[Newsbot]

Filibuster Cartoons
Title: Wiki-shockers (click to view)
Date: December 1, 2010
With great fanfare, the Wikileaks people unveiled a whole slew of new classified US memos this week, causing many senior officials at the state department to pre-emptively warn against the diplomatic fallout that would result from their release. Publicly circulating this archive of unflattering language and blunt assessments, they said, risked damaging America's relationship with key allies, and would expose to the world sophisticated and disturbing analytical profiles on the nation's enemies.

Now that the documents are out, however, it's a bit disappointing to see how dull and conventional much of the American analysis of foreign nations and their leaders actually is. Very little that the Wikileaks memos say has never been heard before — indeed, much of it has been said countless times, in much harsher terms, all over the place.

Among the revelations the press has politely treated as "shocking," for instance, we are told that Vladimir Putin is still very much in charge of Russia, and bosses around President Medvedev, that David Cameron is an inexperienced and naive politician, and that Canada suffers from an "inferiority complex" towards the United States.

Even the stuff on the world's so-called "rogue states" doesn't seem that scandalous, and merely reconfirms what is already mainstream conventional wisdom. Pakistan is covertly aiding the Taliban in Afghanistan. Iran's nuclear ambitions frighten most of the Middle East. China is relatively indifferent to the fate of North Korea.

The National Post has a good little summary of some of the other international profiles (scroll down).

Wikileaks supporters have been eager to play up their leaked memos as evidence that the US will never again be able to keep secrets from the public in the age of the Internet. If this is the caliber of secret their government is hiding, however, then America's ability to keep things on the DL is clearly a much bigger problem than any one particular website.

[Trenacker]

Although I don't believe that you were making this argument yourself, JJ, the problem with arguing that WikiLeaks' activity was relatively harmless, or that the cables in question largely represented inannities that didn't deserve classification, is that it establishes a precedent whereby it is somehow acceptable for Assange or others to personally judge the merits of classifications, and then flout those that they deem unnecessary. We cannot all be judge, or nobody is judge.

The truth is, some of the leaks are likely to cause embarrassment. Bob Gates' (compelling) argument was that the Wikileaks are not a catastrophe for American foreign policy; he didn't say that they caused no problems. The leaks obviously cause problems for many of our allies in the Middle East: after all, if those rulers had judged that they could speak openly in the first place, there wouldn't have been anything to leak. They may also have compromised U.S. intelligence-gathering at the U.N. And we only at the tip of what is reportedly an iceberg's worth of classified information. Is it plausible that the Wikileaks staff and editors at the New York Times could have taken all necessary precautions to ensure that there will not be blowback?

Peter King (R-NY) is correct: Assange should be treated as an enemy combatant. At the very least, he provided material support to the enemies of the United States. He should have been subject to a more aggressive manhunt back when he first began leaking classified documents.

The sad irony here is that most of those who support Assange do so with the hope that he will harm the United. The same crowd that had aneurisms when Rush Limbaugh hoped that Obama would "fail" are calling Assange a hero for taking far more meaningful action to damage American interests overseas. Some are guilty Americans who believe that foreign policy setbacks don't really matter, and don't believe that national interest should trump international well-being. You've got folks comparing the United States unfavorably to Russia and China, who are supposedly placid powers who do little to "upset" the global system. Others are simply jealous of American power. None has stopped to consider that we now have evidence that most world leaders believe we have been wise when it comes to Iran, and reasonable when it comes to dealing with the unfortunate legacy of Guantanamo.

[Crosshair]

Trenacker wrote:

Peter King (R-NY) is correct: Assange should be treated as an enemy combatant. At the very least, he provided material support to the enemies of the United States. He should have been subject to a more aggressive manhunt back when he first began leaking classified documents.

I couldn't disagree more. We need more people like Assange shining the light on these cockroaches. All the enemies of the US today are of our own creation. We created the Iran of today. We created Bin Laden. The imperialists have done nothing but stir up one hornets nest after another under the name of making the world a safer place. Iran and Bin Laden are not our enemies, it is the imperialists in the US government who perpetuate war around the world and live with the delusion that somehow, as the "world police" we are improving the world who are our enemies. It is those in our government who perpetuate the welfare state, the warfare state, and the idea that they know what is best for us who are our enemies. We should have the dignity and self respect to spit in their faces.

