Like It or Not

Last week all world leaders learned a lot of new things about themselves. Or, more precisely, they learned what American diplomats thought about them “behind their backs.” And let me say that the knowledge didn’t make anybody happy. All the top officials, naturally, pretended that nothing happened and that they had heard worse filth about themselves. Which is true in most cases.

While it’s one thing to receive scathing criticism from opposition journalists or political adversaries, it’s quite another thing to get it from representatives of the U.S. diplomatic missions, who are always so well-mannered and courteous, always smiling at you so sincerely at diplomatic receptions. And who are, as it turned out, writing nasty things in their reports behind your back.

Whether you like it or not, feelings get hurt. The secret correspondence between the State Department and the U.S. consulates around the world that was made public last week at the WikiLeaks website brought the world elite to an impasse. On the one hand, it’s interesting, very interesting. The documents in question are what intelligence services normally hunt for. And now the interested parties have the information presented to them on a silver platter.

On the other hand, it’s scary that some unknown people so easily managed to expose diplomatic and military secrets of one of the most powerful governments. That means nothing is sacred. That’s why the reaction from many foreign ministries toward the U.S. State Department has been quite reserved and even somewhat sympathetic.

Everybody understands that this is not only a downfall of the State Department, the Pentagon or the agencies responsible for guarding the secrets. This is a crisis of the entire American political machine.

As much as the White House wants to portray WikiLeaks as a small, shady enterprise, there is no doubt that it is actually a specially created and carefully prepared “release valve” that, most importantly, has powerful sponsors in the United States. And we can’t rule out that the website’s founder doesn’t even know who is using his Internet resource for their own political goals.

The State Department documents that were made public discredit the U.S. President Barack Obama and cast doubt on his foreign policy achievements, including the validity of awarding him the Nobel Peace Prize. American diplomatic plans in Afghanistan are jeopardized: It is unlikely that the president of that country, Hamid Karzai, is going to forgive Americans for calling him weak and prone to bouts of paranoia. The possibility of a dialog between the U.S. and North Korea has become questionable after learning about the plans of Washington and Seoul to get rid of the ruling DPRK regime and create a united, American-allied Korea.

The leaders of the Arab world, whom the White House always publicly called strategic partners, learned many new things about their politics. In their reports to the State Department, unknown officials urge their bosses to take the “rose-colored glasses” off and look at the actions of the so-called “allies” rather than their words. According to the documents made public by WikiLeaks, whose authenticity is not really contested by anyone, Saudi Arabia harbors al-Qaida sponsors on its territory and Qatar is doing its best to sabotage efforts in the fight against terrorism.

The reputation damage sustained by Washington last week was so great that it brought about another very painful blow to the White House. In spite of Obama’s support and the appearance of a whole constellation of Hollywood and sports stars, the Americans lost to Russia. Moscow won the right to host the World Cup in 2018. The loss may not be directly connected to the WikiLeaks exposure, but it is a development consistent with the chain of failures suffered by the U.S. administration on different fronts.

It is impossible to avoid two questions when talking about leaking of secret information: Who benefits from it, and who is behind it? There are three plausible versions regarding that. The first version is that Obama’s political adversaries, inspired by Democrats losing the Congressional elections, decided to definitively bury the hopes of the current head of the state to be re-elected. That’s why they poured out information that discredited the White House through the WikiLeaks website.

The second version is somewhat similar to the first. According to it, governments of some countries are as interested in the removal of Obama as his political adversaries are, because the White House policy regarding their countries changed when the black president took charge. For example, Israel has been irritated for a long time by the incessant pressure from the U.S. administration urging Tel Aviv to make further compromises in the negotiations with the Palestinians. But again, that’s only speculation.

And lastly, there is a third reason explaining the appearance of the secret documents on the WikiLeaks website. Making confidential data public is a social protest from people unhappy with the current American politics, a gesture of despair and hopelessness because the governing powers don’t hear anybody but themselves. A “regular person” can’t do anything about the government machine.

There was a time in the past when some American scientists and intelligence service agents handed over to the Soviet Union, free of charge, the secrets of the nuclear bomb that was being created in the United States. They thought that their country’s desire to be the only one to have the deadly weapon was unjust and dangerous. It is possible that the case of WikiLeaks is a similar civil protest.

The way out of this moral dead end, as suggested by the White House, looks somewhat hasty and insufficiently thought through. American officials unhappy with the actions of their colleagues or bosses are now asked to vent their emotions by complaining to higher officials instead of anonymously sending the discrediting information to the mass media. However, that sort of government policy can only temporarily help with local workplace conflicts; it doesn’t solve the problem of the deep crisis of trust in the government in America.

Last week, Russian drivers demonstrated their civil protest against the situation on the roads. And now it’s the turn of the Russian government to listen to the opinion of the middle class, so that they don’t get their own WikiLeaks someday. Two events in Moscow attracted the attention of the mass media. The anti-heroes in both cases were unmarked cars equipped with emergency lights. The situations were similar: drivers sitting in traffic decided not to move aside to give way to the cars with emergency lights.

In both cases, the security of the VIP passengers of those cars intervened and damaged the cars that were in the way of their bosses, even though the lives of those VIPs inside the limos were not threatened in any way. In both cases, the security forces acted like bandits but weren’t prosecuted. The police officials refused to say who was inside the limos and whether those people were in a hurry to get to super important business meetings or merely wishing to get to their country houses without delay. Unsurprisingly, the silence of the police caused a powerful civil protest.

Russian tourists in Egypt suffered the results of the local officials’ indifference and negligence last week. Four Russians became victims of shark attacks. The shark attacked people just 20 yards offshore when they were swimming in front of their hotels. There were no protective nets in the water to keep out the predatory fish. They didn’t even close the beaches in Sharm el-Sheikh after the first attack. The ban on swimming in the sea was imposed only when the number of victims reached four.

Further events showed how grave the risk is for Russians vacationing in Egypt. Local authorities promptly reported that the man-eating shark was caught that very day and … opened the beaches again. But the next day another killer shark was reported to be caught. We can only guess whether that was true and how many more predators are going to be found in the waters belonging to the famous resort. There is, however, no news about additional measures taken by hotels to ensure safe swimming for their foreign guests.

Around New Year’s Eve, many Russians will express their opinions about Egypt’s officials and hotels through their wallets, choosing not to take the dangerous trip. When people have the opportunity to express their outrage toward authorities in such a straightforward and effective way, they don’t need any release valve from WikiLeaks.