9 Comments

• Peter Welch 29th Nov '10 - 10:26pm

  I was just watching coverage in a bar on the continent. It struck me that the things American diplomats said in private were pretty much in line with what some national politicians say about their counterparts in public.

• Duncan 29th Nov '10 - 10:40pm

  * Member of the Royal family advocating ‘return to the great game’ and bemoaning investigations into potentially illegal arms deals as ‘bad for business’.
  * Saudis apparently living with an “emirate” run from Iran in eastern Saudi Arabia (and Yemen and Bahrain) and calling for early action on Iran because if Iran gets the bomb their position may become untenable (for those keeping socre the areas listed as Iranian ’emirates’ by the US intelligence constitute most of the oil rich regions of the Middle East). UAE rapidly arming itself for forseeable conventional warfare.
  * Yemeni government now revealed to have been presenting US strikes as Yemeni, something it did presumably because it foresaw the consequences on Yemeni public opinion were this to be known as very bad (nice one wikileaks! )
  * Unelected unaccountable Australian of unknown funding now holding US State Department over a barrel with the threat that many of the seemingly benign telegrams he released (see e.g. the one pertaining to DRC) have presumably companion pieces the contents of which the state department knows. This guy is facing rape allegations which are either trumped up as he claims in which case he’s still attempting to gain leverage over the US government with the threat of releasing documents hazardous to US national security or the allegations are possibly true and he’s using his access to this information in an attempt to pervert the course of justice.

  I’d say those four points are enough to be taking the issue seriously for the moment.

• Geoffrey Payne 29th Nov '10 - 10:45pm

  As far as I am aware, the most important revelations were made in an earlier release about human rights abuses.
  For this release, according to the news I saw this evening it has only just started.

• Andrew Suffield 29th Nov '10 - 11:01pm

  While many of the details here are interesting, perhaps the most important thing to come of this might be that US political cronies will stop believing that they will get away with secrecy. Maybe next time they’ll think before they act, out of fear of their eventual discovery, if nothing else.

• George Kendall 30th Nov '10 - 12:51am

  We’ll never know the effect of these leaks. Even with hindsight, you can never be sure.

  But I’m fairly sure it will undermine American diplomacy.

  Those who hate American influence in the world will celebrate.

  I don’t. America’s leadership can be essential if an international crisis requires a consensus for action; and, though American foreign policy can be selfish and unethical, I fear the policy of the new players will be a lot worse.

• Andrew Suffield 30th Nov '10 - 7:39am

  I fear the policy of the new players will be a lot worse.

  I’m not sure that’s even possible. The Americans are one of the worst in history.

• LDV Bob 30th Nov '10 - 11:33am

  Hilary Clinton ordering her diplomats to spy on the U.N. get bank account details and any info possible on people. You knew that was going on did you ? Saudi’s funding Al Qaeda doesn’t worry you ? Or that one of Britain’s hapless bumbling Royals moans about criminal investigations into massive corruption in arms deals to the same Saudi’s ?

  Don’t worry, there is far more to come. This is just the beginning.

• Mark Pack 30th Nov '10 - 6:26pm

  LDV Bob: What’s new or unexpected about any of those stories? Royals making apparently foolish comments? People complaining about the Al Yamamah investigation? Links between some Saudis and extremists? And so on – the details are in some cases, as I said, interesting but the overall picture isn’t a new one, it’s confirming what we already knew.

• RichardSM 30th Nov '10 - 10:17pm

  @Mark Pack

  There’s a very big difference between suspicion and proof.