People are tired of seeing our citizens to go off and die in vain in foreign wars of folly. If only we had someone like Assange back in 2001-2003, imagine how many lives and how many fortunes might not have been squandered. (Heck, imagine if Wikileaks were possible back around WWI. I very much doubt the public would have let it go on for 4 years had they been able to see the war as it was.) If you want to go die in the desert for nothing, go ahead, but don't be surprised when the rest of us don't want to jump in the meat grinder with you. People can complain about the isolationism of the 30's not working, but the interventionism of the last half century has certianly not been an improvement. More like a step backwards.

So long as the Patriot act remains law, so long as the warrant-less wiretapping goes on, so long as Guantanamo remains open, so long as the defects accumulate I say let every single secret they have be cast into the light for all to see. They don't respect us then I will show no respect to them. The time to play nice is over. I do love my country, but my government deserves no respect whatsoever. All they do is talk about the ideals our country was founded on, but their actions do everything to undermine it.

[Trenacker]

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We need more people like Assange shining the light on these cockroaches.

Diplomats wiring home frank assessments of other countries' leaders are now "cockroaches?" Assange and the group behind Wikileaks aren't carefully extracting only those pieces of classified information that they believe were wrongly classified, or else depict obvious criminal wrongdoing: they are publicizing the "dirty laundry" of the United States, either because they oppose secrets in principle, or because they suspect the United States of being the greatest threat to their values, and wish to hinder it in any manner that they can. Those who support them are (A) suspicious of government generally, and inclined to excuse the publication of secrets on grounds that such information, while not always convenient, helps citizens make informed decisions about their policymakers; (B) suspicious of the United States government in particular, usually morally outraged, and often receptive to anything that does it harm on grounds that any harm to the United States is, by definition, a victory for whatever interests they hold.

All governments spy on eachother, including allies. What public interest does it serve to expose fifty informants in Afghanistan who provide information about the Taliban? What public interest is served by exposing the private correspondence of Arab leaders to their American counterparts? What public interest is served by revealing the private character assessments of world leaders made by American diplomats?

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We created the Iran of today. We created Bin Laden. The imperialists have done nothing but stir up one hornets nest after another under the name of making the world a safer place.

From 1953 to 1978, Iran was a premier American ally in the Middle East, and arguably the most progressive society in that region with the obvious exception of Israel, excluding the Occupied Territories, and the possible exception of Lebanon. There is no direct, necessary linkage between Mossadegh's overthrow and the subsequent collapse of the Shah's regime. Indeed, a strong argument can be made that, had Carter given the Shah specific instructions to suppress the protestors militarily, the regime would have survived the immediate crisis that ultimately led to its destruction. Today, Iran is socially and economically no better off than it was under the Shah.

Any nation with world power status is going perforce to pursue a policy susceptible to accusation. Consider Russian behavior in the Near Abroad, or Chinese behavior in the Indian Ocean basin. The United States is not unique in behavior, only in size and impact. Indeed, much of what we try to do is flawed in execution rather than intent -- that isn't actually true of certain others. Damaging our interests relative to those of the rest of the world is a mistake for proponents of liberal democracy.

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People are tired of seeing our citizens to go off and die in vain in foreign wars of folly. If only we had someone like Assange back in 2001-2003, imagine how many lives and how many fortunes might not have been squandered.

