The WikiLeaks' State Dept. cables revealed so far have been mildly entertaining. For example, American diplomats reported on President Sarkozy of France (according to the NYT):
But the cables also convey a nuanced assessment of the French leader as a somewhat erratic figure with authoritarian tendencies and a penchant for deciding policy on the fly. ... By January 2010, American diplomats wrote of a high-maintenance ally sometimes too impatient to consult with crucial partners before carrying out initiatives, one who favors summit meetings and direct contacts over traditional diplomacy.
... Mr. Sarkozy was criticized by European diplomats referred to in a cable for an “increasingly erratic” last half of his 2008 European Union presidency.
“Combined, these stories have bolstered the impression that Sarkozy is operating in a zone of monarch-like impunity,” said an Oct. 21, 2009, cable.In December 2009, Mr. Rivkin told Mrs. Clinton: “Sarkozy’s own advisers likewise demonstrate little independence and appear to have little effect on curbing the hyperactive president, even when he is at his most mercurial.” He added: “After two years in office, many seasoned key Élysée staff are leaving for prestigious onward assignments as a reward for their hard work, raising questions as to whether new faces will be any more willing to point out when the emperor is less than fully dressed.”
Nothing terribly surprising here, but gossip is fun. I especially look forward to (hopefully) forthcoming cables about Berlusconi.
What I'd really like WikiLeaks to leak, however, is the exact counterpart of this: what French diplomats are telling Sarkozy about Obama. It would probably be a lot more interesting than what the American press has told the American public about Obama.
For example, if Sarkozy tends toward mania, the obvious question is: does Obama tend toward depression?
Obama's own memoirs suggests that the President suffered through significant depressive episodes in roughly 1981-1983 (a period when his sister asked his mother during a visit, “Barry’s okay, isn’t he? I mean, I hope he doesn’t lose his cool and become one of those freaks you see on the streets around here”) and 2000-2001 (of the 18 months following his crushing defeat by Bobby Rush, Obama wrote, "Denial, anger, bargaining, despair -- I'm not sure I went through all the stages prescribed by the experts. At some point, though, I arrived at acceptance -- of my limits, and, in a way, my mortality.")
Is Obama entering a third depressive phase?
I don't know, but it would seem both interesting and important. Of course, the American press hardly noticed Obama's references to his first two depressive phases, so we can hardly count on them to be on top of this question.
On the other hand, I would suspect the energetic Sarkozy has been pestering his diplomats in Washington to keep him apprised of the Most Important Man in the World's mood swings. Maybe some day we'll be able to read what they've found out.
Posts
54 comments:
WikiLeaks is obviously a well-executed PR operation. The information they're "leaking" is only damaging to the government on a superficial level. In truth, most of it supports neocon foreign policy aims like invading Iran. Pretending to be on the opposite side than the one you are actually on is very effective as it allows you to make bogus "admissions against interest" (this method is also known online as "concern trolling").
The fact that the mass media keeps talking about WikiLeaks is also a dead giveaway. If it were legit, you'd never have heard about it. Treat this stuff as about as authentic as the Niger yellowcake forgeries.
For whom did Barry au pair?
Or Condi and Hillary supported neocon foreign policy aims and their minions made sure to tell them much of what they wanted to hear.
Frankly, I'm more worried about manic phases than depressive. We expect our leaders (both commercial and political) to be manic, and we therefore get delusional utopians. Depressives are more likely to be realistic about the world.
"The fact that the mass media keeps talking about WikiLeaks is also a dead giveaway."
Allowing government officials to selectively leak info to the public is the turf of the MSM. I think this explain the reaction. They show the same disdain for bloggers who provide alternative editorials.
I don't care about any "depression" he may be experiencing. Of course he's depressed. He mentally ill but he's not totally insane. Not totally.
What concerns me, and what should concern the public, is whether he's a liar or not. Now I know all pols lie, just as everyone in the Oval Office gets depressed, and should get depressed. But what lies? No, frankly I don't give a damn about his weepy blues condition. If he feels that way, it may be one of the few honest and appropriate responses he's had to reality in his life.
Steve Sailer: Nothing terribly surprising here...
Nope - nothing at all.
Anyone who gets his information off of the internet [as opposed to the MSM] already knew all of this stuff years ago.
