lost weight, he still had a "sharp eye," and kept his reputation among Chinese officials as "quite good drinker."(Mr. Kim seemed assured Mr Dai during a two-hour conversation in Pyongyang, the capital, as his infirmities had forced him to give up alcohol.)
But reliable intelligence on Mr Kim drinking habits, it turns on, does not extend to his nuclear program, as even the Chinese seem to be in the dark.
Andrew w. Lehren contributed reporting from New York.
To the editor:
Re "Fragile community," by David Brooks (column, Nov. 30):
Materials recently published by WikiLeaks is somewhat encouraging in their cliché.Apparently no one in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in this era involved in overthrowing elected Governments, murdering foreign leaders, or perform illegal wars.
It is still important to remember why an institution like WikiLeaks necessary. Governmental secrets serve to shield the citizens from the cynical, immoral and brutal actions of their Governments. in so far as they contribute to dehumanize our institutions, and impair our ability to make democratic changes. There are many, many more lives lost from the obligation of professional secrecy than from tells of secrets.
Therefore, you can count me as one supporter of WikiLeaks and its mission.
Michael Farzan
United Kingdom, mass., Nov. 30, 2010
•
To the editor:
Re "leaked cables Offer a raw Look Inside American diplomacy" (front page, Nov. 29):
As someone who spent 40 years in journalism, I have great regard for freedom of the press, but I have been an American for much longer, and in that capacity, I am appalled by the action WikiLeaks and the role of the media as an accomplice.
The American Government treats the two wars. it seeks to contain rogue regimes in Iran and North Korea. it must manage a problematic relationship with China, not to mention an unstable, nuclear weapons Pakistan. America, all the friends it can muster in this situation, and it must these friends are to have confidence in Washington.
Leaks diplomatic cables undermine confidence in the Administration's role, makes more difficult in the meantime, tell revelations. us very little, if anything of value to us as citizens.
The Pentagon Papers. These are not The Times should condemn WikiLeaks into what it is: a doctor of serious but meaningless mischief.
Laurence i. Barrett
Chevy Chase, MD., Nov. 29, 2010
•
To the editor:
As I see President Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton's Foreign Minister, and others in the Government may terminate the WikiLeaks ' release of classified material, including, in Ms. Clinton's words, "private discussions" between diplomats, can I help but see some irony.
A Government that has supported all kind of intrusion on private citizens, private discussions and works, including wiretapping our phone conversation, monitoring our emails and what sites we visit, and view our naked bodies at airports, suddenly cries foul when its own secrets is pried into.
When we complain about Big Brother penetration, we know that if we have something to hide, we have nothing to fear. ' Not WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, argue the same?
I certainly support not our diplomats are exposed to danger, but wonder if perhaps this will give our leaders some perspective on how it feels, the company has gone private after by people who claim to serve the greater good.
David Nurenberg
Somerville, mass., Nov. 29, 2010