We know now that it probably would have mattered very little. If anything, however, leaks would have revealed that foreign intelligence agencies were advising the United States that Saddam Hussein probably did have weapons of mass destruction. This was certainly the position of the French, German, British, and Egyptian intelligence agencies. Gerhard Schroeder and Jacques Chirac opposed American intervention in Iraq because they saw no benefit to their own nations in the act, just as France, Russia, and China saw no benefit to containment: their interests were threatened by the policy of Containment, which reduced opportunities for trade. Saddam appeared unable to properly gauge American intentions in both 1991 and 2003, and acted on the belief that he could defeat American forces in the first instance, and that the international community would shield him from an invasion in the second. Various commissions have concluded that the CIA did not fabricate intelligence during the run-up to the war. Instead, what appears to have happened is that the CIA concluded that policymakers would not take no for an answer, while the whole of government was still in shock over the intelligence failures of 9/11. The Bush administration correctly digested the lesson of 9/11 -- that a great deal of hurt could be accomplished with relatively minimal investment. Unfortunately, they did not ask whether that meant we should invest heavily in trying to preempt that hurt, instead of becoming more resilient. Many failures were made in planning for the occupation, but there was no intelligence to leak regarding "the truth" about Iraqi WMD stockpiles. We simply didn't know for sure.

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I do love my country, but my government deserves no respect whatsoever. All they do is talk about the ideals our country was founded on, but their actions do everything to undermine it.

But other countries wish to hurt your country, no matter how flawed it may or may not be.

If my son is a bully, the best remedy is not to expose him to other bullies on the assumption that getting roughed up a bit will be a character-building exercise.

[Proculation]

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Diplomats wiring home frank assessments of other countries' leaders are now "cockroaches?" Assange and the group behind Wikileaks aren't carefully extracting only those pieces of classified information that they believe were wrongly classified, or else depict obvious criminal wrongdoing: they are publicizing the "dirty laundry" of the United States, either because they oppose secrets in principle, or because they suspect the United States of being the greatest threat to their values, and wish to hinder it in any manner that they can. Those who support them are (A) suspicious of government generally, and inclined to excuse the publication of secrets on grounds that such information, while not always convenient, helps citizens make informed decisions about their policymakers; (B) suspicious of the United States government in particular, usually morally outraged, and often receptive to anything that does it harm on grounds that any harm to the United States is, by definition, a victory for whatever interests they hold.

All governments spy on eachother, including allies. What public interest does it serve to expose fifty informants in Afghanistan who provide information about the Taliban? What public interest is served by exposing the private correspondence of Arab leaders to their American counterparts? What public interest is served by revealing the private character assessments of world leaders made by American diplomats?

Exactly my point of view, better said

[Crosshair]

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Diplomats wiring home frank assessments of other countries' leaders are now "cockroaches?"

Nice Red Herring. Where was I referring to the diplomats? I was referring to the "leaders" in Washington. Diplomatic letters are not the only thing being released.

Assange and the group behind Wikileaks aren't carefully extracting only those pieces of classified information that they believe were wrongly classified, or else depict obvious criminal wrongdoing:

Correct. They are opting for perfect transparency. It is not up to them to decided what should remain secret. They scrub the documents for obvious names and then publish everything as bandwidth allows.

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they are publicizing the "dirty laundry" of the United States, either because they oppose secrets in principle, or because they suspect the United States of being the greatest threat to their values, and wish to hinder it in any manner that they can.

And for those efforts I applaud them. Anything that harms the governments attempts at empire and policing the world is a step in the right direction. It is the job of the federal government to provide for national defence, not national offense.

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Those who support them are (A) suspicious of government generally, and inclined to excuse the publication of secrets on grounds that such information, while not always convenient, helps citizens make informed decisions about their policymakers; (B) suspicious of the United States government in particular, usually morally outraged, and often receptive to anything that does it harm on grounds that any harm to the United States is, by definition, a victory for whatever interests they hold.

Nice false dichotomy there. Lets see how many logical fallacies you can rack up.

Anyone who is not suspicious of government is either naive or a fool. Governments are made up of people. Unless checked they will eventually pursue their own self interest if they are allowed to.

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All governments spy on eachother, including allies.

Correct.

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What public interest does it serve to expose fifty informants in Afghanistan who provide information about the Taliban?

The US government was given a chance to go through the documents and help WikiLeaks redact information like that, the US government refused. Any blood that results is on the hands of the US government. Had they really cared about their informants they would have at least made an effort to point out to Wikileaks that those names should be removed.

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What public interest is served by exposing the private correspondence of Arab leaders to their American counterparts?

So the people know that the arabs are trying to get the US to do their dirty work on our dime.

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What public interest is served by revealing the private character assessments of world leaders made by American diplomats?