Or at least what's been highlighted so far.
[BTW, has there been any confirmation in the Wikileaks of Spengler's accusation that Dubya made a deal with the Iranians - that if they allowed "The Surge" to succeed, then they'd be allowed to keep their nuclear program?]
Steve Sailer: On the other hand, I would suspect the energetic Sarkozy has been pestering his diplomats in Washington to keep him apprised of the Most Important Man in the World's mood swings.
What good would that information do for the leader of a tin-pot third-world backwater Muslim nation, with no oil reserves, like France?
It's not as though he could act on the information.
These leaks seem pretty harmless - more along a political E! gossip everyone can already figure out for themselves.
Now the purported Russian leak that our press hints at would provide far more revealing information about our own US government.
They way the US press happily urges Russian FSB assisination of the wiki founder, suggest that (a) a leak of Russian info would be far more revealing/damaging for the US and (b) they may do it himself and blame the Russians.
In the Western media, Russia is already semi-vilified so any leaks there would be not be so damaging. However, Russian leaks would expose dodgy US activities that are hidden in Western mainstream press.
The Russian would probably welcome some sort of limited wiki leak. Recall, the Russians are suspected in leaking the Climate Warming Fraud (Climategate) to undermine the corrupt Western Media campaign that was working against their interests.
Anonymous: WikiLeaks is obviously a well-executed PR operation. The information they're "leaking" is only damaging to the government on a superficial level...
Steve Sailer: ...Hillary...
Drudge's lead story makes it look as though the entire operation was mounted to remove Hillary as a possible 2012 primary challenger to the Most Important Man in the World:
WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Tells TIME: Hillary Clinton 'Should Resign'
By Howard Chua-Eoan
Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2010
time.com
Hillary Clinton, Julian Assange said, "should resign." Speaking over Skype from an undisclosed location on Tuesday, the WikiLeaks founder was replying to a question by TIME managing editor Richard Stengel over the diplomatic-cable dump that Assange's organization loosed on the world this past weekend. Stengel had said the U.S. Secretary of State was looking like "the fall guy" in the ensuing controversy, and had asked whether her firing or resignation was an outcome that Assange wanted. "I don't think it would make much of a difference either way," Assange said. "But she should resign if it can be shown that she was responsible for ordering U.S. diplomatic figures to engage in espionage in the United Nations, in violation of the international covenants to which the U.S. has signed up. Yes, she should resign over that"...
Or Condi and Hillary supported neocon foreign policy aims and their minions made sure to tell them much of what they wanted to hear.
Exactly. Don't forget that the CIA analysts in 2002 were pressured into supporting the "Saddam has WMD finding." So presumably leaks of confidential CIA reports might have been cited by the Bush people to bolster their case.
Furthermore, don't forget that most people are getting their "take" on the Wiki documents from reading the articles in the MSM, and the editors there can choose to emphasize whichever bits they'd like.
Does anyone think that leaks of internal Soviet documents in the 1930s would have contained statements like "Ha, ha---Communism is all a fraud!" or "Stalin is a terrible leader!"
Actually, depression is rather rare in individuals of African ancestry.Schizophrenia is a more common mental illness amongst persons of African descent, depression is mostly a 'white man's' disease.
Who would have guessed that the administration Obama's would have most resembled would be Franklin Pierce's?
The President of France is thin-skinned and imperious? Huh. Who would have guessed that?
One of the things revealed so far, is that the Saudis continue to give money to Al Quaida. This was already generally known (or suspected) I believe. But this is overlooked, as is thier funding of mosques in the U.S. because they are our "friends" (i.e., enemies).
Diplomats are government employees - lifers in the federal bureaucracy. I wouldn't expect them to say very much that isn't expected of them to say.
If Obama is suffering from depression, that would be the one respect in which he could honestly claim to resemble Lincoln.
In any event, now that he's lost his "mandate," I think he doesn't have a clue what to do and doesn't care much about anything aside from the 2012 race.
-- JP98
What our enemies and allies really think of the President of the District of Columbia and his awkward, uncouth spouse--inquiring minds want to know.
Auster's portrayal of Julian Assange as Obama's alter-ego is contemptuous and dishonest. Obama is an average IQ mediocrity; Assange, though weird, certainly is not.
