Quote
alyb45
Let me ask you this Christa
Do you think US undercover allies in the middle east will want to help the US after these leaks became public?
Do you think some might fear that future leaks could jeopardize their safety and identities?
I do.
I did check out your links.
Opinion remains unchanged.
Unsurprisingly, alyb45, you missed my point, which is that the US government does not particularly care about the safety of foreign nationals whose secret assistance to our government becomes public. To object to the Wikileaks disclosures on those grounds is, in the government's case, disingenuous; in your case, doctrinaire.
Since Wikilieaks is on-topic for this forum but the wisdom or unwisdom of choosing to collaborate with a foreign government is not, I will point out just two facts.
One: collaboration is fraught with risk, including the risk of discovery, and undercover allies did not need to follow last week's news coverage to learn that. They already know it; no one so naive as to not know it would possess any skills or knowledge of use to a foreign government.
Two: regardless of the risks inherent in collaboration, in the case of WikiLeaks, blame for the release of names lies almost entirely with the high-ranking U.S. officials who ignored Assange's request to tell him which names to conceal from print. Not only because, as I've already asserted, they don't care, but because the argument that WikiLeaks endangered foreign assets always gulls the naive into thinking that the whistle-blower is a bigger threat to public order and human rights than the government.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/19/2010 12:18PM by Christa.