You seriously can't figure that out on your own? It's quite nice to know if what you see of a leader is close to who they really are of if it is just a carefully crafted facade. Again,I'd have more sympathy for the government if they didn't have the Patriot act and such. They made their bed, not they are having to lie in it.

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From 1953 to 1978, Iran was a premier American ally in the Middle East, and arguably the most progressive society in that region with the obvious exception of Israel, excluding the Occupied Territories, and the possible exception of Lebanon.

Bwaaaa? What history book are you reading The US and UK governments overthrew an elected government in Iran and replaced it with a dictator who engaged in torture, murder, and suppression of free speech. (Not to be confused with other dictators we installed in Iraq and Panama.) The Shah was a puppet so of course he was friendly to the US, that's why the US and UK put him there.

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There is no direct, necessary linkage between Mossadegh's overthrow and the subsequent collapse of the Shah's regime.

OK let me go though this again.. The US and UK overthrow Iran's government and install the Shah. The Shah is not very popular and does everything he can to stifle dissent. The people of Iran are not very enthusiastic about this. This boils over in the 1979 revolution where the Ayatollahs take power.

Without the Shah, the Ayatollahs would not have built the support they did. Without the US and UK overthrowing the elected government there would have been no Shah. Do you see the connection now? The CIA refers to this sort of stuff as "Blowback".

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Indeed, a strong argument can be made that, had Carter given the Shah specific instructions to suppress the protestors militarily, the regime would have survived the immediate crisis that ultimately led to its destruction. Today, Iran is socially and economically no better off than it was under the Shah.

Yea, stifling decent with military force. That has just worked so incredibly well in the past. I'd love to hear your thoughts on Tienanmen square and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Good thing the military put those protesters in their place.

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. -John F. Kennedy, 1962

What about if the US and UK had not overthrown the elected government in 1953? An even stronger argument can be made that Iran would be far better off today. No Mosaddegh wasn't perfect, but in hindsight he was a heck of a lot better than what came after him.

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Any nation with world power status is going perforce to pursue a policy susceptible to accusation.

Exactly, and this is something that should be exposed and resisted. Government perusing empire seldom benefits the common person, either at home or abroad.

Consider Russian behavior in the Near Abroad, or Chinese behavior in the Indian Ocean basin. The United States is not unique in behavior, only in size and impact. Indeed, much of what we try to do is flawed in execution rather than intent -- that isn't actually true of certain others.

No, it actually is flawed in both execution and intent. You can't make the world a better place at the barrel of a gun. We used to lead by example. Now we lead at gunpoint.

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Damaging our interests relative to those of the rest of the world is a mistake for proponents of liberal democracy.

You again judge our leaders by their words and not by their actions. How have our action around the world spread liberal democracy when all we have done is installed and propped up dictators? Perhaps if the government got its hand bit a little more often it would learn to mind it''s own business and leave people alone. You can't implement liberal democracy at gunpoint as is becoming quite clear in our endeavors in the Middle East. What you can do is be an example for others to emulate and if those countries want to be backwards and primitive let them. Let those who want to emulate us leave and come here and integrate into our society as was the case in the late 19th and early 20th century.

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People are tired of seeing our citizens to go off and die in vain in foreign wars of folly. If only we had someone like Assange back in 2001-2003, imagine how many lives and how many fortunes might not have been squandered.

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We know now that it probably would have mattered very little. If anything, however, leaks would have revealed that foreign intelligence agencies were advising the United States that Saddam Hussein probably did have weapons of mass destruction. This was certainly the position of the French, German, British, and Egyptian intelligence agencies. Gerhard Schroeder and Jacques Chirac opposed American intervention in Iraq because they saw no benefit to their own nations in the act, just as France, Russia, and China saw no benefit to containment: their interests were threatened by the policy of Containment, which reduced opportunities for trade. Saddam appeared unable to properly gauge American intentions in both 1991 and 2003, and acted on the belief that he could defeat American forces in the first instance, and that the international community would shield him from an invasion in the second. Various commissions have concluded that the CIA did not fabricate intelligence during the run-up to the war. Instead, what appears to have happened is that the CIA concluded that policymakers would not take no for an answer, while the whole of government was still in shock over the intelligence failures of 9/11. The Bush administration correctly digested the lesson of 9/11 -- that a great deal of hurt could be accomplished with relatively minimal investment. Unfortunately, they did not ask whether that meant we should invest heavily in trying to preempt that hurt, instead of becoming more resilient. Many failures were made in planning for the occupation, but there was no intelligence to leak regarding "the truth" about Iraqi WMD stockpiles. We simply didn't know for sure.

