Wikileaks and Cosmopolitans

After turning off the alarm on my phone this morning, I scrolled through my RSS feeds and Google News Recommendations and landed on this: Wikileaks Posts Secret Bomb-Stopper Report — Did It Go Too Far? by Noah Shachtman. The article presents the controversy surrounding the post of a classified document on the Australian website.

Laying in bed, squinting blurry-eyed at the little screen, I thumbed down to post a comment on the article, only to discover I was the 200th+ (I got tired of counting) person to weigh in.

How poetic: people posting anonymous comments to argue freedom of speech versus the merits of secrecy.

The debate boils down to whether or not total freedom of speech (information) is acceptable. Liberal commenters are saying yes, acceptable and very necessary. Conservatives are saying it’s absolutely irresponsible to hand our military secrets to the enemy.

For the record, I side with comments like these:

I can´t believe how dangerously simpleminded the comments are, shouting treason, lives in danger and whatnot.
1) Do you really, actually believe for one second, that anything that reached a bloody website has not been available (for a long time) to professional sources, spy, counterspy, etc. etc. agencies? C´mon…
2) Not only is this dated technology, but even the current technology is dated, and whatever technology is really in use atm, wont even be known to anything close to a public source for years. It´s always been like that, and the fact that some of it appears on a website, even wikileaks, wont change that.
3)Yes. Information SHOULD be free. With all the crap that appears in the news nowadays, with all the crap that is shown by the media (censored, guided, and terribly biased), this is actually quite refreshing. It´s a clear sign how much hypocrisy still exists. Everyone goes around screaming, that they want the facts, the truth and nothing but the truth, but as soon as anything unrelated to hollywoods latest drama appears, those very same people scream bloody murder. Yes. I mean you people. Get real, information is NOT free, information is controlled, biased and released James-Bond-style on a need-to-know-basis. This broke the established pattern, as so many of you always wanted and claimed, and your first response is “treason”?
Look, I like the USA, as much as I do Germany, Japan and the entire lot. But not because of their “guiding to the light” (and btw. you are a true idiot for even writing that. The war in Iraq was STARTED by USA, everything else is just a crappy excuse, and you know it), but because those countries are responsible for most of the last and this centuries technical and scientific advances. That´s where the stuff that makes my life interesting was born, grown, nourished, explored, expanded, applied and ultimately, brought to me. That´s what´s so grand about the USA and all other countries responsible for it. Not the war. Not their irritating blindness to any and all human rights out and inside their own countries. And most certainly not their dated jamming technologies.
Damn, it really bugs me to see so many, otherwise intelligent people talk like morons.
H. von Karkas
Posted by: von karkas | Dec 19, 2008 4:59:13 AM

Because I believe the release of any information, no matter how important or unimportant, is TRIVIAL, and therefore does not matter. For example, people assume that this information was released by an American Soldier, or someone who had this information. So if it was released by an Iraqi, or acquired through intelligence gathering techniques, or by whatever method, would you applaud his ingenuity or would you call him a dirty underhanded raghead for stealing information? The point is Wikileaks does not support American interests, it supports all peoples interests. And to the person saying I’m a nihilist, though a well thought out argument and inventive, I define myself as Cosmopolitan, though sidestepping the philosophical ?, I support mankind, not America, not Iraq, but Man, and wikileaks I feel is good, because if this information allows Iraqi Citizens, non-combatants, to duplicate the technology, that’s a good reason for it to be widely available. Just because you presume it was for people to use against us, doesn’t mean that was the intent of it’s release. That’s where the author of this article made a mistake, in presuming this was released as sensitive material, with intent as to what on Wikileaks part. Everyone in this thread can only see the downsides to its release, and none look to the potential positives, thus furthering the point that none here, or anywhere, are truly qualified to judge. I make my points, and I will never make any of you understand mine, those who do will agree or disagree for a variety of reasons, and so perhaps I am a troll for wanting to put forth my opinion, but honestly I feel this opinion, needs a voice, as too many people are often nihilistic about it and do not care, as they expect most people to be like the people here, and to cut down, calls for treason & disloyalty, unpatriotic, whatever. All of you love to voice your own opinion, which I have disagreed with but never said you cannot have, while most all here, would gladly shut me up if they had the means.
Posted by: RJ | Dec 18, 2008 6:24:10 PM

That word there, Cosmopolitan. I like that word a lot. Not American, not Iraqi, Korean or Somalian. We are citizens of one community, one giant, planet-wide city. We cannot pick and chose sides based on histories and borders, because these things don’t divide us anymore. It’s time to deal with the global community we have inherited, and stop acting like little kids with a piece of tape dividing our bedroom.

But then I also worry about my friends dying in Iraq, and the backlash of thousands of hateful simpletons spewing terrorism of their own.

Comments like this really upset me:

Member of the new, young, America-hating left. Bank on it.
Posted by: Fred Tucker | Dec 18, 2008 10:24:34 PM

I don’t hate America. I just love everyone. I love you, Fred Tucker.

Anything a liberal can do to kill American troops and hurt our nation. We can look forward to four years of this.
Posted by: JoeS | Dec 18, 2008 6:59:12 PM

In the past four years thousands of American troops have died in a war started over misinformation. Maybe if Wikileaks had published an Iraqi leak of their classified WMD locations, we could have skipped this war in the first place. Also, since Bush has the lowest approval rating of any president ever, it’s doubtful liberals could do worse.

Trading soldier’s blood for left wing ideology.
Posted by: John R | Dec 19, 2008 5:24:27 AM

Soldiers’ blood is spilled for ideology every day – isn’t that the definition of war? Blaming others will not change the fact that people are dying in wars run by secrets, and people will continue to die for secrets as long information warfare continues.