In response to the controversy generated by Wikileaks, our government and its faithful press have managed to pull off two feats of public relations magic that have obscured the underlying, very serious issues.
First, they have been able to focus the story on Julian Assange, rather than the substantive information that his organization has shared with the world. The media have given more airtime and column inches to the drama of his arrest and detention than they have to the profound legal and moral questions raised by the leaked information. We don't need to know what Assange had for breakfast in his cell in Wandsworth prison; our national conversation ought to be about the inappropriate use of diplomatic pressure by our State Department in soliciting help from the Spanish and German government to conceal acts of torture committed by our national security personnel.
Second, the media and various government officials have managed to build the narrative that the Wikileaks issue is primarily about the impact of leaked information on our government and its ability to carry out effective diplomacy. Everyone from President Obama to Sarah Palin and various loudmouth pundits have claimed that revealing such information could endanger CIA personnel and hamper our diplomatic efforts. I don't believe that these considerations are the real source of the fear and anxiety emanating from Washington. I think the power elite are more deeply concerned about what Wikileaks might mean for the corporate sector. Our diplomatic corps can withstand the inconvenience and discomfort that will arise from the leaks; but if corporations like Bank of America, Shell Oil, Halliburton, and other major business entities are exposed and caught red-handed in acts of illegality, the fallout has the potential to disrupt the rat's nest of entrenched interests that run our world. In my opinion, the real fear in Washington and elsewhere is not so much that Wikileaks is going to be problematic for our government and its diplomats, but rather that the ongoing leaks might expose corporate misconduct and criminality on a worldwide scale.