Icky Leaks

Beyond getting people killed, WikiLeaks' actions make it less likely that Afghans and foreign intelligence services (whose reports WikiLeaks also exposed) will cooperate with the United States in the future. And, as former CIA director Mike Hayden has pointed out, the disclosures are a gift to adversary intelligence services, and they will place a chill on intelligence sharing within the United States government. The harm to our national security is immeasurable and irreparable.

-Odious little Troll, Marc Thiessen

I think a lot of their talk about fighting injustice is pretty woolly and a little hard to take seriously. Whether the good outweighs the bad, there are lots of potential consequences of just this latest release that may turn out to be really positive and constructive, including a change of course in the war, perhaps, and there are potential consequences that are disastrous, including the potential loss of life and future difficulties in assembling new intelligence networks, because sources will lack confidence that the U.S. can keep the secrets it commits to keeping.

-"Open government" advocate, Steven Aftergood

Aftergood, who is affiliated with the Federation of Americna Scientists, is basically a liberal good-government type, a technocratic apologist who believes that civic officers and public servants with generally good intentions sometimes go astray; that secrecy is a sort of pathogen attacking the body politic; that "sunlight is the best medicine." Were the principle focus of his work the operations of the local school board or county council, it would be less laughable, certainly less naive.

Marc Thiessen is a 500-lb. child-raping, blood-addicted reptilian shapeshifter come to this earth to sup upon the tender marrow of little girls.

Interestingly, what they share is the very strange presumption that a stateless association with no national loyalties or affiliations has some affirmative duty to consider "future difficulties in assembling new intelligence networks" prior to publishing formerly secret information. Arthur Silber's archives abound with proof that there is no such thing as "intelligence" in this sense (here is one good example from a few years back), and there's no sense in my retreading that territory. Let's assume instead, solely for the sake of argument, that the United States does have intelligence networks and that these networks do provide information, secret information, necessary for the opperation of the American "security" apparati. All right. What would that mean? It would mean that they exist in order to further the ability of the United States to invade, conquer, and occupy foreign countries. We already know that that serial murderer and major swine flu vector Marc Thiessen believes this to be an essential and praiseworthy purpose, but you, Steven Aftergood, what do you think?

Aftergood actually tells us what he thinks. He slips in a grudging line about the "good" that might come from the leaked docoments.

[T]here are lots of potential consequences of just this latest release that may turn out to be really positive and constructive, including a change of course in the war, perhaps[.]

This is strikingly similar to Katie Hossenfeffer's view that if only Obama knew what was going on in Afghanistan, he'd put a stop to it right quick now. And yet it presumes even more, because it supposes that if only good people, nice people, competent, technocratic, meritocratic, well-educated, liberal-minded, neutrally-positioned, rational, reality-based people (people, perhaps, much like Steven Aftergood) were in a position to "produce" intelligence and to develop those networks, then we would embark upon a less disastrous course; we'd have a kinder, gentler operation; we'd catch that bad ol' bin Laden. Etc.

But obviously, obviously, intelligence is in the service of policy and not the other way around. Information does not precede invasion. When Steven Aftergood talks about "reform," he is ultimately taking a position in favor of the smoother operations of empire. I'd bet the week's pay that he voted for Obama. Change! When Assange calls his organization activist, he means actively working in opposition to the American empire. Aftergood actually understands this, and tskingly disapproves:

So I look with a little bit of concern at the broadsides that WikiLeaks is launching at the classification system. They seem oriented not towards fixing it but towards defeating it.

The meanies! They just want to tear things down. They don't want to build. They don't want to fix. What we need is an effective and efficient classification system! How else will we achieve our goals and benchmarks? How, I ask ya? How?!

As for boy-butt defiling grandmother cannibal Marc Thiessen's take on Wikileaks, all I know is that when the Washington Post editorial page starts calling you a terrorists, you can be sure you're onto something.