Unfortunately, the United States didn’t have too much to be thankful for this past Thanksgiving. Korea’s shenanigans have escalated, Sarah Palin keeps threatening to run for office in 2012, and marijuana’s still illegal. Oh, and there was something about some website releasing secret U.S. documents.

On Saturday, WikiLeaks began to release groups of 251,287 retrieved secret and confidential government cables. These cables reveal snarky comments about foreign leaders among our government and diplomats. Italy’s foreign minister, Franco Frattini, called WikiLeaks a ‘diplomatic 9/11.’ OK, slow down, this is not a terrorist attack. It’s the unveiling of an international burn book.

Parts of this disaster rival the movie ‘Mean Girls,’ just with a larger setting and less interesting characters. The culprit of the catfight is none other than WikiLeaks Editor in Chief Julian Assange, also known as the uglier Lucius Malfoy.

The leaks among the State Department, U.S. diplomats and international embassies include insults, such as describing Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi as being ‘physically and politically weak,’ in addition to being known for ‘frequent late nights and (a) penchant for partying hard.’ German Chancellor Angela Merkel is said to ‘avoid risks and is rarely creative.’ And North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is a ‘flabby old chap.’

Even worse is that the president of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, was called ‘a gracious guest at a wild wedding, where he gave the couple a lump of gold.’ Libya’s leader, Col.Muammar el Qaddafi, is frequently seen with a ‘voluptuous blonde,’ often referred to as his ‘Ukrainian nurse.’ And Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin are good friends.

Meow.

In less catty cables, Saudi Arabia wants the United States to bomb Iran, and Afghanistan is corrupt. And all this time we thought we only had to worry about Mexico.

Most skeptical was a July 2009 document cable asking U.S. diplomats to compile information on foreign diplomats that included such material as credit card numbers, frequent flier miles and biographical data. The document is signed ‘CLINTON.’

Assange spoke to Time magazine from an undisclosed location saying Madame Secretary ‘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.’

The allegations are embarrassing, but Hillary Clinton’s been through worse. Unsurprisingly, Assange was living in Australia during Bill Clinton’s term. Little does he know that as long as Monica Lewinski stays out of the picture, she’ll be OK.

More importantly, the State Department has acknowledged the leaks but has assured the world that its officers have never been required to spy. Putting to rest any fears about foreign diplomats letting their frequent flier miles go to waste.

Luckily, the Pentagon was quick to take care of the security breach. According to an article for The Associated Press written by Kimberly Dozier and Anne Gearan on Nov. 30, ‘The Pentagon has detailed new security safeguards, including restraints on small computer flash drives, to make it harder for any one person to copy and reveal so many secrets. The clampdown parallels efforts at other agencies.’

And America continues the tradition of waiting until something bad happens to implement all necessary precautions.

So what’s next for the whistle-blowing website? On Nov. 11, Assange spoke to Andy Greenberg of Forbes Magazines and said WikiLeaks’ next victim will be a major American bank: ‘It will give a true and representative insight into how banks behave at the executive level in a way that will stimulate investigations and reforms, I presume.’ Except I’m pretty sure Michael Moore’s documentary, ‘Capitalism: A Love Story,’ already tackled that topic. Wall Street sucks, we know this already.

Assange was sure to add that the not-yet-released documents ‘could take down a bank or two.’ Yeah, the recession already took care of that.

The government cables have certainly caused an uproar, but they didn’t reveal anything earth shattering. Assange may think he’s the pioneer in a coming age of transparency, but he basically proved that politicians don’t like other politicians.

Lauren Tousignant is a junior writing and communication and rhetorical studies major. She is the opinion editor at The Daily Orange, where her column appears occasionally. She can be reached at letousig@syr.edu.

 

Published on December 1, 2010 at 12:00 pm