Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other U.S.
officials have condemned the WikiLeaks document dump -- but judging by my email
traffic, not all American officials are all that upset. Some, in fact, are
delighted with the whole affair, for reasons ranging from professional pride in
their handiwork to the opportunity to air longstanding grievances over possibly
wrongheaded public perceptions of foreign events.
I've had an email exchange with one official who believes
that experts erroneously blame Washington for the tragic events surrounding
Georgia's relationship with Russia, culminating in the two countries going to
war in August 2008. Cables from U.S. embassies in Moscow and the
Georgian capital of Tbilisi
document rising American concern over tension between the two countries leading
up to the war, and a belief that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was intent on
removing Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili from power. But they also
detail how Saakashvili seemed intent on going to war over the flashpoint
between Georgia and Russia -- which was to control the breakaway Georgian
regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The documents show that American
diplomats -- including John Tefft, the U.S. ambassador to Georgia -- repeatedly
put excessive store in the word of Saakashvili, who lied at pivotal moments. But
Tefft appears not to have caught on until it was too late. Whatever the case,
the cables show one American official after another warning Saakashvili not to
go to war, or face precisely the consequence that arrived afterward: permanent
doubt in his leadership abroad.
Diplomats labor under anonymity that some find
unbearable; surely many of them dream of writing the next "Long
Telegram." So it is that another diplomat told me he can barely wait for
WikiLeaks to get around to those he has written over the years. "The leaks save
me the trouble of FOIAing my cables," this diplomat told me by email. " ... I'm
just anticipating with pleasure seeing some of my reporting."
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