It is no surprise that the rabid american right wing is calling for the literal decapitation of Wikileaks but most of the leaks simply confirm that the real threat to the world is posed by totalitarian or authoritarian regimes like China, the hypocritical Saudis, Iran, Russia, Libya as well as autocrats like Berlusconi in Europe (who comes across as Putin's client) and various central Asian regimes ... Definitely US diplomacy in the past 50 years has played along with various dictatorship in Europe, Asia and South America to contain communism. In Korea, Indonesia and central america the US was definitely involved in crimes against humanity. And in Italy US interests could have flirted with deviant parts of the state to create a climate of tension.
Under Bush the mistakes committed in the struggle against communism were to some extent replicated by farming out torture in repressive states.
But the growth of the global media has changed the terrain drastically. Even the despicable acts of the Bush era (like the use of torture and the illegal invasion of Iraq) pale in comparison with those of former Presidents between the end of the second world war and the 1980s.
This coupled by major political changes with right wing military dictatorships being replaced by democracies in most of Latin America and south east Asia.
Left wing groups obsessed by Nato and the USA should better refocus their energies on the real despots and autocrats and hold the west to account on its dealings with the various mad dogs. For who backs the Burmese regime and Sudan in Darfur? And who plays blackmail with immigrants crossing the Mediterranean sea?
Surely wikileaks has also exposed the mess in Afghanistan and the corrupt regime installed there. But surely allowing the Taliban to win back power cannot be part of the agenda of anyone cherishing progressive values.
Ironically old leftists who still defer to China, Libya and even North Korea are the real reactionaries. The world has changed and in a multipolar world the US is one of many actors, some of which more brutal and definitely madder.
As regards the US itself the real danger is an internal one...the rabid right wing represented by the tea party whose triumph would make America more like the autocratic regimes which are rightly held in to account by its diplomacy. If most unfortunately the price of this is Clintonian normality rather than the audacity of hope...so be it.
Nessuna festa.
5 hours ago

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