And the Leaks Go On

Wikileaks continues to get take the blame for the world’s problems.  This week the people of Tunisia decided to do something about the president, who has been continuously in office for the past 27 years  and his family who, apparently, have been looting the country. Wikileaks is apparently a major cause of the problem because it published American diplomatic mail that discussed their corruption. What a laugh!

Now mind you initial responses laid the ‘blame’ on social networking sites such as tweeter and facebook which, it is charged, allowed the protestors to ‘coordinate their action’.

It seems to me that the real problem was the President and his family, whose activities were very well-known to the Tunisians even if the Americans were not aware of it. You can’t be President of a country for a quarter of a century and just ‘go sour’. Not after you won an election that was billed as a ‘wonderful demonstration of democracy’ and that gave you an 87 percent majority only 7 months ago.

Did anybody hear any protests about a ‘stolen’ election in Tunisia? No? That’s because there weren’t any, until now. Now, all of a sudden, because they’re “concerned”, the west, led by America, is taking steps to ‘shape’ the outcome -  to see that the people get the kind of government they need. And that won’t be any  ' muslim theocracy', even if that’s what they want. Seems although Al Numnnuts the president-unelect may have been a thief, but he was a real ‘pal to freedom’. And the US doesn’t have enough of those in the middle east.

News that the Army is taking steps to ‘restore order’ and that the Prime Minister is preparing a slate of candidates will come as no surprise, as the Army will be affected by its main arms supplier and the prime minister, and the powers that be, will respond well to a few dollars wisely-invested.

Meanwhile there are protests in Egypt and Yemen. But you won’t hear any stated support for the people there, as the two respective presidents are long-time old  hands at ‘keeping the .lid’ on dissent and of course on ‘fighting terrorism’. Once again,  if Wikileaks hadn’t printed American commentary on some of their double-dealing, the people would have been content to have them choose their next leader. Someone wise and just,  not like the doofus Kim Dong Il is choosing to run North Korean. No Wikileaks embarrassing him,  and that’s why the people aren’t out in droves to protest. Right!

In all three of these, massive increases in the price of basic food stuffs may have played absolutely no part, although, in all three, the first thing done to head-off trouble was to announce continued government subsidies for food. Basic food prices around the world are spiking upward in as much as 100 percent hikes. Prices like that force an awful lot of people in the world to reduce their eating. Maybe some Americans, too.

Another little stew is boiling  in what may, one day, be Palestine, and again ‘leaks’ are at the root of the problem. This time Al Jezeera, the Arab media giant,  has leaked purportedly confidential documents relating to the peace negotiations with Israel. First reading of these indicates that the Palestinian delegation has discussed, and were prepared to move on, every ‘trigger’ issue for Palestinians - the right of return for refugees, Jerusalem, the Al Aqsa Mosque, the territory of the West Bank, Israeli Arabs, the independence of the Palestinian state, etc. Only problem was the Israelis said it ‘wasn’t enough’ to make a deal. Maybe, if Jazeera could have gotten the Israeli documents, the world could have gotten a look at their ‘concessions’ - but, given the rejection of the ‘greatest Jerusalem of all time’ in return for one small arab subdivision there, ‘concessions’ might not be the best descriptor to use. Needless to say, the news hasn’t been warm and fuzzy for the Palestinian authority ( FATAH)  who are ‘holding’ office until (they hope) Hamas gets un-elected, or wiped out.- preferably the latter. Al Jezeera is now 'seen' as the Arab equivalent of Wikileaks

It has to be very inconvenient that somebody would ‘blow the whistle’ on the world’s superpower while it’s doing its darnedest to save the rest of us from the horrors of fundamental religion and bridled capitalism. It has to be embarrassing to set yourself up as the epitome of everything good, right and holy and find yourself pilloried for back-stabbing and crooked-dealing. Lying and cheating, killing and plotting like the bad guys who hate our freedoms and who do that stuff so, apparently, openly,  while America prefers to do it, for good people everywhere, behind closed doors. It’s just downright shitty when the bad guys can ‘make you’ be worse than them. And what’s worst of all is that the ‘hero’,  Assange, is such a dishonest, pipsqueak, wannabe, low-life, sex pervert with a BO problem ... or at least that’s what the good guys are saying.

All the while there are some real repercussions coming from Wikileaks. Just after Christmas the US government mounted a campaign to isolate Wikileaks and Assange by closing its servers and pressuring American-based companies to disrupt its finances. This resulted on a number of hacker attacks on various American  and European organizations. The first outbreaks were highly published.  But, as in other wars, there has been a 'blackout' on the effects of these attacks, which have continued. To-day, for instance, there was a mass-action that saw what's left of Egypt's electronic infrastructure bombarded with a storm of  Wikilieaks 'cables' mass-faxed to that country's servers. And, to-day, 5 hackers jailed in England for such activities were released on bail.

If Wikileaks serves any useful purpose, in my opinion, it's to add to the number of ‘balls’ America gets to juggle at one time. The more problems it has, the less the likelihood that Americans can be conned into another attempt to start that Great American Century that Wolfowitz, Cheney, Perle and company still so earnestly desire. If there’s an Allah he’ll keep on letting them drop bits of junk into their own works.