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Fissured World Politics Doesn’t Need Leaked Pipes. WikiLeaks introduces an effective actor in conflictual media-politics relations, it has become an actor in the sense that it has provided information to the public about their politicians’ intentions and actions.
By Abdennour Toumi
Although bizarre, does one remember how the global community welcomed the new Millennium? With a mood of fear and suspicion that has persisted in transforming the way in which domestic politics and international system have had to live. [We] the media are already in the second decade of the 21st century facing a major international event that is provoking perplexity and panic in the world’s leaders.
In this stance, years ago, U.S. diplomats woke up with a nightmare that they reported from their chancelleries’ post. A ghost in white cloth filtered by world leaders. Last week WikiLeaks’ site leaked 300,000 e-mails from President Erdoğan, this week, it leaked 20,000 DNC e-mails showing the party establishment plotting against Bernie Sanders.
This flood of information caused the resignation of the DNC Chairwoman Ms. Schultz and brought a heavy downpour on Ms. Hillary’s head and her campaign roof from the founder of WikiLeaks, Mr. Julian Assange, in his refuge at the Ecuador Embassy in London, the U.K.
Thus the world and the U.S. diplomats and military are still worried about the “black ghost” (al-Qae’eda’s franchise, converted to ISO & Co). WikiLeaks organization sent a quarter million diplomatic cables to the largest daily papers of the planet accessible to the public. According to these cables, accredited U.S. diplomats around the world fired off words about world leaders and others, like the famous cartoon series of Lucky Luke, a cowboy character famous for his speedy gunshot; U.S. diplomats shoot faster than their shadows.
Since 2006, WikiLeaks published the most heterogeneous leaks in a unilateral movement, which should be the job of the media.– Guantánamo Bay prisoners, images of collateral massacre of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, tens of thousands of reports on the mission regarding U.S. troops and the annoying relation between the U.S. officials. Does WikiLeaks demystify the so-called noble function and practice of diplomacy?
It is too early to have a definitive answer. However it did shake the concept of the role of a single man, a non-state actor cited in classic international relations theory, like al-Qae’eda organization did in the light of the post 9/11 era, and the on-going “bomb & run” game in MENA lands between ISO and the world’s allies!
Nonetheless, the publication of these cables by WikiLeaks is not a diplomatic “scoop” where diplomats watch closely what is going on in their host countries and report to their capitals. The new element is these cables that “fell off” the famous “diplomatic valise.” Now, analysts working at the State Department and the Pentagon, as those in Foreign Affairs and Defense Ministries in other world countries, are able to manifest their disagreement with their bosses about the foreign and military policies of their countries.
Top secret documents can be easily leaked to the public through citizens’ media, and here is where the conventional diplomacy suffers. In the field of diplomacy and secrecy, the leaks have always been an integral part of the diplomatic game. The leaks establish a means to pressure the diplomats and more recently politicians: use the leak as a tool in the balance of power. For example, the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change, December, 2009, was a fiasco that allowed developing countries to shout aloud the scandal and discredit the position of developed countries.
Diplomacy and politics are characterized primarily by their secretive dimension, maintaining confidence (hence trust) in debates between allies and during serious tensions. So, the incredible scope of confidential sources made accessible to the public are of phenomenal proportions.
WikiLeaks introduces an effective actor in the conflictual media-politics relations. Thus it has become an actor in the sense that it has provided information to the public about their politicians’ intentions and actions. Yet this is a job that should be done by journalists. Why did Mr. Assange decide to “assangize” if not assassinate world politics and diplomacy?
This diplomatic gossip is not choking the public — some of the leaks are serious, the rest are not… because after all, the public has always mistrusted its leaders, notably in the Arab world.
Now, WikiLeaks has become more than a simple source of an international affairs-leaking channel. It does not hide its political motif, and U.S. officials are already drawing comparisons between WikiLeaks, al-Qae-eda and ISO terrorist organizations. WikiLeaks has scrambled U.S. diplomacy, however, both WikiLeaks and al-Qae’eda organizations (ISO less so at this time) disturb the dynamics of traditional diplomacy and international security.
Even so, WikiLeaks is unlike al-Qae’eda and ISO in that it does not focus on “soft and innocent” targets to make its political statement. To the contrary, it aims its gun at the right target. Its goal is to inform the public about its Prince’s actions, policies and ruse. This is why the whole world applauded Julian Assange, whose character is a cross between a hero and a villain…Vice-President Joe Biden callled Mr. Assange the “intellectual property terrorist.”
Mr. Assange has become a prophet of the Net in crusade against the world’s politicians and institutions, whereas a-Zawahiri and al-Baghdadi are prophets of the Net in “Jihad” against systemic states. Both groups have been the subject of ferment in international politics, both have changed the fundamentals of the international system established post-Second World War.
World diplomacy and politics are interlocked and their actions are closely examined by increasingly suspecting citizens. Hence, national governments should hire professional plumbers, not only to stop the leaking, but also to put in new pipes and restore the fissure over those troubled waters that are flowing under the world bridges and these days in the delegates’ rows at the DNC Convention Center in Philadelphia.
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- France correspondent for The Arab Daily News.
- www.bareed-areej.com Editor-in-Chief
رئيس تحرير مجلة بريد الأريج
- Political consultant at IMPR a Think-Tank based in Ankara, Turkey.
- Member at the European Observatory for Arabic Language Teaching based in Paris, France.
- Affiliated with Sociology of Islam Journal and contributor at Middle East Studies / International Studies, Sociology of Islam and Muslim Societies Center, Portland State University in Portland, OR.
EDUCATION: Diplôme des Études Approfondies (DEA) in Political Science from Toulouse University I, France. Master’s degree in Law from Algiers University, Algeria.
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