I was thinking more along the lines of Oil-For-Food scandal and UN corruption and other shenanigans going on. I perhaps should have used a better example.

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But other countries wish to hurt your country, no matter how flawed it may or may not be.

And why is that? Ever stop to ask yourself that question? Is it because we have freedom of speech, women driving cars and Blue Jeans? The Ayatollahs tried to get the Muslim world rallied against us in the 80's using that line and got nowhere.

Or is it because we are over there tampering in their domestic affairs. Bin Laden was able to get a lot of support by pointing that out. He got even more people joining up because of Abu Ghraib and the shenanigans in Guantanamo.

Bin Laden is doing to us exactly what they did to the Soviets. Drag us halfway around the world and drain us. Once we punched that tar baby we had already lost.

If I want to hurt you, what is the easiest way for me to do that? Goad you into coming to me. I would have a hard time convincing many friends, family, and neighbors to go to you to hurt you, but if I can get you to come to me it is much easier to rally support against you and I would gain many times more support than I could get to go to you.

Not only do I get more support by getting you to come to me than by going to you, my side also can operate more effectively than you. All your supporters are back home. Just getting them to where I am consumes a huge amount of resources. Resources that I do not have to expend. Thus you have to spend a lot of resources just to get to me and maintain a presence. All I have to do is continue to goad you until your run out of resources. For every $1 I spend,you have to spend $10.

That is exactly what Bin Laden did. It would be incredibly easy to send people into the US and make attacks on infrastructure, but he doesn't. It's because it's expensive to do and it's hard to convince people to go halfway around the world to do it. Instead, he only had to convince and fund 19 people to pull off 9/11. Then we came to him. Then all he has to do is convince people to at most travel hundreds of miles, not thousands. He can use existing supply lines and sources and save his money and resources. The people can easily blend in and co-exist with the native culture and not stick out like an albino at the Apollo.

Then all he has to do in the meantime is send over someone every couple of years with a half-baked plan to scare the crap out of the public. Shoe bomber, underwear bomber, etc. Does the US government work to put these plots into perspective? Pointing out that they had little chance of actually working and/or would be impractical to repeat and are mostly fluke events? Heck no. the US government takes full advantage of the situation to seize even more power and control.

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If my son is a bully, the best remedy is not to expose him to other bullies on the assumption that getting roughed up a bit will be a character-building exercise.

[/quote]

I was bullied in middle school by one kid. I tried to ignore it, I tried to live with it. I eventually had enough and broke his nose. After a three day suspension I never had a problem with him or anyone else interfering in my affairs again. Sometimes the only way to get any peace at all is to give the bully a taste of their own medicine and bully back. Should it be a first resort? of course not, but at this point there's not a whole lot else.

That is what is happening here. the world is having enough of the US playing empire. A growing number of people in the US are waking up to the fact that all this government makes them less safe and poorer. The bully needs to have his nose broken..

[KrytenKoro]

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I was bullied in middle school by one kid. I tried to ignore it, I tried to live with it. I eventually had enough and broke his nose. After a three day suspension I never had a problem with him or anyone else interfering in my affairs again. Sometimes the only way to get any peace at all is to give the bully a taste of their own medicine and bully back. Should it be a first resort? of course not, but at this point there's not a whole lot else.

Doesn't this claim contradict everything else you've posted?

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Nice Red Herring. Where was I referring to the diplomats? I was referring to the "leaders" in Washington. Diplomatic letters are not the only thing being released.

Assange and the group behind Wikileaks aren't carefully extracting only those pieces of classified information that they believe were wrongly classified, or else depict obvious criminal wrongdoing:

Correct. They are opting for perfect transparency. It is not up to them to decided what should remain secret. They scrub the documents for obvious names and then publish everything as bandwidth allows.

