

NYT: The Decision to Publish Diplomatic Documents (obtained from wikileaks) - credo
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/29editornote.html

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quattrofan
Looks like the NYT are going to dilute it, you can get it all here:
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/the-us-embassy-cables>

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thadk
This seems like a flawed idea--if anyone publishes the uncensored cables then
you can diff it and find the redacting and they have exposed even more
information about information priorities.

Keep voting this link up, as important to read as the release itself.

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gte910h
I get the idea to publish war documents....it helps shed light on the war,
might make it end sooner.

I don't necessarily agree with it, but I understand it.

I _don't_ get the publishing of diplomatic documents. I've not had time to
read though the entire contents yet, but this just seems like it might CAUSE
war, not end it.

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credo
The chances of this publication causing a war are close to zero

I think there is a public interest in knowing how many government decisions
are made, a public interest in knowing that (as per a source of the American
embassy) the Chinese politburo was behind the attack on Google etc.

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hugh3
The most potentially war-causing bits are the sensitive bits about Iran.

Having various other countries in the Middle East on the record as saying
nasty things about Iran might severely damage intra-middle-east relations,
perhaps making war less avoidable in the future. (It _might_ , of course, have
completely the opposite effect, but it's still analogous to firing bullets
into a crowd at random and hoping they only hit bad guys.)

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MichaelSalib
Do you really believe that the Iranian government didn't already know what
various other middle eastern governments thought of it? I mean, is your
assumption that American government officials, with their outstanding history
of sophisticated and successful intelligence gathering in the middle east
(read: failure without end) have been more successful than the Iranian regime
at local intelligence gathering? That seems...fanciful, and perhaps indicative
of western arrogance.

More to the point, this whole notion that the current Iranian regime would
start a war for no other reason than because some other government said mean
things about it is...not terribly well supported by evidence.

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hugh3
_Do you really believe that the Iranian government didn't already know what
various other middle eastern governments thought of it?_

Ah, but diplomacy is so often less about who knows what and so often about who
has plausible deniability.

Iran knows that the Saudis hate them. And the Saudis know that the Iranians
know that they hate them and so forth. But to have it publicly acknowledged
and on the record that they hate each other makes things more difficult if
they ever need to cooperate.

For instance, now that the Saudis are officially on the record as saying the
US should bomb Iran, we can rule out the possibility of using the Saudis as a
go-between or an "honest broker" for some kind of negotiated settlement with
the Iranians. Not that it was necessarily going to happen, but the possibility
is pretty much ruled out due to the embarrassment it would cause all round.

It's not that Iran is going to attack Saudi Arabia because the King said mean
things; it's just that the Saudis and the Iranians can no longer pretend
publicly that they don't hate each other.

That's just one example, there's any number of other ways that bringing
unpleasant truths to the surface can spoil already-weak relationships, as
anyone who has ever been in a weak relationship can tell you.

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MichaelSalib
_the Saudis and the Iranians can no longer pretend publicly that they don't
hate each other._

Why not? Everyone with a brain already knew that the Saudi regime hate the
Iranian regime. The cables do nothing to change that. And really, the fact is,
Saudi Arabia's King's opinions on Iran have zero bearing on whether the US
invades Iran.

I don't see what exactly distinguishes your claims about the probability of
war increasing due to this "revelation" from magical thinking.

 _That's just one example, there's any number of other ways that bringing
unpleasant truths to the surface can spoil already-weak relationships, as
anyone who has ever been in a weak relationship can tell you._

I don't think that one's love life or startup business experience really
equips the average person to correctly understand international diplomacy. You
say this is just one example: OK, please list some more. Or flesh out this one
to the point where it actually makes sense.

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steve19
What I want to know is what US news organizations turned down the offer to
publish the information on ethical grounds. My guess: none.

I wonder how the journalists, editors and bosses of the NY Times would like it
if a dump of their email server was released on The Pirate Bay. None of their
emails are "noforn" or "secret".

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ugh
The New York Times is not part of the government.

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steve19
"To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a
proposition by substituting it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent
proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually
refuted the original position."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawman>

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ugh
I’m merely pointing out that you can’t treat leaking of documents from
companies and the government the same way. That’s not a straw man, you really
seem to claim that government and company leaks should be judged in the same
way.

I’m obviously very sure that you are aware that the New York Times is not part
of the US government, my point was not that you do not know that, my point was
that because of that fact you can’t really compare the two.

