The sound and fury directed at Wikileaks in the last month has (largely) been against the group itself rather than the revelations in the cables. Salon’s Glenn Greenwald outlines what we now know and why many in the political and media elites are afraid of the public learning of crimes committed in their names:
As revealing as the disclosures themselves are, the reactions to them have been equally revealing.… The vast bulk of the outrage has been devoted not to the crimes that have been exposed but rather to those who exposed them:… … WikiLeaks and (allegedly)… Bradley Manning.… A consensus quickly emerged in the political and media class that they are Evil Villains who must be severely punished, while those responsible for the acts they revealed are guilty of nothing.… That reaction has not been weakened at all even by the Pentagon’s own admission that, in stark contrast to its own actions, there is no evidence — zero — that any of WikiLeaks’ actions has caused even a single death.… Meanwhile, the American establishment media — even in the face of all these revelations — continues to insist on the contradictory, Orwellian platitudes that (a)… there is Nothing… Newâ„¢ in anything disclosed by WikiLeaks and… (b)… WikiLeaks has done Grave Harm to American National Securityâ„¢ through its disclosures.
It’s unsurprising that political leaders would want to convince people that the true criminals are those who expose acts of high-level political corruption and criminality, rather than those who perpetrate them.… Every political leader would love for that self-serving piety to take hold.… But what’s startling is how many citizens and, especially, “journalists” now vehemently believe that as well.… … In light of what WikiLeaks has revealed to the world about numerous governments, just fathom the authoritarian mindset that would lead a citizen — and especially a “journalist” — to react with anger that these things have been revealed; to insist that these facts should have been kept concealed and it’d be better if we didn’t know; and, most of all, to demand that those who made us aware of it all be punished (the… True Criminals)… while those who did these things (The… Good… Authorities)… be shielded.