Well, the documents primarily damage the diplomats, and you said the "light should be shed on these cockroaches"...either you're calling them cockroaches, or you're coming off as saying "It's okay to ruin the lives of everyone in the building, as long as you punish the one guy who didn't pay his rent."

Also, it is not up to them to post these documents at all. There is no "right to other people's information", especially for non-citizens. What this guy did was textbook espionage, and I'd be surprised if he isn't assassinated by one of the countries he offended rather soon.

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And for those efforts I applaud them. Anything that harms the governments attempts at empire and policing the world is a step in the right direction. It is the job of the federal government to provide for national defence, not national offense.

It seems that a nuke on Washington would damage that drive pretty effectively. So, of course such a thing is to be applauded.

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Nice false dichotomy there. Lets see how many logical fallacies you can rack up.

What logical fallacy? If you support the link, you're someone who is antagonistic towards governments, especially the US government. If anything, you're posts are clear proof of that.

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The US government was given a chance to go through the documents and help WikiLeaks redact information like that, the US government refused. Any blood that results is on the hands of the US government. Had they really cared about their informants they would have at least made an effort to point out to Wikileaks that those names should be removed.

....what? Are you serious?

Soo...let's say group A has spies on group B (for the purpose of shutting them down), a group that is so dedicated to terrorism that it has even strapped bombs to pregnant women and mentally disabled persons to use as suicide bombers. Group C breaks into group A's info, finds out who the spies are, and posts the info, making sure that group B can easily access it. Group B murders the informants, as any idiot could tell you they would.

...how in the hell do you see group A as the villain?

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You seriously can't figure that out on your own? It's quite nice to know if what you see of a leader is close to who they really are of if it is just a carefully crafted facade. Again,I'd have more sympathy for the government if they didn't have the Patriot act and such. They made their bed, not they are having to lie in it.

What public interest is that, though? How does that physically help anyone? Your only argument so far seems to be that "violating privacy is good for violating privacy's sake".

[Trenacker]

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Correct. They are opting for perfect transparency. It is not up to them to decided what should remain secret. They scrub the documents for obvious names and then publish everything as bandwidth allows.

You are (apparently unknowingly) advancing the notion that we should adhere to the letter of the law while abandoning its principle. "Perfect transparency" is designed to be in service of a world in which citizens can hold their leaders accountably. It does not require revealing sources of information.
Doesn't it strike you as problematic that, while you applaud Wikileaks, people who risked themselves to help us may be dying? That serious diplomacy -- the kind used to avert war and soothe fears we know to be irrational -- may be compromised?

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And for those efforts I applaud them. Anything that harms the governments attempts at empire and policing the world is a step in the right direction. It is the job of the federal government to provide for national defence, not national offense.

But the hurt is indiscriminate. You have confused emasculation and increased vulnerability for positive traits because they flatter a particular goal, all while losing sight of the fact that national defense may require playing policeman, building what looks very much like an empire, and taking actions that would be reprehensible in any other context. Nation-building isn't an evil exercise, just a bloody one.

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Nice false dichotomy there. Lets see how many logical fallacies you can rack up.

Anyone who is not suspicious of government is either naive or a fool. Governments are made up of people. Unless checked they will eventually pursue their own self interest if they are allowed to.

Kryten has it right: you are obvious in the second camp. I needn't assume: you've laid out exactly those arguments.

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The US government was given a chance to go through the documents and help WikiLeaks redact information like that, the US government refused. Any blood that results is on the hands of the US government. Had they really cared about their informants they would have at least made an effort to point out to Wikileaks that those names should be removed.

They did, according to The New York Times.

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So the people know that the arabs are trying to get the US to do their dirty work on our dime.

Just because somebody asks you to do their dirty work for them doesn't make it not worth doing. Not everybody can do their own dirty work. Iran is a threat whether or not the Arabs can stand up to Tehran themselves, and a problem for the United States, besides.