From his Forbes' interview :
"
Would you call yourself a free market proponent?
Absolutely. I have mixed attitudes towards capitalism, but I love markets. Having lived and worked in many countries, I can see the tremendous vibrancy in, say, the Malaysian telecom sector compared to U.S. sector...
How do your leaks fit into that?
To put it simply, in order for there to be a market, there has to be information. A perfect market requires perfect information.
There's the famous lemon example in the used car market. It's hard for buyers to tell lemons from good cars, and sellers can't get a good price, even when they have a good car.
By making it easier to see where the problems are inside of companies, we identify the lemons. That means there's a better market for good companies. For a market to be free, people have to know who they're dealing with.
You've developed a reputation as anti-establishment and anti-institution.
Not at all. Creating a well-run establishment is a difficult thing to do, and I've been in countries where institutions are in a state of collapse, so I understand the difficulty of running a company. Institutions don't come from nowhere.
It's not correct to put me in any one philosophical or economic camp, because I've learned from many. But one is American libertarianism, market libertarianism. So as far as markets are concerned I'm a libertarian, but I have enough expertise in politics and history to understand that a free market ends up as monopoly unless you force them to be free.
WikiLeaks is designed to make capitalism more free and ethical.
But in the meantime, there could be a lot of pain from these scandals, obviously.
Pain for the guilty.
http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenberg/2010/11/29/an-interview-with-wikileaks-julian-assange/
"
I've yet to see Obama defend the free market.
"What I'd really like WikiLeaks to leak, however, is the exact counterpart of this: what French diplomats are telling Sarkozy about Obama."
Bored with Snooki already?
I agree, Obama and his quirks are much more entertaining, in a morose sort of way.
Obama's depression is a kind of put-on myth. Obama put on the DEPRESSION act to fool people around him. He wanted to come across as tragic and heroic. You know, something like 'one has to have been at the valley to appreciate the view from the mountaintop' or something like that said by Teddy Roosevelt and reiterated by Nixon when he left office. 'Great leaders' love to tell us of their great emotional ups and downs, of their heroic struggle and tragic bearing of the cross.
It was Obama trying to DRAMATIZE(and even spiritualize) his life as something grand, almost Napoleonic. Someone who has suffered the worst of defeats, only to climb out of the hole with great resilience and survive. Like Ali losing his championship in the 60s only to regain in from Foreman.
I don't doubt Obama was very upset by the setbacks, but I think he did put on the "I'm so tragically depressed act" for people around him to make himself seem like Othello of the age. Even before he ran for president, Obama wasn't only looking at others but looking at how others looked at him. He wanted them to see him as a man capable of great emotions, great tragedy, and great strength to dig out of the hole.
It's all a sham since he pretty much knew that he had it made as long he played to Jewish power and white suckerdom.
So, don't fall for the PASSION OF OBAMA. It's too much a bogus rehashing of Jesus's deep doubts before His crucifixion and ascension as the savior of mankind and Son of God.
I say boo hoo hooey.
(If Sarah is smart, she ought to do the 'silent suffering' thing. The problem is she suffers too publicly at every slight. It makes her look petty whereas Obama's supposed deep dark depression makes him sound tragic and sympathetic.)
The Wikileaks has yet to reveal Obama's college transcripts.
The Sad Negro is a fixture in American myth and history. Old Man River, Oh Old Man River.
White people are moved by that shit, and Obama's mythic depression is his Old Man River act.
French higher education being recognized as so much better than ours, I'd rather see the French assessment of what Obama knows/understands, than anything about his depression. Wouldn't it be great to see a sentence something like, "The essence of the Arab character seems mostly lost on Mr. Obama.
Noboooooooooooooody knows the trouble I seen, Nobody knows but Jesus.
I want the tit-for-tat we take your peasants and you keep the oil flowing memos with Mexico.
WikiLeaks would be a lot more meaningful if we had some Russian, Chinese or, as you say, French leaks. The US is actually fairly bad at keeping secrets anyway, none of this stuff is shocking. I assume Salange is just scared of pissing off the Russians and Chinese, or is it also the fact that he probably doesn't know a foreign language well? One thing this brouhaha has revealed is that using English is actually a strategic handicap for the US in foreign policy. If you use a language most foreigners can't speak well, then very few foreign journalists can be bothered to translate.
