My take on the Wiki Leaks controversy

I've been poring my grubby little fingers over the Wiki leaks cables just like all the other misanthropes on the Internet. I must admit I'm not too fussed about the political implications that are getting the correspondents with the Times letters page hot under the collar. The gentlemen states have been reading each other's mail since at least the Second World War and I doubt that global civilization is going to collapse because a 14 year old from Nigeria can read what the diplomats of the world's most powerful (or at least aggressively obnoxious) nation have to say.

The real gems are the snarky little wise cracks and in jokes of these officials. Most of the political content is dull and familiar. The US distrusts Russia? Israel thinks Hamas is a threat? Khazakstani anti-corruption drive was politically motivated and targeted those out of favour with the government? No shit.

What I enjoy is finding out that American diplomats are just as obsessed with gangster movies as the rest of the nation. It made my week to read a cable deciding whether President Aliyev of Azerbaijan is a Michael or a Sonny Corleone. I had not known until that moment that there was an academic paper (which sadly I can't find anywhere on the web) distinguishing these two fictional characters as paradigms of different types of political leadership.

Similarly it gives me a strangely voyeuristic thrill to read a blow by blow account of the visit to a night club of some central Asian (post-communist) apparatchiks. In what world could the information that there were 50 people on the dance floor that night or that the officials brought their middle aged wives with them be of political significance?

If the agents of the usually deathly serious government of the United States have the same eccentricities and peccadillos as the rest of us it gives me a little more hope for the future of mankind. How can you fear a state that collects information in such a gimmicky and human way. Especially one that can be made to blush in such a public manner by the creepy Assange and his mildly sociopathic, hacker friends.

Ps - If you want a more measured and complex analysis you should read this article by Bruce Sterling. He's a bit too cyberpunk to be surprised by what has happened and takes a very jaded view but also makes some interesting points. http://www.webstock.org.nz/blog/2010/the-blast-shack/