11-06-07 Alternet: Top 5 Wikileaks under-reported disclosures // Top 5 Wikileaks revelaciones subestimada // 前5 Wikileaks的少报披露

5 WikiLeaks Hits of 2011 That Are Turning the World on Its Head -- And That the Media Are Ignoring

Is 2011 capable of exceeding 2010's revelations? And what discoveries in 2011 has WikiLeaks unearthed thus far?
June 7, 2011  | 



Between Collateral Murder, the Iraq War Logs, the Afghan War Diary, and Cablegate, it appeared as though 2010 would go down in history as the most shocking year in WikiLeaks revelations. Americans discovered that trigger-happy soldiers who have been trained to kill are likely to shoot innocent civilians, including journalists and children. They learned that the US military handed over detainees they knew would be tortured to the Iraqis, and as a matter of policy, failed to investigate the hundreds of reported torture and abuse by Iraqi police and military. The Afghanistan logs showed many more civilians killed than previously known, along with once-secret US assassination missions against insurgents. And Cablegate shed light on a US foreign policy that values self-interest over democracy and human rights at all costs, perpetuating anti-American sentiment in the process.

Is 2011 capable of exceeding 2010's revelations? And what discoveries in 2011 has WikiLeaks unearthed thus far?

1) The Arab Spring: Information is power.
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Amnesty International recently drew a link between the protests in the Arab world and the release by WikiLeaks of thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic documents. In fact, the United Nations recently declared Internet access a basic human right in a report that cites WikiLeaks and the Arab Spring as driving factors.

2) The 'worst of the worst' [in Guantanamo] included children, the elderly, the mentally ill, and journalists.
These files paint a stunning picture of an oppressive detention system riddled with incoherence and cruelty at every stage
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Despite President Obama's promise to close it, the shameful, legal black hole that is Guantanamo is still open for business: 172 detainees remain imprisoned at Guantanamo, about 50 of whom are being subjected to indefinite detention.

3) US allies are among the leading funders of international terrorism.
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Therefore, the US government, well aware for years of Saudi Arabia's disgusting exploitation of children, has remained a steadfast ally of the world's biggest financier of terrorism.

4) World leaders are practically lighting a fire under the Arctic.
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Greenpeace oil campaigner Ben Ayliffe underscores the danger of this mentality:

These latest Wikileaks revelations expose something profoundly concerning. Instead of seeing the melting of the Arctic ice cap as a spur to action on climate change, the leaders of the Arctic nations are instead investing in military hardware to fight for the oil beneath it. They're preparing to fight to extract the very fossil fuels that caused the melting in the first place. It's like pouring gasoline on a fire.

5) Washington would let them starve to protect US corporate interests. The Nation has teamed up with the Haitian weekly newspaper Haiti Libert�, to analyze some 2,000 Haiti-related diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks.
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In a clear symbol of who it serves, the US State Department stepped in to exert pressure on Haiti's president, who duly carved out a $3 a day minimum wage for textile companies. But, according to the Nation's expose, that was still too much: "Still the US Embassy wasn't pleased. A deputy chief of mission, David E. Lindwall, said the $5 per day minimum "did not take economic reality into account" but was a populist measure aimed at appealing to "the unemployed and underpaid masses."
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To understand the barbarity of this behavior, consider that a Haitian family of three (two kids) needed $12.50 a day in 2008 to make ends meet.

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http://www.alternet.org/story/151232/5_wikileaks_hits_of_2011_that_are_turning_the_world_on_its_head_--_and_that_the_media_are_ignoring?page=1