The United States is a story we tell ourselves. When we salute the flag, or say we love "our country," or proclaim that something can happen "only in America," we're not declaring our infatuation with some obscure bit of regulation or the synergistic effects of our economy. It's the story we like. Our lives are made up of such stories. There are few children so underwhelming that their parents don't think them extraordinary, few parents so abusive as to go unloved, few nations so corrupt that their citizens don't view them as the jewel in the world's crown.
We're not all brought up on the same version of the land of opportunity / light of the world / home of rugged individuals / city on the hill / hard working / pioneer story. Some come flavored with more Pilgrims, less melting pot. Others have more than a dash of how they are ruining our country, right from the opening lines. A little more Fistful of Dollars, a little less Dances with Wolves.
Whatever our idea of the story, when someone ventures an opinion -- or worse yet, waves a fact -- that damages the core of that story, we get angry.
After all, we're the good guys.
It's not surprising then that for many people, and many media outlets, the story of WikiLeaks is a simple one. In this tale, a secretive, malicious, foreign organization fronted by a sex-fiend egomaniac has released -- "dumped" is the preferred term -- massive amounts of information that have put soldiers and agents at risk, while harming our relations to other nations. So it's land of the free and home of the brave on one side, anonymous cowards fronted by malicious ass on the other.
It's no wonder then that some -- mostly, but not exclusively conservatives -- have demanded that WikiLeaks be labeled a terrorist organization. Commentary from supposedly responsible parties has compared Julian Assange with Osama bin Laden and calls have gone out for his extradition, persecution, or even assassination.
The most commonly provided reason for all this animosity is that WikiLeaks' massive data distribution represents a serious threat to both our military and diplomatic missions. These releases have tended to show the United States not so much as tough-yet-huggable force of unflinching good, but as a pragmatic, blunt, often tactless force for it's own good, even when that meant that other peoples were left with the short end of the stick. In other words, the United States was caught acting in the interest of the United States and showing not a lot of concern or respect for others. Does this damage our ability to conduct diplomacy with the nations involved? Not according to Robert Gates.
I've heard the impact of these releases on our foreign policy described as a meltdown, as a game-changer, and so on. I think -- I think those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought. The fact is, governments deal with the United States because it's in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us, and not because they believe we can keep secrets.
If Gates is not put off by either the contents or the volume of the WikiLeaks releases, others surely are. After all, we're talking more than 250,000 diplomatic cables thrown out without context, without a chance for review, and without concern for who could be hurt. This isn't journalism, it's sabotage! And if any of that was true, some of those fulminating against WikiLeaks might have a case.
As it is, the total number of cables released is actually a bit over 1,000. Julian Assange may not be a journalist, but nearly all of the released documents first appeared in newspapers that are working with WikiLeaks, and many of these documents were redacted expressly to protect the identity of individuals not already in the public eye. In fact, as Director Gates has acknowledged, much of the information involved in the released documents was already available to the public.
So if documents released do not damage our diplomatic positions, if they tell us nothing we didn't already know about way the United States shoves around other players at the world table, if the documents themselves are nothing special -- if the story isn't threatened -- why has there been such an outcry? Why have both governments and corporations been pressured to pull WikiLeaks access to the Internet, to close down their servers, block government workers from reading the documents, hound journalists who publish the information, and arrest those involved?
To see why, let's look at another story from the other side of the world.
On October 16, a man named Li Qiming drove a luxury car across a college campus in the Chinese city of Baoding. In the process, he struck two female students, one of whom died. Qiming did not stop. When complaints were made, he warned his accusers that he was the son of an official -- and complained about how the two girls he had run over had scratched his paint. He fully expected his father's connections with the government to protect him. However, despite the restrictions China places on the Internet, locals were able to direct so much attention to the story that Qiming was prosecuted. Soon more information appeared on the Internet showing how both father and son had become wealthy abusing their positions. That action has spread, and what's being called "Li Gang Gate" (yes, even in China they apparently use "gate" as a substitute for "scandal") has spread nationwide and focused attention on a growing number of abusive officials and their families.
What does this have to do with WikiLeaks? It's not the same story at all. But then, WikiLeaks isn't about the details of the story. It's about who gets to be the storyteller.
In the traditional view (as outline by Dick Cheney), nations are sovereigns. And as sovereigns they're subject to the control of... well, nothing and nobody. At least nothing short of the forceful action of another sovereign. Think of them as a race of giants, stomping around the world, swinging swords and clubs. That they occasionally stomp across individuals isn't just forgivable, it's inconsequential. Like Li Qiming, they're more concerned about the damage to their paint jobs than the effects on the little people they run over.
The government, and conservatives in particular, are concerned about WikiLeaks because you believe them. You accept the documents coming from WikiLeaks as the unvarnished truth in a way that you would not accept the same documents if they were produced by "official sources." And for good reason. In an age where you know for certain that the view of the world you get from the government is not just filled with, but utterly dependent on "spin" (in other words, narrative) you can't be allowed to see the story without it. It's perfectly fine for the sovereigns to feed their citizens a story filled with invisible weapons as a justification for war, torture, the murder of millions and and the expenditure of trillions. It's not fine for you to call them on it. Just as with the story out of China, WikiLeaks shows how the ability to disseminate information broadly and quickly threatens not the details of the story, but the overall plot.
It's not that the contents of the WikiLeaks documents threatens US diplomatic efforts, it's that the existence of organizations like WikiLeaks and the increasing ability of individuals to counter "official" information threatens the ability of sovereigns to continue defining the core of their own story.
The giants have discovered that the individuals underfoot have created grappling hooks and lines. Worse, they have their own pens and paper. The sovereigns are very, very concerned about that. And what they'll do to make sure the pen stays in their over-sized hands is... anything at all.
References
Letter from Peter King to Eric Holder
Sarah Palin on WikiLeaks
Robert Gates full interview
Li Gang Gate