Wikileaks

My main issue with Wikileaks is one which I heard a former Canadian ambassador who became a human rights worker raise. His point came down to this, from a period when he was an ambassador to Indonesia during the Suharto years: I met with a school teacher once a week for tea, and she would pass along information concerning atrocities committed under the Suharto regime, which I passed to my superiors. The information was helpful in pressing Indonesia, and if these messages had become public, the regime would have created a hired demonstration to express how outraged the Indonesian people were, closed the Canadian embassy, and killed the teacher and anyone else involved in providing information to me.

The difficulty is that effectively data-dumping diplomatic notes will only result in less information being ultimately available for historians as such messages will not be sent as e-mail and stored in a database which could be compromised.

Not withstanding the above, there is also a positive side to Wikileaks: It provides the public with a window into the world of diplomatic process and views expressed by various powers. I found it particularly interesting how many of the heads of Arab states, (such as the Saudi’s) would love to see the old Persian nemesis put in its place by the Americans.