"WikiLeaks is obviously a well-executed PR operation....In truth, most of it supports neocon foreign policy aims like invading Iran."
I've thought of this too. It's not just the Iran stuff, although that's definiteky a part of it. Some of the leaks (or "leaks") say that China is supposedly getting tired of supporting North Korea. This doesn't seem very likely. As America's influence wains, so does South Korea's. In 10 years will the US still have the money to keep 40,000 troops there? Probably not. That means that the team China supports (the North) has good things going for it. In the real world the Chinese should be feeling good about this, but in those "leaks" we saw a confirmation of the neocon view instead.
"Or Condi and Hillary supported neocon foreign policy aims and their minions made sure to tell them much of what they wanted to hear."
That could also be true.
loved the onion piece though, that was awesome.
So wht can't Wikileaks find Obama's birth certificate and his various theses?
Assange says he has stuff from a major US bank. Now *that* should be interesting. Or internal memos from the Fed, how about DHS? The ACLU? La Raza? The 'Open Society Institute'.
Just about anything would be more interesting than these diplomatic cables -- at least the ones I've read so far. A diplomats assessment of a foreign leader is really probably no more accurate than that of a decent foreign correspondent (in fact, there is probably a good bit of 'borrowing' between the two forms).
Why stop there? Wouldn't you like to know about his sexual activity prior to and during his marriage to Michelle? Or what about his drug use? Of course, I'm sure Hillary knows all those things and Obama knows she knows. She certainly didn't sleep her way to a powerful position in the Obama administration.
you really hate that negro don't you?
lol.
Or, reality is ugly and intrudes on the hyper-Libertarian fantasies of an America alone in the universe.
WikiLeaks revealed sources and methods including critical Afghan and Iraqi helpers in identifying Taliban and Iranian/AQ operatives. Putting them and their families on a death sentence and killing the US effort to combat both. Which means more dead US servicemen.
Wikileaks cable dump shows that Gulf Arabs are scared to death of Iran, fund AQ to get them off their backs, have a seething populace which cannot be told the truth about US UAV drone strikes on AQ camps internally, are corrupt, and that North Korea and Iran are cooperating with the help of Russia and China (the latter conducting open Cyberwarfare against the US military, government, and companies). Critically, China has been a third party facilitator for Iran getting forbidden technology (dual use forbidden to Iran is sent to China which transfers it to Iran).
The US has enemies (China, Russia) which have been using deniable proxies (Iran, elements in Pakistan) to make trouble for the US without cost.
Wikileaks makes Obama look weak, impotent, a liar, and stupid in facing up to real threats with hot air rhetoric.
Assange is an idiot. Hillary ordering spying on UN diplomats makes her more popular not less with Americans. Since most Americans figure it would be a good idea, and a mark of balls not eunuch-ism. Heck Hillary could run for the nomination as a Clintonian centrist arguing that she alone possess the balls to take on foreign challenges.
I don't think Obama's depression matters that much. If he was or was not, he's unable intellectually or constitutionally to use military force or the credible threat of it to get things he needs:
A. Iran to back off nukes and thus back off its play to control the Persian Gulf to Eastern Med.
B. Pakistan to play ball on securing nuke material.
C. China to put a leash on North Korea.
With a global financial system interconnected and thus instability wired right in to every country in the world, keeping things stable by credible US military action is vital. Could Obama threaten China with say, arming Japan and South Korea and Australia with nukes to counter North Korea? Or high tariffs on Chinese goods if they don't keep a leash on North Korea and stop helping Iran's nuke program?
Nope. He's even less capable of bombing the hell out of Iran (which would be wildly domestically popular and takes a play out of Republicans) to get in exchange oil prices at $40 a barrel for three years (there's your economic stimulus right there). Brent and WTI Crude has been hovering around $85 a barrel for months. A massive and temporary cut to about half which the Saudis could do in exchange for US plastering their enemies would stimulate the economy massively: almost everything gets cheaper. Too bad for Iranians, but Obama is supposed to be President of the US not Iran or "the World."
