The thing to keep in mind, though, is that Manning didn't simply dump these to "the public"; she gave them to Assange and his people, who (after some falling out with each other, and a lapse in some basic security practices) managed to leak the passphrase to one of their private keys.

Which isn't to say she's not responsible for the consequences of her actions; in any case, she's already very much paid the price for the decision she made. But still, it was not her intent that the cables be simply "dumped in public".

    > the public has benefited greatly
    > from the disclosures in the more
    > pertinent cable leaks

Here's one of my personal favorites (summarized by Reuters):

"You know the movie 'The Godfather'? We've been living it for the last few months," a businessman involved in the dispute was quoted in the cable as telling an official from the U.S. diplomatic mission in Tripoli.

The cable, which was made available to Reuters by a third party, centers on a bottling plant in Tripoli that was shut down for three months. It had been seized by troops loyal to Mutassim Gaddafi, a son of Muammar, who at the time was feuding with one of his brothers, Mohammed. (Another State Department cable suggests a third Gaddafi son, Saadi -- better known as the family's professional soccer player -- may also have been involved in the squabble, though no details of his role are given.)

Eventually, the American diplomatic mission in Tripoli, known then as the U.S. Liaison Office, sent a firm protest to the Libyan government. The document states that around the same time, Mohammed Gaddafi, possibly under pressure from his sister Aisha, a family peacemaker, apparently agreed that shares owned by the Libyan Olympic Committee, which he led, would be sold to a third party.

Shortly afterward, the cable says, Mutassim's men left the Coke plant, ending the family standoff, but not before employees of the plant received threats of bodily harm and a Gaddafi cousin was stuffed in the trunk of a car.

Really, it shouldn't be hard to satisfy your own curiosity on this topic. Unless you think we're better off not knowing about this stuff, that is.

    > Unless you think we're better off
    > not knowing about this stuff, that is.

I guess that argument could be applied to high crimes and corruption of all sorts, just about anywhere: "We already know about that in broad strokes. What good does it do to air all that dirty laundry before the general public?"

    > high crimes

This is, quite frankly, a bizarre equivalence to make.

Also, there's not necessarily an element of "great personal risk". It may just be social or embarrassment or minor damage to a career. If some flunky at a Peruvian consulate has a bit too much to drink and says his boss is an asshole, it gets written down and goes into a file somewhere. When people see that on the internet they think "Man, I really need to watch what I say to the Americans."

Given the degree of subterfuge the US has facilitated in many of these countries, over the years -- most of these folks already knew that.

And I think you're mostly jumping at shadows here. Diplomacy is a lot less interesting and less nefarious than you seem to believe.

About 95% of it, yes. But if the other 5% were so profoundly uninteresting then people wouldn't be talking about how "embarrassing" and "damaging" it was to have it released.

Again, there's a practical side here. As I asked in another post, just how much would you share with a friend or family member that was going to immediately run to publish what you said in a Facebook post? Because that's essentially what Manning did.

No, that's not what she did. She gave the archive to a third party (Assange) who turned out to be unreliable. But that's not "the same" -- or even "essentially" the same -- as just outright posting it on Facebook.

Can we just end the discussion there, please? I'm not saying this issue is cut-and-dried, or that there's no validity in your arguments. But if we keep going back and forth about the basic event chronology, then there's really not much a of a point.

Yes it is. Once it's there on the internet, people are linking to it, and it's a topic of discussion, anything that gets you into any kind of trouble is out there for people to see.

>Can we just end the discussion there, please? I'm not saying this issue is cut-and-dried, or that there's no validity in your arguments. But if we keep going back and forth about the basic event chronology, then there's really not much a of a point.

If you're really intent on ending a conversation, try not attempting to slip in the last word.

Sounds eminently reasonable. It's all yours, then.

As for outing what people "really think" of Berlusconi... I suspect that no one was surprised (including the clown himself, Silvio).