So Wikileaks only published information about "unethical and outright illegal political actions"? Is something unethical or illegal if Wikileaks claims it to be? What about the impact to the US military, US State department, citizens performing dangerous work for the US government? How could it be right to take that information and expose it to terrorist involved in mass murder of people around the world?
No, they posted other stuff beyond that, too, and certainly there is merit in debating whether or not everything that was posted deserved to be shared (did I really need to know what such and such world leader personally thought of another world leader?).
But there has been stuff that's been posted that could prove to be beneficial to us, that would help us instead of hurt us, and stuff that could soon be posted that we should know about. If, for instance, we get more information about all the crap involved in pushing for the Iraq War, I'd consider that
very beneficial, we deserve to know just how much BS got shoveled at us to allow that war to go on.
Not knowing that kind of information has put many people's lives in danger.
The Taliban and Al Quada benefit the most from the dumping of hundreds of thousands of private, classified information. The United States keeps certain information classified for a reason. The most important being keeping it out of the hands of people who intend to do the country and its citizens harm. Wikileaks just helped to make that information available to such people.
Actually, not necessarily. We're getting proof, for instance, that not everyone in the Middle East is behind what some of the crazy leaders/groups are supporting (countries going nuclear, attacks against us and other nations, etc.). That can potentially weaken the power of the terrorists, once they know that all their claims have been proven to be total lies, and can benefit us, because now we see more potential allies in our midst, who might be able to help us in whatever crap is going on over there.
And the Taliban and al-Qaeda are a lot of things, but they aren't stupid. If WikiLeaks didn't expose the information, they'd have likely found out about at least some of it in some other way. You don't think they keep tabs on our moves already? You honestly think they're naive enough to not know what we've been doing or will do? That's how you work in a war, you try and figure out the other side's secrets and try and stay one step ahead of them.
And once again, while some of the blame does indeed rest on the shoulders of those who exposed sensitive information, the government also deserves blame, too, for letting this information that's supposedly so sacred get out there so easily. There's some definite incompetence on the part of our government, as well as the governments of other countries, for not keeping tighter locks on this information. We're living in a technological age where pretty much ANYTHING out there is up for exposure, so for people to be so shocked that something like this would happen eventually strikes me kind of funny. It was only a matter of time, people.
I don't disagree that there is indeed information that should be kept secret for protection of the people and situations involved (as well as because it's simply not all that newsworthy). But there is also a time when you need to expose things, too. I guess if anything good has come from this it's that now we're being forced to figure out just where that line should fall.
Oh, and that story about Berlusconi and Bono is funny and sad at the same time. Yes, that's the only reason you should give aid, to avoid being berated by a rock musician. Not simply out of the goodness of your heart, no. Shouldn't be that surprising, though, based on what I've heard about Berlusconi, a lot of people think he's a creep anyway, so...
Angela