No one should be fooled by the U.S. political establishment’s hypocritical denunciations of Wikileaks. The release of 250,000 confidential State Department cables is a daring act that intends to unveil the cynical, self-serving motivations of U.S. foreign policy. In contrast to the force-fed image of the U.S. government engaged in global politics to strengthen human rights, we see they only care about strengthening their own interests.
This of course is no revelation to the millions of people worldwide who have seen first-hand the effects of U.S. colonialism and imperialism. Nor is it a surprise to the millions inside the United States who have protested against the multitude of U.S. wars and interventions in the last 50 years.
The Wikileaks project as a whole has raised the question of what the public deserves to know, and whether decision-makers have the right to talk behind the backs of the people. For the U.S. ruling class, this is an inalienable and self-evident right. Their rule is based on a system where a tiny few rule over the vast majority. On an international scale, they are intent on preserving the position of the United States as the unchallenged superpower against all potential competitors. Both tasks—preserving their rule internally and projecting it externally—require that the U.S. government be in full control of its own image and reputation.
Socialists have long stood on the principle of opposing “secret diplomacy.” The disastrous consequences of such diplomacy were showcased in World War I, when millions of workers and peasants were sent to their death because of the capitalist governments’ sinister deal making. Immediately after the victorious 1917 revolution, the Bolsheviks opened the vaults and published all the secret treaties signed by the Tsar. (One treaty, the Sykes-Picot agreement, was especially significant
because it showed how the European powers intended to carve up the
Middle East.)
The Bolsheviks’ supremely democratic act—not replicated in any other government—undoubtedly pressured Woodrow Wilson in his Fourteen Points to call for “Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind.” Indeed, the U.S. Constitution calls for Congressional ratification of all war declarations and peace treaties precisely to make the government accountable for such major foreign policy decisions.
But they don’t follow their own rules. Wilson himself ordered six military interventions in the Western hemisphere. On at least 125 occasions U.S. Presidents have acted without prior express military authorization from Congress.
These days, the same politicians who are sending U.S. troops to kill and be killed in endless wars of aggression now say that the Wikileaks website “puts American lives at risk.” Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, and Bill Kristol have called for the execution of Julian Assange and Spc. Bradley Manning, who stands accused of the leak. Undoubtedly, the Pentagon and CIA have already taken such ideas into consideration.
Which brings us to the one point that few others have mentioned: the State Department provides only a limited window into what the U.S. government is really thinking and doing. The Pentagon is often the chief decision-maker and has far more power than the State Department. There are a whole host of political and economic considerations that never make it to diplomatic personnel. For that reason, historians long ago realized that State Department
archives are limited sources to reconstruct U.S. foreign policy.
Note the leaked State Department cable on the Honduras coup, which the U.S. Embassy declared an “open and shut” violation of the constitution. Despite this information, the United States continued to give military and unofficial diplomatic support to the coup government. Quite clearly, the State Department cable was overruled or simply ignored.
A revolutionary change in the United States would require opening up many more vaults, and exposing many more imperial secrets. But we applaud those in Wikileaks who have gotten this process started early.
Hands off Julian Assange and free Bradley Manning! Tear down the walls of secrecy!
