Wikileaks: sensation or damp squib?

My paper of choice, The Guardian, is giving Wikileaks' latest revelations the sort of blanket coverage that the Telegraph gave to the MP's expenses scandal, and it looks as though it has become Wikileaks' UK paper of choice too.  The Guardian is getting first crack in the UK at some of the juicier bits of Wikileaks content and it's making a meal of it: today 12 of the first 13 pages of the paper are dominated by the story.



The fact is that most of what has been leaked is boring in the extreme, punctuated by a few bits that interest.  How much of what is in the leaks really surprises?  I guess that depends on how cynical a view of the world you take: was anyone surprised that Prince Andrew maintained the reputation for clumsy frankness that characterises the male members of the Royal Family?  Did it surprise that US Embassy cables alleged that Russia is a corrupt autocratic kleptocracy, or that the UK government found a loophole that allowed the US to keep cluster bombs on UK soil?  I'm firmly of the 'nothing that governments and politicians do surprises me any more' school of thought so I was hardly shocked by these revelations. 

What also came as no shock was some US politicians over-reacting in typical fashion.  Having worked for a US corporation for more than 20 years, and having seen its machinations at first hand, I know only too well the barely concealed contempt that the US has for the rest of the world.  Unless it was invented in the likes of Des Moines, Idaho your average American execs have no time for it, and their misguided sense of their own superiority can be breathtaking.  The likes of Mike Huckabee, potential Republican presidential candidate and as right-wing as American politicians come, are about their business, calling for Wikileaks' founder, Julian Assange, to be tried under the 1917 Espionage Act, with Huckabee saying 'I think anything less than execution is too kind a penalty'!  Sarah Palin predictably wants Assange hunted down, and some of the right-wing blogs make more interesting reading that the leaks themselves:  Red State says Assange is a spy and, 'Under the traditional rules of engagement he is thus subject to summary execution, and my preferred course of action would be for him to find a small caliber [sic] round in the back of his head'!  In an ever-changing world it's good to know that the US remains the same - if you asked most of these people to point on a map to some of the nations mentioned in the leaks, I very much doubt that they'd have a scooby about it.

The White House is, however, taking a more balanced view of the leaks, going through the motions of expressing outrage while also playing down their significance. Hilary Clinton, on whose watch the leaks happened, is under some pressure but it's hard to see her being irreparably damaged, and President Obama might not be sorry to see his Secretary of State taken down a peg or two.  At the same time, however, there appears to be a concerted attempt at cyber war against Wikileaks' sites, with attacks from unknown hackers (I wonder who they could be working for?), and yesterday Amazon.com pulling the plug on hosting them after coming under pressure from politicians such as the chair of the Homeland Security Committee, Joe Lieberman..

It's all good knockabout stuff but it's hard to visualise governments and politicians across the globe being too deeply shocked about it: their diplomats are almost certainly expressing themselves in equally blunt terms in their missives home.  US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, probably got it right when he said 'Is this embarrassing?  Yes.  Is it awkward?  Yes.  Consequences for US foreign policy?  I think fairly modest'.