To Tell or Not to Tell?

*For some reason, this blog post never posted, I found it in my drafts. It's from May 5th.

There are many arguments whether or not our government needs to be more open or more secretive. The recent releases of classified documents by WikiLeaks has not helped the fight towards more transparency in government one bit. Many believe, especially those in the United State government, that the disclosures of American diplomatic logs to the public have hurt American diplomatic ties. Some say other disclosures have placed innocent lives at risk.

But have these releases really hurt America? Can these documents prevent us from having good relations with other countries?

To me, it seems that these documents have been classified for a completely different reason. I do believe that some of these documents have been classified in order to protect people because I do know they could in danger if their governments know what they have shared with the United States. However, I believe that many of these disclosures are to withhold information from the American people about the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to author Micah Sifry, who wrote The Age of Transparency, the government classified this information in order to "prevent the American public from understanding the full impact of of the invasion and occupation of Iraq."

By withholding information, the government tried to maintain support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some people had been comparing the situation in Afghanistan to that of Vietnam, feeling that the situation in Afghanistan had no end and that we were getting involved in something that shouldn't have been necessarily our business.

I believe that the government was more concerned about not embarrassing themselves and maintaining public opinion rather than if American diplomatic ties were severed with the WikiLeaks leaks. Even Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said after the leak of the American diplomatic cables that "governments deal with the United States because it is in their interest. Not because they like us, not because they trust us and not because they believe we can keep secrets.”

I believe that the government's backlash against WikiLeaks is more about preserving the government's reputation and avoid embarrassment/scandal than about diplomatic relations or protecting people's lives.