WikiLeaks

WikiLeaked US Military Video

WikiLeaks obtained another quarter million classified documents from US Embassies, congressional and foreign delegates, and administration officials discussing foreign politicians and affairs. In the first installment, WikiLeaks released 243 wire message cables.  The exposé site went a little too far with its publication of “Secret” and “Classified” documents that reveal confidential sources, putting many in current war zones and other sensitive areas at risk. Reckless publications could very likely have a compromising effect on future informants, as they fear repercussions of further leaks.  But considering the revelations within in the 251,287 cables, from an investigative reporting standpoint, I must say, HALLELUIAH!

Since Woodward and Bernstein published Deep Throat’s damning information about the Nixon administration, journalism has spiraled downhill, with media chasing business profits more than intellectual esteem.  WikiLeaks provides an incredibly deep look into the US’s approach to foreign affairs.  Embassy documents analyze Panamanian and Honduran dictators and coups.  Diplomats weigh nuclear reduction strategies in Iran and Pakistan.  Reports even prepare post-Kim Jong-il strategies for North and South Korea.  These reports infiltrate 270 embassies and consulates worldwide and provide unprecedented access to diplomatic thinking in the twenty first century.

While the Iraq and Afghanistan reports will receive the most attention (due to their sensitivity to current events), I’ve found the longer-term analyzes to be the most fascinating.  Here is an excerpt from a 2007 cable from the American Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Christopher W. Dell, breaking-down Robert Mugabe’s 27 year rule:

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe

Robert Mugabe has survived for so long because he is more
 clever and more ruthless than any other politician in
 Zimbabwe. To give the devil his due, he is a brilliant 
tactitian and has long thrived on his ability to abruptly
 change the rules of the game, radicalize the political
 dynamic and force everyone else to react to his agenda. However, he is fundamentally hampered by several factors:
 his ego and belief in his own infallibility; his obsessive
 focus on the past as a justification for everything in the
 present and future; his deep ignorance on economic issues 
(coupled with the belief that his 18 doctorates give him
 the authority to suspend the laws of economics, including
 supply and demand); and his essentially short-term,
 tactical style.

While his tactical skills have kept him in power for 27
 years, over the last seven this has only been achieved by a
 series of populist, but destructive and ultimately
 self-defeating moves. In reaction to losing the 2000 
referendum on the constitution, a vengeful Mugabe unleashed 
his "Green Bombers" to commit land reform and in the
 process he destroyed Zimbabwe's agricultural sector, once the 
bedrock of the economy. While thousands of white farmers
 saw their properties seized, hundreds of thousands of black 
Zimbabweans lost their livelihoods and were reduced to utter
poverty. In 2005, having been forced to steal victory by
 manipulating the results of an election he lost, Mugabe
 lashed out again, punishing the urban populace by launching 
Operation Murambatsvina. The result was wholesale
 destruction of the informal sector, on which as much as
 70-80 percent of urban dwellers had depended, and the
 uprooting of 700,000 Zimbabweans. The current inflationary cycle really began with Murambatsvina, as rents and prices
 grew in response to a decrease in supply.

Zimbabwean Hyper Inflation

And now, faced with the hyper inflationary consequences
 of his ruinous fiscal policies and growing reliance on the printing press to keep his government running, Mugabe has
launched Operation Slash Prices. This has once again given
 him a very temporary boost in popularity (especially among the police, who have led the looting of retail outlets and 
now seem well positioned to take a leading role in the
 black market economy) at the cost of terrible damage to the
 country and people. Many small grocery and shop owners,
 traders, etc., will be wiped out; the shelves are
 increasingly bare; hunger, fear, and tension are growing;
 fuel has disappeared. When the shelves are still empty 
this time next week, the popular appeal of the price roll
 back will evaporate and the government simply doesn't have 
the resources to replace the entire private commercial
 sector and keep Zimbabweans fed. It may attempt to do so
by printing more money, adding even more inflationary
 pressure on a system already reeling from the GOZ's
 quasi-fiscal lunacy combined with the price impact of
 pervasive shortages. The increasingly worthless Zim dollar
is likely to collapse as a unit of trade in the near 
future, depriving the GOZ of its last economic tool other
than sheer thuggery and theft of others' assets.

With all this in view, I'm convinced the end is not far off for the Mugabe regime.

~Christopher W. Dell, US Ambassador to Zimbabwe, 7/13/2007

WikiLeaks