Sunday, November 28, 2010

Editorial: A teachable moment

"It does put lives at risk," pompously declared the State Department's Philip J. Crowley Wednesay. "It does put national interests at risk."

Really? What's that? The Iraq War? The Afghanistan War? The US drone attacks in Pakistan?

No, no, no.

What's putting the US at risk, according to Crowley, is not what has been done but that what has been done might be exposed.

wikileaks

WikiLeaks is allegedly on the verge of another release of documents. These documents are said to be revealing in many ways with rumors including that they will reveal that the US government has been backing the PKK. The US government placed the PKK on a list of terrorist groups and never it took it off that list. England, Turkey, the European Union and other bodies consider the PKK to be a terrorist group. The PKK is Kurdish rebels who seek a Kurdish homeland and the government of Turkey sees that as an assault on their territorial integrity.

Throughout the Iraq War, the White House -- regardless of the occupant -- has insisted that they are committed to defeating the PKK and have shared information from surveilance drones with the Turkish government allowing the Turkish military to plan overhead bombing raids along the northern border of Iraq where the PKK has set up camp.

But, again, supposedly WikiLeaks' latest release will include documents revealing that this entire time the US government has been backing the PKK.

So you can understand why the State Department is disgracing itself.

CNN reports that Harold Hongju Koh, State Dept. Legal Adviser, is insisting that "releasing such documents could jeopardize relationships with allies, military actions and anti-terrorism." And when Koh starts blustering, we have to wonder why he sounds like an abusive husband threatening his wife with more abuse should she tell anyone he beats her?

If there's anything embarrassing in the papers, it's things that already took place. The US government has spent enough time in the shadows and only a fool would ever think they could remain there. The WikiLeaks release, if it's anything like the advance rumors, should (a) allow the American people to know what THEIR EMPLOYEES are doing IN THEIR NAME and (b) remind the government that, if only to avoid embarrassment, you need to behave lawfully and honorably.