U.S. foreign policy is in the news today with the release by Wikileaks of secret diplomatic cables. As a blogger for the Foreign Policy Association, foreign policy is naturally something that I take seriously and I’m really amazed and stunned at this malicious attack on American foreign policy. You know, when I first heard about Wikileaks I thought it sounded like a good thing, a means for whistle-blowers to expose corporate malfeasance or human rights violations by dictators behaving badly. It now seems clear that what really motivates Wikileaks is a malicious hatred of the United States. How else to explain the release of classified information that has nothing to do with reporting abuses and everything to do with undermining American foreign policy? According to WikiLeaks’ Cable Viewer website, “The cables, which date from 1966 up until the end of February this year, contain confidential communications between 274 embassies in countries throughout the world and the State Department in Washington DC. 15,652 of the cables are classified Secret.” So, how bad is it? This is how The Wall Street Journal reports it:
The publication of a quarter-million sensitive diplomatic cables Sunday exposed years of U.S. foreign-policy maneuvering that could prove embarrassing to the U.S. and its allies, especially in the Islamic world […] The disclosures “place at risk ongoing cooperation between countries—partners, allies and common stakeholders—to confront common challenges from terrorism to pandemic diseases to nuclear proliferation that threaten global stability,” State Department legal adviser Harold Koh wrote to a lawyer for the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, Saturday, in a last-ditch effort to forestall publication. U.S. diplomats and defense officials have worried the disclosures could undercut the ability of foreign leaders to continue cooperating with Washington on counter-terror and counter-proliferation operations, with Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan among those most focused on.
The conduct of diplomacy requires that the private communications of diplomats remains private. Imagine if everything Secretary Clinton said about foreign officials in private conversation was suddenly made public? That would shred the trust that diplomacy requires. Even if diplomats assume the worst of each other and their countries in private, there exists a delicate public charade of goodwill and diplomatic decorum that allows nations to interact with each other in international settings like the United Nations. In that light, this attack on U.S. diplomacy is also an attack on the whole institution of international diplomacy, that set of laws and norms that provide reciprocal protections for all diplomats so that the work of international peace and negotiated settlements can continue. WikiLeaks is targeting the U.S. today but any country could be next.
So, what can the U.S. do to counter this ongoing attack? The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, is not a U.S. citizen, and even as he trades in classified documents it’s difficult to see how he can be prosecuted. The international legal system is notoriously slow-moving, even if we could get international arrest warrant and seek to have him extradited to U.S. territory there’s no guarantee the leaks would stop. Given that this is happening in wartime and that U.S. national security is under attack by this man and his organization, what would be a fair and legal method of stopping this attack? I’d like to suggest that a Congressional declaration of war would be in order. Something along the following lines (based on an earlier declaration) would do nicely:
JOINT RESOLUTION Declaring that a state of war exists between WikiLeaks and the Government and the people of the United States and making provisions to prosecute the same.
Whereas WikiLeaks has committed unprovoked acts of war against the Government and the people of the United States of America:
Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the state of war between the United States and WikiLeaks which has thus been thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared; and the President is hereby authorized and directed to employ the military and intelligence services of the United States and the resources of the Government to carry on war against WikiLeaks, and, to bring the conflict to a successful termination, all of the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States.
Has the U.S. ever declared war on a private organization? No, not once in our history. Is it likely that we will so so now? Well, I have to admit, chances are slim. Still, this would be a fair, legal, and proportionate response to an attack on the U.S. that has undermined the conduct of American diplomacy and placed in jeopardy key alliances that are vital to the conduct of the American war effort. WikiLeaks needs to be stopped and this resolution would allow the U.S. government to take the overt and covert actions needed to put an end to WikiLeaks. At the very least, merely debating a declaration of war may serve as a deterrent to any further release of classified information.
WikiLeaks, you threatened to release classified information, we asked you nicely not to do it and explained what was at stake, and you did it anyway. WikiLeaks, this means war!
