This is the kind of "learning" that is really just a rehashing of cliches that confirming one's biases.
You aren't surprised at how dull an uninteresting the vast majority of what we go to great expense to keep secret turns out to be?
It's not a trivial fact. That such quotidian and banal information is hidden shows that secrecy has become a habit and isn't done for any particular purpose.
That is not a good policy in a democracy.
Saudi Arabia -- and the rest of the Arab world, including, for instance, Jordan, that has practically no oil -- don't want a lunatic state to have nukes, and what is your conclusion? It's all an evil capitalistic conspiracy, they just want to "remove an oil exporter".
Hmm, doesn't seem like I ever made that argument. Let me check...nope, that resembles nothing I've said.
If the Arab states were that afraid, they would be doing something. They'd be willing to actually help out. They're worried, like all nations, that their neighbor would gain in power, both militarily and economically.
There was a cable from Egypt where some leader wanted us to stay in Iraq because it would make Iran stronger. Notice there wasn't anything that said, "This is hugely important to us, we're afraid of nukes, here are 10,000 troops."
In a shocking turn of events, other countries in the Middle East are happy to allow the United States to fight wars that benefit them. I'll believe those countries are really worried about nuclear Iran when they actually start doing something.
(So you think, in other words, that the same folks you claim inevitably become murderously violent in protest of the least "US involvement in the Middle East" would now want the USA to totally destroy another ME country just for monetary reasons.)
Please make the argument you want to make instead of ridiculously characterizing my words.
Let's see, do I think the
same people are in the streets chanting "death to America" while asking us to attack Iran in private?
Well, some of them, probably. To placate their insane population, the leaders of Saudi Arabia probably say a bunch of crap about the US. They don't want to admit that they could give less of a rip about their people (thought it's fairly obvious from their behavior) and admit that they're mostly interested in making money.
But it should be remembered that the people lighting American flags on fire are not the same group of people Bush was holding hands and necking with:
People in Saudi Arabia may have differing opinions, and since it is not a representative government, the leaders could ask the US for help while the people march for our downfall.
I know, it's stunning. As shocking as the fact that we weren't greeted with rose petals in Iraq.
The leaks show that it's hard to predict what will happen in the world in the future? Well, espionage is useless, who needs it, they don't know anything.
It's possible that there's some benefit to espionage. These leaks sure don't help us understand what that would be. I guess we have the UN Sec. Gen.'s DNA now. That should pay big dividends.
(Of course this is a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" claim: if the secret information reveals things that strongly contradict what is publicly known, it would "prove" to you that the evil government just uses secrecy to lie to people; the worldview seen in the secret document pretty much fits with what most people believed? Ah, so "intelligence is useless" and it's just a waste of money.)
This is what happens when you either willfully manipulate someone's argument to make it easier to disagree or don't understand it in the first place.
I said it was 99% useless. I think the cables back that up nicely.
The 1% that's useful does not reflect well on the United States. For example, the cables reveal Karzai to be an insane, corrupt, fool who uses his authority to cover for criminals, including his drug dealing brother. Some of this was previously known, but the cables make it a certainty.
Our government attempted to keep this information from the public because it makes obvious the utter stupidity of thinking that democracy and the rule of law can be brought to Afghanistan with a maniac like Karzai in charge.
We will spend more money and lose more lives chasing a fantasy. Hiding this reality from the American people while saying, "We need six more months, we need six more months...etc." is astonishing.
Are you honestly arguing that the US has the right to lie to its population about war?
I'm not arguing we need to know tactical facts about where the next attack will be launched from or other such operational details, but they are covering up an abject failure. Should they be able to lie to us as long as they want?
I for one see a somewhat different conclusion. Contrary to what numerous people in this forum said, apparently Iran is considered a big threat by the rest of the world, and there isn't the slightest evidence the worries about Iran is due to the the "endless war propaganda for the benefit of the evil capitalists" or "USA used as puppet by evil zionists to get rid of enemies" sort of conspiracy the usual gang on this forum (as well as the likes of Chomsky, etc.) were claiming.
Yet no one does anything. Interesting.
Iran is a complicated situation, there's no doubt. The evidence for their nuclear program, however, is even worse than the trumped nonsense about WMD's in Iraq circa 2003.
The surest way to keep insane theocrats in charge of Iran for the next century is to attack.
It's entirely possible (though not very likely) that Iran will become large enough of a threat that military intervention is necessary. We are VERY far from that right now.
Once again, if Saudi Arabia or Jordan or Russia or wherever else, was actually worried, they would be doing more than trying to talk the US into bombing. They want us to carry the load for them. Countries with legitimate concerns rarely behave that way.
But more important than this is another point. I naturally didn't NEED Wikileaks to confirm it -- I reached this view from other sources long before Wikileaks. But I am NOT clamining that because it seems to me the results of leaked documents agree with my views then this somehow "proves" espionage work is useless and all official secrecy is just a cover for corruption. Helping spread of this sort of cliched "insight" is one of the downsides of wikileaks.
Hmm, so you tried to argue against my point that 99% of this stuff was useless and these conclusions could be arrived at without secrecy by showing that you didn't rely on the documents to arrive at your conclusion, you used reason.
I enjoy when people angrily agree with me.
