Wikileaks certainly has an agenda. There's a good New Yorker piece [1] from back before a lot of this stuff broke about how Assange edited the 'Collateral Murder' video to maximize emotional impact. I personally do not view Wikileaks as a trusted intermediary.
[1] http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_...
"Frago 242" (short for Fragmentary Order 242), was a high level dictat to troops to ignore torture by Iraqi forces, or at least not to intervene directly. This was a key expose for that release, and Assange talks of a story actually getting killed by the editors -
140 results Guardian.co.uk http://www.google.co.uk/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&...
And buried in some community comment section a solitary 1 result at NYTimes.com http://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&...
You are not being fair to Wikileaks.
Corroboration, in other words.
This is in agreement with the author's assertion that "WikiLeaks’ motivation is that of a court jester, to mock and ridicule the contradictions of a state."
What the author is saying in the post is that this is not what his motives were for doing analysis on prior leaks.
The character that simply looks and acts ridiculous for the amusement of others (your definition) is properly called a buffoon.
If Drew hopes to be taken seriously by the US Government and keeping his security clearance (probably highly valuable in his career path) he can't exactly cheer about Wikileaks. This sort of measured, slightly negative review is essentially a bow to power (and there seems like little reason for him to write such an article other than to bow conspicuously before authority).
Drew is also a Homeland Security Fellow, whatever that is.
I guarantee you the NYT INFOSEC budget is lower than you think. : )
More importantly, lots of the information is compromising in a way that is not in the best interests of the public. For example, it embarrases the Yemeni president, along with many other countries. Will that make these people more or less likely to work with the US (or anyone else for that matter) in the future?
The main consequence will be (in my opinion) the diminished ability of the US to take security so lightly... Which is exactly the goal of wikileaks, to make it harder for governments to use secrecy. Sure there will still be some secrets, but ideally they'll be used for important things rather than political propaganda or manipulating allies.
I agree. That's definitely a plus of these releases. (Though I think on the whole they are still net negative.)
Now to some of the things I personally disagree with..
> The forces that lead to large scale geopolitical action are not impacted by the small gravitational pull of these leaks.
I can disagree with this, in at least one instance, using the data from wikileaks. From the NYT article: "[The cables] reveal that Colonel Qaddafi was so upset by his reception in New York that he balked at carrying out a promise to return dangerous enriched uranium to Russia."
It's kind of a funny example, but I think the implications are more broad than embarrassment or showing government failures.
As daniel_levine said, "The expectation of privacy in diplomacy can be an extremely powerful tool in creating honest and helpful dialogue."
To use a metaphor, imagine trying to run a big company wherein everything the CEO hears (!) or says is published to the world. Sure, it'd be harder to keep secrets, but it would also be harder to get anything done.
Government secrecy has always been weakened by potential leakers, etc., so I think the main difference here is that Wikileaks' technology has provided a buffer to allow journalists to write about things they had previously been afraid to write about.
As a corollary, an organization of a particular size can only obtain a finite amount of secrecy. When the organization's size is > 5 people, the amount of secrecy is quite low and has always been so.
The value of Wikileaks is that it makes secrecy more difficult for governments. Period. What Wikileaks publishes is dependent on what is leaked, and so far (in my opinion) Wikileaks has done much to gain credibility as an institution. Notably, it has moved away from journalistic interpretation of the leaked info and has left that to established papers. Instead, it has focused on its role as conduit and trusted intermediary.
Ironically, Wikileaks will enhance the credibility of government in a good way b/c it helps the public view its government as fallible, corrupt, and absurd, all of which help rein in the scope of government action so that what is actually undertaken stands a chance of being accomplished honestly.
Sadly, much of what has been leaked shows simply that the government is putting on a show for the American people and that much of what is kept secret is done so for propaganda reasons, not security reasons.