Wikileaks

India Journal: What Is WikiLeaks Really Telling Us?
By Ranjani Iyer Mohanty
–Ranjani Iyer Mohanty is a writer and a business/academic editor.

There has been some surprising news recently. No, not the WikiLeaks story of what U.S. diplomats said in their private communiqués but rather the story that diplomats of other countries are shocked by the contents. If that’s true, they must be the only ones. Most of what’s in these cables has already been thoroughly discussed at numerous dinner parties by the general public.

Take some of the revelations. India sought closer ties with the U.S. because of China’s increasing aggressiveness…and so probably did most other neighbours of the growing superpower. Hillary Clinton called India a “self-appointed frontrunner” for permanent United Nations Security Council membership…along with Brazil, Germany, and Japan. Lashkar-e-Taiba had plans to use South India as a base and to assassinate Narendra Modi: we may not have known of this but thankfully the Indian intelligence agencies did.

There is no doubt that WikiLeaks serves a genuine need and a valuable purpose, such as when they revealed questionable procedures at Guantanamo Bay and foreshadowed Iceland’s financial crisis. However, unlike its claim of “bringing important news and information to the public” and publishing “material of ethical, political and historical significance” and “providing a universal way for the revealing of suppressed and uncensored injustices,” this time I feel they have brought us mostly obvious-toids of minor significance that reveal just annoying embarrassments. If we were privy to the day-to-day uncensored thoughts of any organization, or even any family, the results would make a great soap opera – but like most soaps, not the best use of our time.

I agree that private conversations and back-room dealings can be interesting. I would love to have been a fly on the wall when Gandhi, Nehru, and Jinnah were having a heart-felt talk about Churchill and Britain – when Khrushchev and his comrades were strategizing over Kennedy and Cuba – when Tony Blair and his advisors were discussing George Bush and Iraq. But some things are better said and done behind closed doors. If diplomacy is all about the art of conducting delicate negotiations and handling complicated affairs without arousing hostility, maybe WikiLeaks should just leave them to it. We should be finding ways to bring nations together, not push them further apart.

While the U.S. may have said some embarrassing (but not necessarily untrue) things about other countries, I’m sure other countries have said equally impolite, if not worse, things about the U.S. within the confines of their own borders and embassies. I would not be surprised if an Italian diplomat had made an unkind comment about Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, if an Indian diplomat had made an impatient remark about the U.S. selling arms to Pakistan, or a Chinese diplomat had suggested that he enjoyed playing banker to the Americans.

While the majority of these leaks may have been diplomatic chit-chat, WikiLeaks promises to expose more information and of a more secretive nature, such as its recent release of a list of vital U.S. facilities. In the midst of the uproar, WikiLeaks’s purpose – beyond causing havoc and possibly supplying valuable information to unfriendly parties, all in the name of fighting injustice – is not always clear. Not all classified or private information is an injustice in the making.

I wonder if we could re-direct Wikileaks’s energies. For example, what may be really helpful to the world as a whole is if WikiLeaks could hack into and make public the communications of the LeT, the Taliban, or other groups planning terrorist activities. Maybe WikiLeaks could also reveal the ambitions of some of the less transparent and more unstable countries, which would indeed be a revelation. And here in India, wouldn’t it be nice to know who are the most corrupt politicians and the value of their Swiss bank account holdings?

Even if we haven’t learnt a lot from the latest set of WikiLeaks releases, one lesson is becoming increasing clear. Be careful what you email your office mate about your boss’s last party, what you email the head of the investment department about a fancy new financial instrument you’ve dreamed up that’s sure to make a killing, what you email your friend about your mother-in-law, and what you email anyone about climate change. Someone may be hacking you.

One thing is of interest to me.
Who is financing the work being done by Wikileaks.
As I see it Wikileaks is just raising a lot of dirt hoping it would destabize goverments but is serving no useful purpose.
Everybody is naked under his clothes so is Wikileaks.
I remember a story which was posted on our blog and was sent just recently by Arun Shroff.

One day the great philosopher came upon
an acquaintance who ran up to him excitedly and said,
"Socrates, do you know what I just heard
about one of your students?"

"Wait a moment," Socrates replied.
"Before you tell me I'd like you to pass a little test.
It's called the 'Test of Three'."
"Three?"
"That's right," Socrates continued.
"Before you talk to me about my student,
let's take a moment to test what you're going to say.
The first test is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure
that what you are about to tell me is true?"

"No," the man said, " actually I just heard about it."
"All right," said Socrates.
"So you don't really know if it's true or not."

"Now let's try the second test, the test of Goodness.
Is what you are about to tell me about
my student something good?"
"No, on the contrary..."
"So," Socrates continued,
"you want to tell me something bad about him
even though you're not certain it's true?"
The man shrugged, a little embarrassed.
Socrates continued. "You may still pass though,
because there is a third test - the filter of Usefulness.
Is what you want to tell me about my student
going to be useful to me?"
"No, not really..."
"Well," concluded Socrates,
"if what you want to tell me is neither True
nor Good nor even Useful, why tell it to me at all?"
The man was defeated and ashamed.

This is the reason Socrates was a great philosopher
and held in such high esteem.