WikiLeaks is again publishing a trove of documents, in this case classified U.S. State Department diplomatic cables. The whistle-blower website will gradually be releasing more than 250,000 of these documents in the coming months so that they can be analyzed and gain the attention they deserve. The cables are internal, written communications among U.S. embassies around the world and also to the U.S. State Department. WikiLeaks described the leak as \u201cthe largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain [giving] an unprecedented insight into U.S. government foreign activities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Critics argue, as they did with earlier leaks of secret documents regarding Iraq and Afghanistan, that lives will be lost as a result. Rather, lives might actually be saved, since the way that the U.S. conducts diplomacy is now getting more exposure than ever\u2014as is the apparent ease with which the U.S. government lives up (or down) to the adage used by pioneering journalist I.F. Stone: \u201cGovernments lie.\u201d<\/p>\n
Take the case of Khaled El-Masri. El-Masri was snatched in Macedonia as part of the CIA\u2019s secret extraordinary rendition program, in which people are taken by the U.S. government and sent to other countries, where they can be subjected to torture. He was held and tortured in a secret prison in Afghanistan for months before being dropped by the CIA on an isolated road in Albania, even though the CIA had long established that it had grabbed the wrong man. El-Masri, a German citizen, sought justice through German courts, and it looked like 13 CIA agents might be charged. Then the U.S. Embassy in Berlin stepped in, threatening, according to one cable, that \u201cissuance of international arrest warrants would have a negative impact on our bilateral relationship.\u201d No charges were ever filed in Germany, suggesting the diplomatic threat worked. The 13 agents are, however, still facing charges in Spain, where prosecutors enjoy some freedom from political pressures.<\/p>\n
Or so we thought. In fact, Spain figures prominently in the leaked documents as well. Among the cables is one from May 14, 2007, authored by Eduardo Aguirre, a conservative Cuban-American banker appointed U.S. ambassador to Spain by George W. Bush. Aguirre wrote: \u201cFor our side, it will be important to continue to raise the Couso case, in which three U.S. servicemen face charges related to the 2003 death of Spanish cameraman Jose Couso during the battle for Baghdad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Couso was a young cameraman with the Spanish TV network Telecinco. He was filming from the balcony of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad on April 8, 2003, when a U.S. Army tank fired on the hotel packed with journalists, killing Couso and a Reuters cameraman. Ambassador Aguirre was trying to quash the lawsuit brought by the Couso family in Spain.<\/p>\n
The U.S. ambassador was also pressuring the Spanish government to drop a precedent-setting case against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials. In that same memo, Aguirre writes, \u201cThe Deputy Justice Minister also said the GOS [government of Spain] strongly opposes a case brought against former Secretary Rumsfeld and will work to get it dismissed. The judge involved in that case has told us he has already started the process of dismissing the case.\u201d<\/p>\n
These revelations are rocking the Spanish government, as the cables clearly show U.S. attempts to disrupt the Spanish justice system.<\/p>\n
Ambassador Aguirre told Spain\u2019s El Pais newspaper several years ago, \u201cI am George Bush\u2019s plumber, I will solve all the problems George gives me.\u201d<\/p>\n
In another series of cables, the U.S. State Department instructs its staff around the world and at the U.N. to spy on people, and, remarkably, to collect biometric information on diplomats. The cable reads, \u201cData should include e-mail addresses, telephone and fax numbers, fingerprints, facial images, DNA and iris scans.\u201d<\/p>\n
WikiLeaks is continuing its partnership with a global group of media outlets: Britain\u2019s The Guardian, El Pais, The New York Times, German magazine Der Spiegel and France\u2019s Le Monde. David Leigh, investigations editor of The Guardian, told me, \u201cWe haven\u2019t seen anything yet,\u201d with literally almost a quarter-million cables still not publicly revealed.<\/p>\n
A renowned political analyst and linguist, MIT professor Noam Chomsky helped Daniel Ellsberg, America\u2019s premier whistle-blower, release the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago. I asked Chomsky about the latest cables released by WikiLeaks. \u201cWhat this reveals,\u201d he reflected, \u201cis the profound hatred for democracy on the part of our political leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.<\/em><\/p>\n Amy Goodman is the host of \u201cDemocracy Now!,\u201d a daily international TV\/radio news hour airing on more than 800 stations in North America. She is the author of \u201cBreaking the Sound Barrier,\u201d recently released in paperback and now a New York Times best-seller.<\/em><\/p>\n