"Wikileaks makes Obama look weak, impotent, a liar, and stupid in facing up to real threats with hot air rhetoric."
Let me edit that for you Sport:
"The nonsense I post every day makes me look weak, impotent, a liar, and stupid in facing up to real threats with hot air rhetoric."
Don't mention it.
Back when he was EU President, Nicholas Sarkozy attempted to massively restrict immigration to the European Union by limiting the number of residency permits that member nations could dispense. He failed due to opposition from interior ministers of other nations, but at least Sarkozy tried.
Read about it: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,564674,00.html
For what it's worth, Mr. Sarkozy has cut back on immigration to France somewhat during his own tenure in office.
Two factual "dots" might be part of the info constellation: His maternal great grandmother, Ruth Lucille Armour (Dunham) killed herself at age 25, having married the schizoid Ralph Waldo Emerson Dunham when she was 15. "Barry" reported put away lots and lots of primo reefer and that can be sufficient to land a person in the pits. His use of reefer seems to have been compulsive and prolonged. He remains incapable of kicking the cigarette habit. If he gets in the pits when he tries ( reportedly, he's made many efforts ) that surely is noteworthy. What is conjectured re whether Stanley Ann Dunham (Obama) breast fed him at all? He has that "thumb sucking" Similac look. ??
OT: I guess gc is not really surprised by this...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9243000/9243902.stm
French higher education being recognized as so much better than ours,
Really? What has superior French education accomplished in modern historical times?
"The French are so sophisticated" = archtypical Stuff White Peepul Like affectation.
I'm not particularly keen on people who are perpetually sunny. As De Gaulle said when asked if he was happy, "what do you take me for? an idiot?" Churchill was frequently depressed too.
"He's even less capable of bombing the hell out of Iran ... to get in exchange oil prices at $40 a barre"
This makes less sense than the stuff Whiskey usually posts here. How is bombing the hell out of Iran supposed to lower oil prices? Did that work so well when we bombed the hell out of Iraq?
His maternal great grandmother, Ruth Lucille Armour (Dunham) killed herself at age 25, having married the schizoid Ralph Waldo Emerson Dunham when she was 15. "Barry" reported put away lots and lots of primo reefer and that can be sufficient to land a person in the pits. His use of reefer seems to have been compulsive and prolonged. He remains incapable of kicking the cigarette habit.
In my own limited personal experience [n = a rather small number], substance abuse correlates strongly with depression [and/or mania and/or bipolar disease].
What has superior French education accomplished in modern historical times?
In the post-war era:
1950: Laurent Schwartz
1954: Jean-Pierre Serre
1958: René Thom
1966: Alexander Grothendieck
1978: Pierre Deligne [Belgium & IHES]
1982: Alain Connes
1994: Pierre-Louis Lions
1994: Jean-Christophe Yoccoz
2002: Laurent Lafforgue
2006: Wendelin Werner [Germany]
2010: Ngô Bảo Châu [Vietnam]
2010: Cédric Villani
I don't think Hillary ever slept her way to any position.
Among the Wikileak revelations, to be detailed in The [NY]Times in coming days:
¶ "A dangerous standoff with Pakistan over nuclear fuel: Since 2007, the United States has mounted a highly secret effort, so far unsuccessful, to remove from a Pakistani research reactor highly enriched uranium that American officials fear could be diverted for use in an illicit nuclear device."
Makes you wonder if Pakistan really has any nuclear weapons after all? Israel doesn't seem worried. Could it be those five they set off back in the 1990's (all five on one day!) was some kind of hoax?
Once India tested theirs it would have been in everyone's interest if the Pakistani masses only thought they had nukes too, when in reality they did not, for the simple reason that they could not afford them. China, the U.S., India, Israel -- they all went along with the ploy, as did the Pakistani elites themselves, who had no love for bankruptcy.
If this is right it would be one reason less for the U.S. to stay militarily involved in that God-forsaken corner of the world.
If the Gulf Arabs want Iran bombed to hell, why not let them do it? They have lots of money and lots of young men.
It says a lot when the neoconservatives and the King of Saudi Arabia are on the same side. The neoconservatives are demented, power hungry, and an extension of the AIPAC-Likud-NY-DC axis. Tell them to get lost.
