Okay, show of hands...

[nagaina_ryuuoh]

So! Unless you've been living in a cave in Borneo without net access for the last week or two, you know that Wikileaks has been planning the release of an assload of US diplomatic correspondence. Both the government and many major news outlets have been in full damage control/thunderous condemnation of those dangerous rogue leaky leakers much of

Comments

[ex_bookkeep]

For me, there's a certain level of schadenfreude to it. U.S. Diplomats (at least the ones I've met) are like the snob squad in high school - forever smiling and chatting and exchanging pleasantries until it's time for the gossip back home, whereupon they become vicious backstabbing cretins. They do it with other countries and other diplomats - the term "same side" becomes nebulous in that back-biting little corner of the world.

So what this data dump has become is the truth laid bare and it's made a great many people who like to pretend that diplomats exist in this sort of rarefied air terribly uncomfortable. Any time you have a decent concentration of perceived power, the concentration of self-important jerks will be equally decent.

[ilion]

I've just caught bits and pieces and sound bites over the last couple days as I've been rather occupied, but two things have stuck out. One, an interview on CBC where the guest was saying how this really shows how weak the US security for these things is and how this just shouldn't be happening. Two, China's opinion on Korea.

The big picture of politics does not seem shocking, but some of the details are interesting.