In the Q&A portion of the press conference unveiling the Pentagon's landmark Don't Ask Don't Tell survery, Secretary Gates and Adm. Mullen took questions on the other big story this week -- the publication of over 200,000 stolen diplomatic cables sent by American officials overseas which has been been blowing up front pages all week. (Actually, less than 300 cables have been published so far, in a strategy that Wikileaks is using to keep the story "fresh" for as long as it can.) While Gates and Mullen and a host of other DoD officials have commented on the leak, Gates' comments yesterday were pretty remarkable.
If you'll allow me to quote at length,it's worth reading the whole thing.
First of all, I would say unlike the Pentagon Papers, one of the things that is important, I think, in all of these releases, whether it’s Afghanistan, Iraq or the releases this week, is the lack of any significant difference between what the U.S. government says publicly and what these things show privately, whereas the Pentagon Papers showed that many in the government were not only lying to the American people, they were lying to themselves.
But let me – let me just offer some perspective as somebody who’s been at this a long time. Every other government in the world knows the United States government leaks like a sieve, and it has for a long time. And I dragged this up the other day when I was looking at some of these prospective releases. And this is a quote from John Adams: “How can a government go on, publishing all of their negotiations with foreign nations, I know not. To me, it appears as dangerous and pernicious as it is novel.”
When we went to real congressional oversight of intelligence in the mid-’70s, there was a broad view that no other foreign intelligence service would ever share information with us again if we were going to share it all with the Congress. Those fears all proved unfounded.
Now, I’ve heard the impact of these releases on our foreign policy described as a meltdown, as a game-changer, and so on. I think – I think those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought. The fact is, governments deal with the United States because it’s in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us, and not because they believe we can keep secrets.
Many governments – some governments deal with us because they fear us, some because they respect us, most because they need us. We are still essentially, as has been said before, the indispensable nation. So other nations will continue to deal with us. They will continue to work with us. We will continue to share sensitive information with one another. Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is it awkward? Yes. Consequences for U.S. foreign policy? I think fairly modest.
Every other government in the world knows the United States government leaks like a sieve, and it has for a long time. And I dragged this up the other day when I was looking at some of these prospective releases.
Posted by: Health Blog | February 08, 2011 at 04:00 AM
Administrations bargain with the United States on account of its in their investment, not since they like us, not since they trust us, and not since they accept we are able to keep insider facts.
Posted by: custom essay | December 06, 2011 at 12:43 PM