Quote:
Originally Posted by DarkFish
Example: Obama decides Ahmadinejad should be killed. He commands this to the CIA.
Up until now, the public shouldn't know about it. If it does, Ahmadinejad can be tipped off and go into hiding.
The CIA sends a kill squad to Iran and shoots the target.
When the target is dead, it should be revealed that it was done by the CIA, or at least that the CIA had an ongoing operation to kill him. If the public is dead against the assassination, they can oppose it by for example not re-electing Obama.
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Suppose the only way the CIA could get access to Ahmadinejad would be if they posed as representatives of the International Commission of the Red Cross from Switzerland... and we did not tell the Swiss (which would not be surprising).
Do you still think the people have a right to know that their country violated about a hundred conventions, agreements, treaties and laws even though the cause may be "good"?
No. Oftentimes the reason such operations need to be kept secret is not due to the target, but the methods of access.
International policy is a dirty game. We are making deals with countries you would be shocked at, and going behind the backs of our closest friends. We are making and accepting trade-offs that would morally offend many US citizens.
Politics making strange bedfellows is a virginal honeymoon compared with our foreign policy. I have been working international policy analysis for almost 30 years (next year!). It is an ugly side of Realpolitik. The reason citizens can enjoy their feelings of pride in their country is
That. They. Don't. Know. About. It.
It is not something to be proud of, but it does reflect the ugly reality of foreign policy.
The truly damaging part of the wikileaks is that data is being released without context or confirmation. Citizens will read a few documents, assume that what they are reading is true, and make conclusions and inferences that may be completely inaccurate simply because they lack the training, experience, and background data necessary to be able to evaluate data like this. This is my profession and it is not easy.
President Bush once commented that he does not "do nuance" when it comes to foreign policy. Well foreign policy is nothing but nuance.
And reading a little data out of context is a good way to make a wrong inference.