November 2010

Hrishiraj Bhattacharjee

‘I want people to see the truth… regardless of who they are… because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public … [and] hopefully [my action shall start] worldwide discussions, debates and reforms.’
– Private Bradley Manning, alleged source of Wikileaks for US embassy cables.

Perhaps it is too early to predict whether the leaked US diplomatic cables will produce any of the reforms as hoped by Private Bradley Manning. But, as far as generating worldwide discussions and debates are concerned, Private Bradley Manning could not have been more accurate in his predictions. It won’t be an overstatement that no single incident since the end of the Cold War has generated such immense reaction from the diplomatic world, as has been done through the leakage of more than 250,000 classified US embassy cables by the whistleblower website Wikileaks. Wikileaks has termed this episode as Cablegate, going by the long tradition of attaching the word ‘-gate’ with American scandals. Reactions from various American stakeholders have centred on the concept of damage to American diplomatic relations and have thus, asked for outright retaliation against Julian Assange, the editor in chief of Wikileaks. Former Republican Vice-Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin maintained her extreme right-wing credentials and went on to describe Julian Assange as an anti-American operative with blood on his hands, who should be hunted down just like al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders. (Full Article,file type (Pdf) 299 KB )