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You seriously can't figure that out on your own? It's quite nice to know if what you see of a leader is close to who they really are of if it is just a carefully crafted facade. Again,I'd have more sympathy for the government if they didn't have the Patriot act and such. They made their bed, not they are having to lie in it.

Except that, in the interest of "exposing" people, you are disempowering the United States to make effective policy in the future. Leaders are fickle. Some will respond to the leaked cables by behaving even more egregiously than before.
It is particularly ironic, too, that many of the cables portray the United States in a sympathetic light, suggesting that we deal with leaders who often disagree with us for reasons that have nothing to do with the arguments we make, and more to do with who we are.

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Bwaaaa? What history book are you reading The US and UK governments overthrew an elected government in Iran and replaced it with a dictator who engaged in torture, murder, and suppression of free speech. (Not to be confused with other dictators we installed in Iraq and Panama.) The Shah was a puppet so of course he was friendly to the US, that's why the US and UK put him there.

The same dictator gave women liberties they have not got even today, oversaw an enormous spike in national wealth and productivity, and grew the Iranian middle class. The Shah was not an ideal ruler, but he stands out as a rare success in the disappointing list of leaders of the developing world available to us since 1945. The Shah was more successful in building the Iranian state than the Iranian nation -- a common story for those who must convince people of their membership in an often-impersonal set of national institutions during an era when the use of compulsion is often forbidden, and at least circumscribed.
As for Iraq, the United States did not install Saddam Hussein.

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OK let me go though this again.. The US and UK overthrow Iran's government and install the Shah. The Shah is not very popular and does everything he can to stifle dissent. The people of Iran are not very enthusiastic about this. This boils over in the 1979 revolution where the Ayatollahs take power.

Iranians only gradually grew to oppose the Shah. Many of the sources of opposition were structural: inflation arising as a result of the hike in oil prices, wealth inequalities common to most nations working their way through industrialization, and urbanization. Yes, the Shah was corrupt, yes venal, yes brutal. However, by comparison to his successors, the Shah was fairly unimpressive as a brutal autocrat. Blaming the Shah for the excesses of those who came afterward is disingenuous, implying that the Shah is the only culpable party, and revealing your unacknowledged anti-American bias. Again, it appears that opponents of the United States are excused any excess.

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Without the Shah, the Ayatollahs would not have built the support they did. Without the US and UK overthrowing the elected government there would have been no Shah. Do you see the connection now? The CIA refers to this sort of stuff as "Blowback".

By this logic, nobody should ever leave bed in the morning, for fear of what might happen.
Isolationism is as dangerous as aggressive interventionism, as the Second World War reminds us.

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Exactly, and this is something that should be exposed and resisted. Government perusing empire seldom benefits the common person, either at home or abroad.

Not selectively. Here, you are encouraging damage to the world's leading liberal democracy, which indirectly advances the interests of its competitors.

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No, it actually is flawed in both execution and intent. You can't make the world a better place at the barrel of a gun. We used to lead by example. Now we lead at gunpoint.

We've always led at gunpoint.

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How have our action around the world spread liberal democracy when all we have done is installed and propped up dictators? Perhaps if the government got its hand bit a little more often it would learn to mind it''s own business and leave people alone. You can't implement liberal democracy at gunpoint as is becoming quite clear in our endeavors in the Middle East. What you can do is be an example for others to emulate and if those countries want to be backwards and primitive let them. Let those who want to emulate us leave and come here and integrate into our society as was the case in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Many of the regimes you consider especially odious were at least more effective, and served their people better, than the successors. Do you really imagine that North Vietnam was such a paradise? Millions of refugees who crammed into boats after Saigon's collapse suggest otherwise. That Iran is a better place to live under the Ayatollahs? That Afghanistan is better ruled by the Taliban than even an inefficient government riddled by corruption? That, whatever its inadequacies, Mobutu's Zaire did not at least offer something better than the DRC of today?

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I was thinking more along the lines of Oil-For-Food scandal and UN corruption and other shenanigans going on. I perhaps should have used a better example.

That, too, would have been to Bush's advantage.

[Taospark]

Actually, only about 10% of the cables were classified as secret. The rest was either day-to-day or something that was picked up on much earlier by other intelligence agencies.