WikiLeaks: US talking bad about foreign politicians

Germany's "Spiegel" magazine will have it's front cover story about WikiLeak'ed documents dealing with US assessments of German (and other country's) politicians tomorrow.

Reading the preview I wondered...why the fuss?

(Chancellor) Merkel - indecisive, doesn't take risks

Seehofer - volatile

Foreign secretary Westerwelle - impulsive and aggressive, needs to grow in his new job

secretary of state Sch�uble - angry old man that sees danger everywhere

All adjectives are used regularly in the German press.

Putin an "alpha-dog" ... nothing new

Sarkozy an "emperor without clothes" ... is what the newspapers call him anyway.

According to the "Spiegel" there have been many telephone calls between the US embassy in Berlin and other official channels to the German government and individual members like Westerwelle and Merkel to limit the damage this will take on the diplomatic climate between the two countries.

Does that WikiLeak stuff sound interesting to you?

I don't get excited about things I read in the papers for months...|||i think ahmadinejad was called "hitler" somewhere in there, and a bunch of other not-diplomatically-wise comments were made about other middle eastern leaders. that'll be interesting.

i think the u.s. is shooting itself in the foot a bit here. if the documents turn out to be only, as we have been led to believe, embarrassing, rather than this great threat to national security that the u.s. has warned all the foreign governments about, that's hard proof right there that the u.s. is using "national security" as a basis for avoiding embarrassment. and if they can do it to avoid embarrassment, they can do it to pretty much whatever the hell they like.

edit: and here they are. aren't they releasing this in the new york times as well?|||Wait, are we just learning that people say things in private that they don't say in public?|||So, they reveal a bunch of stuff everyone already knows and suddenly everyone is upset? +10 faith in humanity.|||The one about the country covering up one of our murder sprees with an unmanned drone for us was kind of lul. You know it happens every day, but you like to pretend it doesn't.

Reality is depressing, after all.|||Quote:








So, they reveal a bunch of stuff everyone already knows and suddenly everyone is upset? +10 faith in humanity.




That's the long and short of it, yes...



So far, I didn't hear anything I didn't think myself (though, I'd have loved to know if and what they said about Berlusconni...)|||I havent read all that much yet, but the way I understand it one of the major problems is that US diplomats have not honored confidenticial sources (that and that they ordered "spying", but that is not really news though is it?). As in, they have heard something from someone, promised to keep the source a secret, and then proceeded to use the source's name in reports back home anyway. And now that these reports are leaked, they now have some serious trust issues. If this is true I understand that they are upset.



That diplomats send reports home that Merkel is (in their analyzis) seen as "indecisive" is, well, meh. Embarrasing, but meh.|||Nobody talks about the U.S. behind its back, after all.

+1 snarky reply|||I don't know what Wikileaks hope to gain or represent by this; it seems awfully childish and irresponsible to blurt out things that is either "public secret" material best left for coloured magazines, or just really aren't any of our ("the public's") business to know, like Saudi Arabia directly recommending an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

At any rate, it's several years of hard negotiation and delicate balancing behind the diplomatic scenes thrown to the gutter for what seems to be a matter of trolling for attention.|||I'm just tickled that the State Dept. has been revealed as the puerile jerks that everyone is always considering the Defense Dept. to be.