Tales from the WikiLeaks Papers

Scott Shane & Andrew Lehren write the New York Times main story: "A cache of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables, most of them from the past three years, provides an unprecedented look at backroom bargaining by embassies around the world, brutally candid views of foreign leaders and frank assessments of nuclear and terrorist threats. Some of the cables, made available to The New York Times and several other news organizations, were written as recently as late February, revealing the Obama administration’s exchanges over crises and conflicts. The material was originally obtained by WikiLeaks.... WikiLeaks intends to make the archive public on its Web site in batches, beginning Sunday. The anticipated disclosure of the cables is already sending shudders through the diplomatic establishment, and could conceivably strain relations with some countries, influencing international affairs in ways that are impossible to predict." The Times' overview page. links to other stories. The Lede is following reactions to the WikiLeaks release. 

David Leigh of The Guardian has a good, brief synopsis. AND here's The Guardian's overview page.

Der Spiegel's overview page (English version) is here.

The WikiLeaks site is here, BUT Times of India, November 28: via Twitter, WikiLeaks claims it is under "denial of service" hack attack.

Zachary Roth of Yahoo News lists the "top ten revelations from the WikiLeaks cables."

Arshad Mohammed & Ross Colvin of Reuters: "The White House condemned the release of the [WikiLeaks] documents, saying their release could endanger the lives of people who live under 'oppressive regimes' and 'deeply impact' the foreign policy interests of the United States and its allies....

... Here's Robert Gibbs' full statement on the leaked documents.

Der Speigel: "In the documents..., US diplomats stationed across the globe report back to the State Department in Washington, communicating sensitive information about international arms deals, evaluating political developments or assessing the corruption level of local leaders. The compendium of reports, most of which cover the period from 2003 until the end of February 2010, sheds light on America's at times arrogant view of the world. Never before have so many political revelations embarrassed the US State Department in one fell swoop."

Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "The treasure trove of secret State Department cables obtained by WikiLeaks ... chronicle the Iranian nuclear standoff from its genesis. The diplomatic memos disclose the extent to which many of the United States's allies in the Arab world repeatedly implored Washington to stop Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons." ...

... Iran Sanctions: Bush 0, Obama 10. David Sanger & James Glanz of the New York Times: "In day-by-day detail..., cables ... tell the disparate diplomatic back stories of two administrations pressed from all sides to confront Tehran. They show how President George W. Bush ... struggled to put together even modest sanctions. They also offer new insights into how President Obama, determined to merge his promise of 'engagement' with his vow to raise the pressure on the Iranians, assembled a coalition that agreed to impose an array of sanctions considerably harsher than any before attempted."

Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times: "The United States has expanded the role of American diplomats in collecting intelligence overseas and at the nited Nations, ordering State Department personnel to gather the credit card and frequent-flier numbers, work schedules and other personal information of foreign dignitaries. Revealed in classified State Department cables, the directives, going back to 2008, appear to blur the traditional boundaries between statesmen and spies."

Robert Booth & Julian Borger of The Guardian: "Washington is running a secret intelligence campaign targeted at the leadership of the United Nations, including the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon and the permanent security council representatives from China, Russia, France and the UK."

Der Spiegel: "The ... documents ... reveal that the US has an extensive network of informants in Berlin and was kept informed of coalition negotiations as Chancellor Merkel was forming her current government. US officials, the cables show, are skeptical of several top German politicians. The ... secret documents from the US State Department show just how critical the American diplomats were of the new German government."

Barak Ravid of Haaretz: "Israel tried to coordinate the Gaza war with the Palestinian Authority.... Both the PA and Egypt refused to take control of the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave."

Der Spiegel: "The leaked diplomatic cables reveal that US diplomats are skeptical about Turkey's dependability as a partner. The leadership in Ankara is depicted as divided and permeated by Islamists.

David Bernstein, in the Volokh Conspiracy, on Saudi & other Arab states' effort to get the U.S. to attack Iran: "It’s quite a blow to conspiracy theorists, is it not, that the combined weight of two of their favor bogeymen, 'the Zionists' and 'the Arabs' haven’t been able to get the U.S. to take military action against Iran."

Spencer Ackerman in Wired: "Perhaps the most worrisome news to come out the diplo doc dump is that North Korea secretly gave Iran 19 powerful missiles with a range of 2,000 miles.... 'If fired from Iran,' the New York Times notes, a missile with that range could 'let its warheads reach targets as far away as Western Europe, including Berlin.' ... No wonder why European leaders are suddenly so keen on missile defense. And no wonder why so many of the leaders of the Arab Middle East are increasingly freaked out by Iran’s growing conventional arsenal — and nuclear program."

Amy Davidson of The New Yorker: "... the Guardian noted that the database the documents lived in had 'a very wide distribution among diplomatic, government and military circles,' and that about three million people are allowed to read 'secret' things. Maybe those were three million eminently respectable people, all carefully vetted.... Or maybe the government, if it expects the word 'secret' to constitute a clear warning about the potential for danger to one’s country, should think hard about what the word means."

