WikiLeaks and secret diplomacy

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WikiLeaks and secret diplomacy
7 December 2010

As diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks continue to be published—revealing
each day new information on the sordid maneuvers of American imperialism in
various parts of the world—the US government is going on the offensive. It is
leading an international campaign targeting WikiLeaks founder Jullian Assange
and the organization’s web site.

To justify the witch-hunt against WikiLeaks, which has not committed any crime,
innumerable government officials and media commentators have come to the defense
of secret diplomacy, declaring the practice of conducting negotiations, hatching
plots and making deals behind the backs of the people a positive virtue and even
a bulwark of peace and democracy.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been among the most vocal in
denouncing WikiLeaks, declaring that the publication of thousands of cables “is
an attack on the international community, the alliances and partnerships, the
conventions and negotiations that safeguard global security and advance economic
prosperity.”

What is the actual content of these “negotiations that safeguard global
security”? The WikiLeaks documents—only a small fraction of which have as yet
been made public—provide a glimpse of the nexus of corrupt relations and
criminal operations carried out in secret by the US government.

One telling example, reported in the World Socialist Web Site yesterday, is a
conversation between Clinton and then-Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in
March of 2009. Clinton complained of the difficulty of the US taking action to
curb China’s growing influence, given China’s stockpile of nearly $2 trillion in
dollar-denominated assets. “How do you deal toughly with your banker?” she asked.

Rudd emphasized that while he hoped China could be integrated into the framework
of a US-dominated Asia-Pacific region, it was necessary for the US and its
allies to prepare “to deploy force if everything goes wrong.”

A war between the US and China would trigger a global catastrophe. The very fact
that it is discussed as an option is indicative of the militarist conspiracies
being hatched in the course of Washington’s secret diplomacy.

In the past few months, the US has sharply escalated its provocations against
China, in parallel with its demands for China to revalue its currency. Clinton
herself last month cited a US-Japanese military pact when discussing the dispute
between China and Japan over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.

More and more, global relations resemble the periods that led up to World War I
and World War II, with the United States at the center of increasingly unstable
conflicts. Building on the bloody wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—which have killed
hundreds of thousands—the US is preparing new provocations. Global tensions are
rising in the wake of the capitalist crisis. The interests of the major powers
in all corners of the globe threaten to turn innumerable local conflicts in
Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East into global
conflagrations between nuclear-armed states.

In considering the question of diplomatic secrecy, it is worth recalling the
attitude taken by the US government in an earlier period. In the aftermath of
the First World War, US President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed in 1918 an era of
open diplomacy.

In announcing his Fourteen Points, he declared, “It will be our wish and purpose
that the processes of peace, when they are begun, shall be absolutely open and
that they shall involve and permit henceforth no secret understandings of any
kind. The day of conquest and aggrandizement is gone by; so is also the day of
secret covenants entered into in the interest of particular governments and
likely at some unlooked-for moment to upset the peace of the world.”

The first of the Fourteen Points—which Wilson put forward as the proposed basis
for a post-war settlement—was a call for “open covenants of peace, openly
arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings
of any kind, but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.”
[Emphasis added].

Wilson’s pacifism and call for open diplomacy were thoroughly hypocritical,
motivated by US attempts to undermine the position of its competitors in Europe.
As the rising imperialist power, American capitalism could benefit from breaking
down the old colonial and inter-state structures established under the
domination of England.

The Fourteen Points, moreover, were aimed at refurbishing capitalism in the wake
of the catastrophic war and the Russian Revolution. The revolutionary government
led by Lenin and Trotsky quickly published all the secret treaties in its
possession, documenting the imperialist carve-up of the world that had produced
the war and the drive for territories, markets and resources that comprised the
real war aims of all the warring powers.

Nevertheless, the call for open diplomacy was an acknowledgement of the broadly
held view that secret negotiations and treaties constituted a permanent threat
to world peace. They violated basic conceptions of democracy, as they removed
foreign policy from all public oversight and control.

It is precisely this secrecy that the United States is now so determined to
safeguard. As the strength of American capitalism has declined, the component of
its foreign policy infused with lies, criminality and imperialist intrigue has
increased. The US is now engaged in perpetual wars of plunder and is constantly
planning for the next war.

American policy depends crucially on secrecy and lies precisely because it is in
such irreconcilable conflict with the interests of the people of the United
States and the world. It is notable that the official reaction to the latest
batch of WikiLeaks documents is even more hysterical than the response to the
previous exposures of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. The release of the
State Department cables has potentially destabilizing implications for US policy
in every part of the globe.

The virtually unanimous defense of secret diplomacy and condemnation of
WikiLeaks among liberals as well as conservatives is an expression of the
disintegration of any democratic consciousness within the ruling elite,
including the media. During the period of Watergate and the Pentagon Papers,
sections of the media considered it their job to expose the secret agreements
and operations of the government to public view. Today, the various pundits and
commentators do not bat an eye when it is suggested that the American government
should assassinate Assange.

WikiLeaks has done the world’s population a great service in helping to bring
these secret negotiations to light. The revelations strengthen the hand of the
working class as it enters into struggle against the policies of the corporate
and financial elite.

The vicious reaction of world powers to the revelations, however, serve to
demonstrate that an end to imperialist intrigue and war can come only through
the overthrow of the capitalist social relations that give rise to them.

Joseph Kishore

http://wsws.org/articles/2010/dec2010/pers-d07.shtml

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