What the Founding Fathers Would Say About Wikileaks
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Wikileaks Vs. the U.S. Media
All the pseudo-patriots all calling for the head of Wikileaks. Sarah Palin even has accused the Australian founder of engaging in treason and his organization should be hunted down in the same manner as al Qaeda. Never mind that only Americans can legally commit treason.
These people, voices on the right, claim they stand for the constitution and for classical liberal all the while they champion state secrecy, militarism and Big Government in the name of war.
That is because they do not understand the document nor the principles they preach. What would our oft-quoted (but rarely truly understood) Founding Father have said about Wikileaks:
Conservatives want us to just place confidence in our leaders and trust them in the name of safety. Bullshit!
Jefferson: “[I]t would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights: that confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism – free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power.”
And what about the balance between security and liberty: Again, Jefferson: “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.”
And what about the seemingly legitimate compliment that foreign policy cannot be conducted if diplomatic cables are released. Not true. It depends on what foreign policy you want.
WikiLeaks’ critics will say that foreign policy cannot be conducted in public. As stated, that assertion is false. It is only an imperial foreign policy that cannot be conducted in public. A policy of global policing and intervention does indeed require secrecy and intrigue, but the pacific foreign policy envisioned by Jefferson and George Washington – “The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible” – does not.
It is the rejection of George Washington’s advice that has caused Americans to be concerned about their safety, especially when flying.
Many foreign policy “experts” hype the “dark, violent side” of Islam. Yet anti-American terrorism originating in the Muslim world has been solely in retaliation for US military invasions, occupations, and covert wars that have taken countless innocent lives. The work of Robert Pape, founder of the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism, establishes this beyond a reasonable doubt. How would Americans react to a foreign occupation?
Moreover, foreign intervention and the inevitable retaliatory “blowback” have brought a frightening devaluation of our privacy and other civil liberties. As the late professor Chalmers Johnson put it, either give up the empire or live under it.