Kevin Drum of The Nation: "... so far I just don't see these leaks causing an epic amount of damage. Obviously feelings will be bruised by the blunt language in some of the cables — though if Spiegel's excerpts are typical, the language is only slightly blunter than your run-of-the-mill anonymous carping — and foreign officials might be reluctant for a while to share confidences with American diplomats.... Hillary Clinton will indeed have her hands full for a while. But honestly, there's hardly anything here that I haven't already read on the front pages of multiple newspapers. Titillating, but not much more.

The Commentariat -- November 28

Illustration by David G. Klein for the New York Times.It's All Relative. In a New York Times essay, economics Prof. Robert Frank explains why the rich & near-rich won't suffer if their taxes go up. We know why the rich won't suffer -- they've got way more money than they'll ever spend. But the merely well-to-do won't hurt much either, even if they have to cut back a bit, because "recent psychological research suggests that if all in that group spent less in unison, their perceptions of their standard of living would remain essentially unchanged."

** Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "In a detailed, candid and critical essay to be published this week in The New York Review of Books, [Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, ret.] wrote that personnel changes on the court, coupled with 'regrettable judicial activism,' had created a system of capital punishment that is shot through with racism, skewed toward conviction, infected with politics and tinged with hysteria.... He will be on “60 Minutes” on Sunday night."

Glenn Greenwald on the Portland, Oregon accused terrorist kid Mohamed Osman Mohamud: "... it may ... be the case that the FBI -- as they've done many times in the past -- found some very young, impressionable, disaffected, hapless, aimless, inept loner; created a plot it then persuaded/manipulated/entrapped him to join, essentially turning him into a Terrorist; and then patted itself on the back once it arrested him for having thwarted a 'Terrorist plot' which, from start to finish, was entirely the FBI's own concoction." CW: I've been waiting for someone to make this point, & Greenwald does a fine job. In the accounts I've read, the only thing Mohamud did was try to detonate the dud; federal agents, by their own account, seem to have done everything else.

White House photo.Elizabeth Drew in the New York Review of Books: President "Obama’s biggest failure was not to be the leader that so many expected him to be. The jubilation that surrounded his swearing-in may have gone to his head.... Obama was, apparently in his own estimation, so smart and so adored that he seems to have felt no need to explain — and explain again — to the country what he was doing and to take the country along with him."

"Still the Best Congress Money Can Buy." Frank Rich: "America needs ... a leader or two or three — to restore not just honor or sanity to its citizens but governance that’s not auctioned off to the highest bidder." ...

... Read Karen Garcia's comment on Rich's column -- a tiny masterpiece that, even though it was buried near the bottom of Page 2 (#45), is one of the most recommended comments. Add your recommendation. ...

... Kim Geiger & Matea Gold in the Los Angeles Times: "Anti-incumbent anger and 'tea party' conservatives may have set the tone for this year's midterm elections, but it was mostly experienced political operatives — not fervent newcomers — who managed the money.... An analysis of campaign finance records and data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics found that 15 firms raked in more than $400 million just from the candidates, party committees and outside groups that advertised in federal elections."

Ezra Klein: "... in our efforts to solve our deficit and economic problems, we must be careful not to make our retirement problem worse."

Banksters Beware. Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times: "... one question at the heart of the foreclosure mess refuses to go away: whether institutions trying to take back a property can prove they even have the right to foreclose at all.... The United States Trustee Program, the unit of the Justice Department charged with overseeing the integrity of the nation’s bankruptcy courts..., is stepping up its scrutiny of the veracity of banks’ claims against borrowers." ...

... Brady Dennis of the Washington Post: "Assistant Treasury Secretary Michael Barr told members of the Financial Stability Oversight Council ... that federal investigators looking into problems with mortgage foreclosures throughout the country have found widespread and 'inexcusable' breakdowns in basic controls in the foreclosure process."

If Dick Lugar, having served five terms in the U.S. Senate and being the most respected person in the Senate and the leading authority on foreign policy, is seriously challenged by anybody in the Republican Party, we have gone so far overboard that we are beyond redemption. I’m glad Lugar’s there [in the Senate] and I’m not. -- John Danforth, former Missouri Republican Senator ...

... Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times profiles Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar who is going it alone among his Republican colleagues in supporting the no-brainer New START treaty. ...

... Walter Pincus & Mary Beth Sheridan of the Washington Post: "While trying to satisfy a lawmaker's concerns, the Obama administration is working around Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) in an attempt to gather the nine Republican votes needed to pass the ratification resolution for the strategic arms treaty with Russia this year."

Sandhya Somashekhar of the Washington Post: "Much of America may have moved on, but Joe Miller has not. More than a week after the last vote was counted in Alaska's closely watched U.S. Senate race, the Republican nominee continues to press his case in court in hopes of grabbing back a victory that once seemed inevitable."

