What the WikiLeaks documents fail to tell

A good article that puts the Cablegates controversy in some perspective. But I don't think the Americans will place much weight on articles coming out from the great white north.

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Siddiqui: What the WikiLeaks documents fail to tell
December 02, 2010

We didn’t need WikiLeaks to tell us that Moammar Gadhafi likes his “voluptuous blonde” Ukrainian nurse. He doesn’t hide it or his posse of young sexy female bodyguards. A courtier in Tripoli once told me that he found our prurience over his leader’s female company puzzling, given that the West is so soaked in sex.

The leak of 251,287 cables from America’s 274 diplomatic posts spills no military secrets and doesn’t really endanger anyone’s life. It only makes explicit what was implicit in many instances. It offers titillating tidbits about world leaders, and exposes their hypocrisy of saying one thing in private and another in public.

But even the embarrassment factor is not all that high. Governments, politicians and diplomats routinely lie. Those they deal with know. They all understand each other, which explains the uniformity of reaction to the leaks. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said exactly the same thing as Hillary Clinton, David Cameron, Lawrence Cannon, et al: The leaks won’t affect anyone’s relations with anyone.

The more intriguing thing is this: How come all the cables advance the American geopolitical agenda, with nary a negative comment or the slightest doubt?

Read the rest here: http://www.thestar.com/opinion/article/900100--siddiqui-what-the-wikileaks-documents-fail-to-tell