Okay, So Wiki Leaked
Deborah Venable
12/04/10
What
a mess, huh? Wiki Leaked again and the
media has fodder for hours and hours of research, analysis, condemnation,
rationalization, and a general stirring of the public pot of disgust. I don’t know about you, but I would think
that any of the authors of those leaked documents would have to know that
public knowledge of them was a possibility.
I mean, really? Secrets? In this day and age?
Can
anybody really identify ANY secrets that were actually leaked? Most of the stuff I’ve seen should be common
knowledge to anyone paying attention.
As for the Obama administration showing incompetence in the handling of
the leaker – well, duh. But then, there
is also the theory that it wasn’t incompetence at all, but rather
intentional. For an administration that
has already shown such disdain for the American people and the founding
principles – that’s not a very far stretch.
So far, the highest ranking official that comes out with the most egg on
the face is Hillary Clinton. After all,
it is HER State Department that is glowing red in the light of truth, is it
not? Is that really going to damage
this president? The country, maybe –
but this president????
In
November, right after the 911 attacks in 2001, I wrote an article that was
published in many places at the time.
You have to look now to find it on the web from so long ago, but it is
still there in obscurity. It was titled
as either “(S)Top Secrets” or “Show Me the Secrets.” As with most of the columns I have written over the years, this
one could just as easily have been written yesterday or today. Here is that article in its original form:
Human interaction is a mystical series of actions and reactions
that carry all the drama of a nuclear chain reaction with much more potential
destruction built in. Power has
fascinated mankind for the duration of our existence on earth. Respected, deplored, envied, criticized,
worshipped and despised, power has been allowed to enslave civilizations the
world over through a universal acceptance of the necessity of secrecy. One individual’s power over another might
ultimately depend on a single secret the powerful may hold over the relenting
soul who wishes to keep that secret from being found out. Multiplied by infinitum, secrets can easily
bring down the best of civilizations.
Here’s the crux of my point: In
a self-governing society, why do the governed ever relinquish their right to
the simple truth? Why did we ever think
that a government such as ours could survive while we sanction the keeping of
secrets by the various departments of our ruling class?
If this is something you’ve never really thought about –
good. Think about it now. Conspiracy would be quite impossible in a
world without secrets. Evil intent does
not deserve the cloak of secrecy. Once
the tree of knowledge was invaded, mankind began to bury a good portion of the
fruit it harvested, and a dark forest sprang up around the original tree, which
was lost in the foliage of evil intent.
Where is the power and who has it? Power is knowledge and only those who can work through the
labyrinth of falsehood can acquire the knowledge of truth. They wield the power over the ignorant
masses that struggle through the jungle of conspiracy theories and yield to the
vines of security promised through secrecy.
The “for your own good” theory has convinced our society of otherwise
free spirits that secrets keep them safe.
In reality, however, those secrets are our shackles. They always have been.
Secrecy and privacy are two entirely different things. This is best illustrated by the contention
of those who would impose a national identification system on American
citizens, saying that if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to
fear. All the while, they do their
investigative work on the American public, innocent and guilty alike, through
elaborate organizations predicated on the very principles of secrecy. The fact that we might not wish to lay our
private, not necessarily secret, lives out for public scrutiny makes us somehow
enemies of those who would barter their freedoms for a false “feeling” of
safety. Laws must be constantly changed
to allow for more and more encroachments on privacy freedoms, yet secrecy
abounds within government officialdom unhampered and unquestioned. The tree of knowledge has been all but
choked out of existence through a visceral assault on privacy and an
unrelenting insistence on secrecy for government and religious entities alike.
“Show me the money,” is a quote that is uttered in answer to
demands of a guarantee that goods will be delivered. “Show me the secrets” should become the battle cry for the
warriors of truth who are sick and tired of evil left unchecked. To a press that will “leave no stone
unturned” to dig up the dirt on individuals who may have morally questionable
private lives, but willingly turn a blind eye to the secret knowledge troves of
questionable entities, I would simply say, “Show me the secrets.” To a powerful government that uses the resources
of a trusting society to weave its ever-increasing web of deceit and
simultaneously deny access to, while poisoning, the tree of knowledge, I would
demand, “Show me the secrets.” To any
organization, private or public, that wraps its intent in veils of secrecy, I
would insist that you exist only after you “show me your secrets.” With the bondage of intelligence in a free
society thus destroyed, I will show you an America and a world where evil
cannot rule over the power of truth.
That
article was originally published on November 19, 2001
I
have heard that the damage to American diplomacy by the recent “leaks” is
intolerable, thus everyone with a brain is calling for the head of the leaker
on a pole. The previous leaks dealing
with military operations is deplorable and should have given more pause than it
did to the government, but we sure “moved on” from that one, didn’t we? We will never know how many lives that one
may have cost, but suffice it say that the leaker could have “blood on his hands”
as has been reiterated now.
I’m
not a silly stooge who believes that military maneuvers should be posted on
major media outlets so we can all know what our military (or even our
intelligence agencies) are doing all the time, but I do think that an intelligent
media is necessary to keep the faith of the American people where it
belongs. For those of you in
bewilderment about where exactly that is, that would be “in the best interests
of the American people” for God’s sake.
Can I say it any plainer than that?
Be
careful what you wish for if you are wishing for the government to go after the
WikiLeaker above all else. Stop the
leaks at any cost. Number one – it can
never be done. As long as there are
secrets, there will be leaks of those secrets.
Number two – the cost will be too high.
Any reputable press or media outlet that tries to do the job it is
supposed to do – you know, real investigative journalism – will have to think
twice and back off possible “damaging” exposé pieces.
Foreign
governments that are poised, waiting for the other shoe to drop with the next
leak, have only one consuming thought to their agendas – how to further
diminish the effectiveness of the United States on the world’s diplomatic
stage. Already the whining about how such
a superpower could expose so much in “classified” information is grating on an
intelligent, freedom lover’s nerves.
Let’s get real, shall we? The
only real damage that has been done with the latest leaks is that to all the
two-faced secret keepers that would portray one image of various elites in the
world while holding quite another.
Classified
diplomatic back-biting is just not something I can get too upset about. While the military private who collected all
the “secrets” deserves whatever fruits come his way in the form of punishment,
and the Wiki Leaker comes across as a much less than admirable specimen of
human character, I am more amazed by the attitude of everyday people and
pundits from all political persuasions concentrating more on the dissemination
of the back-biting than that of previous military maneuvers. Self-risked embarrassment never holds a
candle to jeopardizing innocent human life in my estimation.
As
an afterthought here, I wonder if WikiLeaks can outdo what we already know
about the financial atrocity of our Fed bailing out Europe et al without even
telling us? Here’s a question; do you
know where your tax dollars are tonight?