Enough American money and lives have been wasted bashing the Middle Eastern beehive. Let's get out completely and put those troops of the U.S.-Mexico border.
The neoconservatives, by the way, love Israel's border fences.... but don't want us to have a border fence or border troops. They should just end up becoming Democrats...... after all, the Democrats are the party of the jack@s.
Luke Lea:
Perhaps the concern is selling the highly-enriched uranium to someone else who wants a bomb? This is, after all, a business model that's worked for Pakistan in the past.
The incentives for nonproliferation are all screwed up. Everyone on Earth understands that the day after Iran test fires its first nuke, the whole "bomb bomb Iran" idea will be permanently off the table. In particular, the guys running things in Iran certainly know it. This has consequences.
IMO, this is where the invasion of Iraq really screwed us over. The message was basically, "If it looks like good domestic politics to pick some random thugocracy and invade it, that's just what we'll do, even if it poses no threat to anyone outside its borders." If you're Iranian, and you're looking at domestic politics in the US that might very well reward another such invasion, my guess is you've got a hell of an incentive to get nukes.
We're setting ourselves up for a world where there are 40-50 open nuclear powers. This will not be a nice world in which to live.
Steve:
Is there any reason to think the foreign diplomats' understanding of Obama's personality would be better than that of Americans'? Do you suppose any insiders in, say, Italian or German politics got deep new insights about Berlesconi or Merkel based on the leaked cables describing them in unflattering terms?
Truth said...
...
Let me edit that for you Sport:
"The nonsense I post every day makes me look weak, impotent, a liar, and stupid in facing up to real threats with hot air rhetoric."
Don't mention it.
Hey Truth, I think its the first time I unconditionally agreed with you!
I agree with josh that the media is only concerned about competition from wikileaks. The NYT cannot compete against a free online source which pumps out multiple amounts of incriminating data.
Unlike most of the MSM, I took the trouble to read a few cables. Most of it was obvious and not terribly embarrassing. THe reaction of the media and the western governments is telling and deeply embarrassing. That we are being run by such a bunch of thin-skinned paranoid lightweights, that's what's worrying me.
I'm really looking forward to the dirt on a large US bank coming Jan 2011.
Churchill suffered from the "black dog" as well. The question is why Barry, who has been lucky far beyond what his abilities and accomplishments deserve, should be depressed? Has it suddenly dawned that he's not the smartest-guy-in the-room after all?
BTW asdasfdas take is certainly interesting and in character (Barry's that is).
For what it's worth, Mr. Sarkozy has cut back on immigration to France somewhat during his own tenure in office.
Absolutely not. Legal immigration in France will be something like 200,000 people (plus dependents) in 2010. Immigration actually rose mightily since Sarko is president.
Sarko's strategy is: vociferous speeches and purely symbolic gestures to appeal to conservative white voters, and lax policies to please his millionaire friends, who want cheap labor.
Basically, any illegal alien who finds a job in France can be legalized. It's a permanent, slow motion amnesty for illegal immigrants.
Similarly, Sarko is very vociferous in his "law and order" speeches, but he discreetly suppressed 10,000 police jobs. Crime is on the rise, and the manipulation of crime statistics can't hide it anymore.
Sarko supports affirmative action (against the wishes of the majority of the French) and he likes "la diversité". He even wanted it included in the constitution (which would have made affirmative action legal, even compulsory) but this particular modification of the constitution was rejected even by Sarko's political friends.
Vilko makes Sarkozy sound like a French version of Leon Wieseltier or David Gelbaum.
Fancy that.
"Actually, depression is rather rare in individuals of African ancestry.Schizophrenia is a more common mental illness amongst persons of African descent, depression is mostly a 'white man's' disease."
So maybe he is half depressed.
"Actually, depression is rather rare in individuals of African ancestry.Schizophrenia is a more common mental illness amongst persons of African descent, depression is mostly a 'white man's' disease."
' "So maybe he is half depressed." '
..and the other half is schizophrenic.
finally it makes sense.
Everyone on Earth understands that the day after Iran test fires its first nuke, the whole "bomb bomb Iran" idea will be permanently off the table.
Au contraire, after Iran test fires its first nuke will be the proper and just time to hit 'em hard before they make more.
Post a Comment