“I am really surprised there isn’t more outrage from Americans over the  Wikileaks releases,” said Joah. He meant the Apache helicopter video in particular. The soldiers in the video technically did follow the rules of engagement, but that’s just the point: war is by definition a suspension of the rules. War brings destruction, no matter how man tries to civilize it. “I believe,” said Trevor, “that video should be required viewing for every war supporter in the country.”

Iain piped in. “Diplomacy has required secrecy for thousands of years. It wasn’t just invented by Hillary Clinton. It goes back to the creation of the nation-state and even earlier. It is practically human nature. It is part of human culture. The really surprising thing was that more countries weren’t pissed off at the United States for allowing this info to leak.”

Is WL anti-statist? Are they anti-American?

“WL is for ‘us’,” said Russ. “It isn’t going to change anything in America.” In other words, these leaked documents are for the intellectual elite to mull over in their comfortable, wine-soaked evening discussions. Most Americans either don’t care or aren’t really aware of them.

“It is completely presumptuous and very arrogant for [Julian Assange] to think he knows better than career diplomats and foreign service personnel what ought and ought not to be classified,” said Pete. When questioned whether this wasn’t placing too much trust in the government, Pete emphasized the distinction between non-elected State Dept employees making careers in diplomacy, and unctuous politicians trying to get elected, blissfully unaware of the real workings of statecraft. “I would never trust an elected politician to make the right decision on any of this stuff,” he clarified. But things that can be revealed by these leaks, including the manner and method of US diplomacy, and the structure of the State Dept, are valuable and should be protected.

What about injured American pride? Isn’t there a sense of violation here, that our dirty American laundry has been hung out for the world to see? I think that is certainly part of the reason for the backlash against Wikileaks.

There must always be a balance between security and transparency. Between centralized power and democracy. Between honesty and lies. My own personal feeling is that, for too long, the balance has been skewed toward too much secrecy, and that a dose of exposure is necessary to right the balance. The media has been pathetic for at least a decade – and likely much longer – at acting as a check on government abuse of power. Wikileaks is upstaging them, and in the process showing them what is possible in investigative journalism based on primary source documents.

Jeremy said that we are entering a new era of transparency. Or perhaps a new era of journalism? Greg Mitchell, a writer at The Nation, has been live-blogging everything Wikileaks for nine weeks. He has also just put out a book, The Age of Wikileaks, which sounds like it’s about exactly this point.

Before the evening’s discussion split into its separate paths, Iain raised a question which I intend to explore in future posts: Can we stack the actions of Wikileaks, and the results of its releases, against the goals and ideals of the organization, and what will that show? It’s still early days, but I myself am looking forward to seeing how that question is answered.

Tuesday, February 1st, 8:30pm
DOC Wine Bar, 83 N. 7th St. in Williamsburg. (Cash bar only)

Click to view this on Google Maps

As they point out on their site, drone attacks of Pakistan have increased dramatically under Obama. From 2004-2007 there were a total of nine attacks inside Pakistan. In Bush’s last year in office, there were 34. In Obama’s first year, there were 53, and this year we’ve already had 50. And this says nothing about the attacks inside Afghanistan, where at least we’re officially at war. In Pakistan, we’re bombing a supposed ally whose government denies it is allowing this.

I encourage you to check out the map on the Satellite mode, which shows real imagery of the earth. It has a surprisingly close level of detail, and you can see just how isolated the area is: a spindly maze of ridges and crevices, sparsely dotted with small villages. It must be similar to the view the remote-control pilots have on their video screens while they fly these deadly robots. And with the push of a button… boom…

This map was assembled using public information, but this week’s big story (or not – have you heard it mentioned in conversation once this week?) showed another example of information technology exposing the reality of war. Wikileaks published a trove of classified documents which it acquired through its super-encrypted international network. The infrastructure is set up in such a way as to be impervious to simultaneous shutdown in multiple countries, and takes full advantage of the world’s strongest free-speech laws, which are often found in northern Europe. Check out the New Yorker’s profile of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to read more about his background and the network itself, or watch his interview with the TED folks here, where he sort of comes off as the web geek version of 007:

What is to become of the standoff between America and Iran? According to Friedman, sanctions cannot be effective against Iran, as the only meaningful one would be on gasoline (Iran imports 35% of its gasoline – I’d love to know why they need to do this when they have so much oil – can they not refine it?), and China and Russia will not play along with that particular sanction. Military strikes carry too much risk: they require good intelligence and massive bombardment with undoubtedly high casualties, with no guarantee that nuclear facilities will be destroyed. Plus, should such attacks occur, Iran is certain to launch counterattacks on Israel via Hezbollah, and on American forces in Iraq via its proxies there. Worst of all, Iran has the power to drive global oil prices through the roof by mining the Strait of Hormuz and launching missiles at any ships in that vital passage. For all of these reasons, STRATFOR does not find US or Israeli military strikes on Iran likely.

With diplomatic and military options ruled out, can America prevent Iran from developing nukes? Friedman argues that this is not as important as checking Iranian power in the region. We need Iran’s help, much as we needed the help of some other unsavory characters in the past:

Roosevelt and Nixon both faced impossible strategic situations unless they were prepared to redefine the strategic equation dramatically and accept the need for alliance with countries that had previously been regarded as strategic and moral threats. American history is filled with opportunistic alliances designed to solve impossible strategic dilemmas. The Stalin and Mao cases represent stunning alliances with prior enemies designed to block a third power seen as more dangerous.

It is said that Ahmadinejad is crazy. It was also said that Mao and Stalin were crazy, in both cases with much justification. Ahmadinejad has said many strange things and issued numerous threats. But when Roosevelt ignored what Stalin said and Nixon ignored what Mao said, they each discovered that Stalin’s and Mao’s actions were far more rational and predictable than their rhetoric. Similarly, what the Iranians say and what they do are quite different.

Could the Roosevelt-Stalin and Nixon-Mao alliances provide a model for an Obama-Ahmadinejad/Khomeini Khamenei [oops, confused my mullahs there] rapprochement? Friedman’s whole article is worth a read.

Thinking a lot this weekend about Afghanistan. I just finished Dexter Filkin’s excellent book, “The Forever War“, and read the piece Filkin’s also had in this weekend’s NY Times Magazine on General Stanley McChrystal, who is in charge of the war in Afghanistan. He is requesting at least another 40,000 troops to win the war in Afghanistan. I have a hard time thinking about any compromise with the Taliban that puts them in charge and abandons the Afghan people to their brutal, primitive rule. But the US has been there for over 8 years now, and I doubt that we can (or should) build a modern state there, in particular with the corrupt Karzai government stealing elections and trafficking in narcotics. Obama has a tough call on his hands, but I think I’m against sending a large number of troops. I think the fight is in Pakistan and dealing with that country’s disfunction. I still feel that way, but reading Part I in journalist David Rhode’s kidnapping saga, I was struck by this section:

Over those months, I came to a simple realization. After seven years of reporting in the region, I did not fully understand how extreme many of the Taliban had become. Before the kidnapping, I viewed the organization as a form of “Al Qaeda lite,” a religiously motivated movement primarily focused on controlling Afghanistan.

Living side by side with the Haqqanis’ followers, I learned that the goal of the hard-line Taliban was far more ambitious. Contact with foreign militants in the tribal areas appeared to have deeply affected many young Taliban fighters. They wanted to create a fundamentalist Islamic emirate with Al Qaeda that spanned the Muslim world.

I’m not so sure we can strike a balance in trying to limit an extremist sanctuary and not have a huge number of troops there. Either way we are confronted by a series of bad decisions, it’s just a question of which one is worse.