asemann.de

Wikileaks has published document about U.S. foreign relations.
Now, the US are pissed. Some (the Washington times hotspur Jeffrey T. Kuhner) even demand WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to be assassinated, because the leaking of the information was "threatening american lives".
That journalists - being, one should assume, intellectual, educated people - demand the execution of a citizen of an ally, which australia is, is, at least, disturbing. Let's hope it doesn't show the true nature of the majority of the US american people.

Fortunately others, like the US american lawyer and journalist Glenn Greenwald, argue that given the moral standards of the enemies of Assange, half the former US administration would need to be persecuted, since, for example, the Iraq war started with forged "proof" as justification for the invasion of a souvereign country actually cost many more lives than Assange could ever "threaten" by leaking documents he did not even personally steal, but only publish, together with his organization WikiLeaks. Since WikiLeaks may claim to be a journalistic organization, a trial of Assange, if the US could ever get a hold on him, could very well also result in an absolution. So, obviously, there still are reasonable US americans left who can think of better problem resolution strategies than lynching the messenger.

However. In europe, the left has always insinuated the US had dark and evil intentions behind any of their actions. It's frustrating for me now to see that *some* of these insinuations seem actually to be true.

Instead of acting just and right like they propose to act always, the US have engaged in shady operations.

They have disrespected other nations by ignoring them and lying to them and the human and civil right of other nations' citizens by abducting and torturing them. They have started wars for no reason, illegally wiretapped their own and other nations' citizens, and bullied or bribed other nations and their leaders to grin and bear the US' exceptional antics.

The US have, in secrecy, acted more like the mafia than the good, great, bright, free nation they claim to be, which brings peace, justice, democracy, light and all good things to the world.

Now, after Wikileaks unsheated some bitter truths about US american foreign policy and shadowy military and intelligence operations, unfortunately noone in the US even seems to think for a second about changing US foreign policy.
Leading by example instead of mafia methods by example would be an idea not too far-fetched to consider, one might think, but in the US everybody only seems to be upset the administration didn't get away with murder that easily as planned. Julian Assange, who probably is less bigheaded than some US politicians, is the terrorist scapegoat for the US public. But the reason for the unpleasant relevations ultimately is that the USA did illegitimate, illegal, bad things and failed to cover them in secrecy. Another reason is the fact that one agent of hunderthousands who had access to the "secret" data felt obliged to show the world which crimes the US have commited in the name of freedom and justice.
By the way WikiLeaks did only publish a fraction of the over 250,000 documents it got sent, even in an edition cleared of names or critical content. Maybe the guys who accuse WikiLeaks of wanting to undermine the security of the US should consider this before making their claims. How easy could WikiLeaks publish several hundred problematic unedited documents in one rush and overload the US foreign ministry with problems to solve?

The USA believe in US american exceptionalism which seemingly means something like the USA are kind of blessed by god and have a mission to make the world a better, that is most likely, a more US-american place.

They seem to have an unbroken optimism regarding this mission, which no drawback could break until now.

Though this approach often worked out badly, the US still adapt the means to the end if they really want to change something. Like, for example, replacing a dictatorship with a democracy. Or, eventually, replacing a democracy which takes a wrong way with a dictatorship.
As Adorno said, nothing right exists in the wrong, or, in my words, there is no right reason to do a wrong thing. I think the US should better stick to that motto.

There are some examples where the US optimistically tried to shape the world and finally failed:
The US have put a lot of money and effort in the Iraq war, just to find the region destabilized and Iran strengthened. All this after decades of US middle-east diplomacy and military aid and support for changing allies.
The US have invaded Afghanistan... only some decades after they funded the Afghani resistance against a russian invasion.
The US have invented the internet - and now have to see that WikiLeaks turns it against them.
The US have "economically broken" the Soviet Union, fought for free trade. The profit-oriented economy invented offshoring. Stock market trading was seen as a way to generate profits.
Anyway, the US never managed to reduce their trade deficit, overstretched deficit spending, made India and China big and themselves dependent on offshore manufacturing and the chinese currency. So, seemingly, the US, so some extent, unintendedly broke their own economic back, too.
Also, today's struggling russia might be more difficult to deal with than the previous, in some way stable and reliable arch-enemy USSR.

So, almost all attempts of the US to reshape the political and economical landscape of the world have backfired or, at least, not payed off, but still the US are optimistic. This seems to be exceptional. Exceptionally naive.

It's not that they didn't analyze the world very thoroughly. They seem to have a good picture of other countries and their leaders, which not always results in publishable reports, as we can see thanks to WikiLeaks.
But do they also have a realistic picture of their own? Do US embassadors think a former alcoholic who doesn't speak any foreign languages makes a good president? Or that a hunting-loving redneck-rogue soccer-mom was a good choice for the future? Probably not.

Maybe the US are shocked not by the WikiLeaks publications itself, but by the fact that they, who ought to be the good guys, now are wearing the emperor's new clothes.
They left their moral values behind, engaged in filthy political and military tactics, tried to cloak this, tried to uphold the image as the world's moral leader by PR and lying, and failed.
This makes the US angry. Though it'd be very easy to fix the problem. Acting less macchiavellian. To be rather than to seem. Since covering things up becomes increasingly difficult in the modern, digital, networked world.