Wikileaks

WikiLeaks is an international non-profit organization that publishes private, secret, and classified media from unknown news sources and news leaks from around the world. The website of WikiLeaks, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press Organization, claimed a database of more than 1.2 million documents within a year of its launch. ‘The primary purpose of WikiLeaks is to expose oppressive regimes in Asia but we also expect to be of great help to people of all regions all over the world, who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations’, says the founder of WikiLeaks.

One of the great ironies of WikiLeaks is that the industrial quantities of robbed State department documents actually show American diplomats doing their jobs the way diplomats should, and doing them very well indeed. WikiLeaks points out corruption at the top in Afghan government, the Saudi king’s desire to get rid of Iranian threat, the personality quirks of European leaders or the State of Russian gang. There is no big disconnect about the facts, no evidence – in the recent revelations at least – that the U.S government is trying to deceive the public or itself. When it comes to taking action, far from confirming the increasing common place image of a waning superpower and a feckless State department, WikiLeaks has shown that the American diplomats draw on full range of tools at their disposal, the soft power of persuasion, and the hard power of economic and even covert military action, especially in the fight against Al-Qaeda.

The founder of WikiLeaks, Julia Assange, argues that given the way some American administrations used secrecy to lead the public astray with tragic consequences in Vietnam, Nicaragua and Iraq, WikiLeaks documents revealed so far show the diplomats using their reporting skills to try to illuminate the complexities of the countries where they serve and their negotiating skills to reduce the threat of war, whether with North Korea or Middle East.

The Iranian case offers the most detailed and multifaceted picture of American diplomacy revealed by the WikiLeaks so far. China, Russia, Turkey, Arab allies and European partners are all part of the picture too. Despite the barrage of headlines shouting over how sour their relationship has become, WikiLeaks revealed the news on Washington (U.S) and Moscow (Russia) working on intimate terms to blunt Iran.

In the wake of revelations by WikiLeaks, we can even expect to see – or rather not to see – even more diplomatic traffic hidden away at higher classification levels. WikiLeaks further revealed that ever since the September 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S, the U.S government has been fighting to break down the bureaucratic walls among agencies. Until then, they kept the information in figurative “silos” or “stovepipes” and often refused to share.  As a result, massive blind spots were created that helped to pave the way for Al-Qaeda to attack.

Although the information WikiLeaks provides, is lucrative for some nations but it can also give rise to hatred among few nations. For example, it can give rise to hatred/enmity between KSA and Iran). Creating hatred and enmity in the name of exposing oppressive regimes seems to be an unethical act, and unethical acts can never provide solutions for problems.