Hillary Clinton, Julian Assange said, "should resign." Speaking over Skype from an undisclosed location on Tuesday, the WikiLeaks founder was replying to a question by TIME managing editor Richard Stengel over the diplomatic-cable dump that Assange's organization loosed on the world this past weekend.
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<span>Oh, what silliness. He is, as I was sure would happen, allowing this all to go to his head. Even the angryarab had this to say:
ReplyDelete"And most importantly, despite the release and the fanfare and the noise from the White House: there is nothing that is really embarrassing or revealing about the US government. Only embarrassing about US puppets in the Middle East region."
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2010/11/wikileaks-fishy-seclection.html
From Sec. Robert Gates:
<span>But let me -- let me just offer some perspective as somebody who's been at this a long time. Every other government in the world knows the United States government leaks like a sieve, and it has for a long time. And I dragged this up the other day when I was looking at some of these prospective releases. And this is a quote from John Adams: "How can a government go on, publishing all of their negotiations with foreign nations, I know not."</span>
<span>Now, I've heard the impact of these releases on our foreign policy described as a meltdown, as a game-changer, and so on. I think -- I think those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought. The fact is, governments deal with the United States because it's in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us, and not because they believe we can keep secrets. Many governments -- some governments deal with us because they fear us, some because they respect us, most because they need us. We are still essentially, as has been said before, the indispensable nation.</span>
<span>So other nations will continue to deal with us. They will continue to work with us. We will continue to share sensitive information with one another.</span>
<span>Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is it awkward? Yes. Consequences for U.S. foreign policy? I think fairly modest.</span></span>
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/just-got-this-email-from-office-of-secretary-gates.htm