Ron Moreau of Newsweek: the Taliban are tuckered out.

Donald McNeil in the New York Times: "Last week, a clinical trial showed that taking Truvada, a pill combining two drugs, once a day would greatly reduce a gay man’s chances of getting infected with [AIDS].... Although confirmatory studies are still needed, the practice — called 'pre-exposure prophylaxis' or 'prep' — will, in theory, also protect ... anyone else at risk.... Truvada has been sold since 2004." McNeil explains why it has taken so long for it to be tested as a "prep."

The (Toronto) Star: "... Former British prime minister Tony Blair and author, skeptic and professional oppositionist Christopher Hitchens debated the question: is religion a force for good in the world? Blair, who wrote in his recent memoir that he has always been more interested in religion than politics, took the view that it is a force for good. Hitchens, who has advanced esophageal cancer and scheduled his chemotherapy around Friday’s debate, not surprisingly, argued otherwise." The Guardian story here. The New Statesman has the full transcript of the debate. Here's a short clip:

     ... To watch the whole debate, go to this Daily Hitchens YouTube page & call up Part 2/9. The debate begins about 4:55 min. into Part 2. (Part 1 is some other guys talking). The following segments do not load automatically, so you'll have to click on them. The debate goes on through Part 9. (Or, for $2.99, you can download the whole thing at the Munk Debates site.)

The Commentariat -- November 27

In a short post, Ken Layne of Wonkette assesses the decline & fall of the American era.

Dahlia Lithwick & Dave Weigel in Slate: when Russ Feingold leaves the Senate in a few weeks, who will stand up for civil liberties?

Kevin Sack & Robert Pear of the New York Times: "As the Obama administration presses ahead with the health care law, officials are bracing for the possibility that a federal judge in Virginia will soon reject its central provision as unconstitutional and, in the worst case for the White House, halt its enforcement until higher courts can rule. The judge, Henry E. Hudson of Federal District Court in Richmond, has promised to rule by the end of the year on the constitutionality of the law’s requirement that most Americans obtain insurance...."

"Soft Dollars." Jenny Strasburg & Michael Rothfeld of the Wall Street Journal: "A sweeping insider-trading investigation is raising questions about how hedge funds and other big investors dole out a common, and controversial, currency that flows freely across Wall Street. The currency is known as soft dollars. Stock brokerages award soft dollars to investors much like an airline doles out frequent-flier miles, giving the most clout to the biggest traders. The clients then use the soft dollars in a variety of ways, but largely spend them on investment research."

A Second Exodus. John Leland of the New York Times: "Since the American invasion [of Iraq] in 2003, refugees have been a measure of the country’s precarious condition, flooding outward during periods of violence and trickling back as Iraq seemed to stabilize." A new exodus "shows how far the nation remains from being stable and secure."

"The 'Vanity Fair' of Al Qaeda." Bob Drogin of the Los Angeles Times: "An offshoot group in Yemen is producing Inspire magazine, an online propaganda periodical with color photos and interviews with celebrity jihadists. Experts say the target audience appears to be disaffected Muslims in the English-speaking world.... " ...

Tobin Harshaw of the New York Times has a nice roundup of opinions on the farcial Afghan Peace Talks with a Stranger. CW: can we leave now?

Peter Finn of the Washington Post: "On St. Patrick's Day 2009, the government stripped the Irish-born [John] Dullahan's security clearance and fired him from his job at the Defense Intelligence Agency in a manner that has no precedent at the Pentagon - invoking a national security clause that states that it would harm the interests of the United States to inform him of the accusations against him. As a result, Dullahan, a Vietnam veteran who served at military posts around the world and as a U.N. weapons inspector in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, cannot appeal to a board of senior agency officials, as others in his position might. He is, in effect, stranded."

With not much going on in poli-stats, Nate Silver takes a break to cover a really important electoral scandal: "the controversy over the performance of Bristol Palin and her partner, Mark Ballas — who survived until the final week of ["Dancing with the Stars"] in spite of frequently receiving among the lowest marks from the judges — has been too much about Tea Party politics and not enough about the show’s flawed scoring system, a system which Silver explains gives the audience much more say than the judges.

Stupid, or Sly as a Fox? Tim Molloy of The Wrap: Fox Nation, a subsidiary of "... Fox News, post[ed] a fake Onion story about President Obama alongside its real news stories. The satirical story, with the headline "The Onion: Frustrated Obama Sends Nation Rambling 75,000-Word E-Mail," appeared in the Nation section of the site Friday.... The original Obama headline didn't mention The Onion, and the only clue for readers was a link to the satirical site after the first two paragraphs of the story.... The fake news of the president's novel-length missive remained on the site for several hours, even after Mediaite pointed it out -- and after Fox News updated its site with breaking news that the president needed 12 stitches for a basketball injury."