Hello America. This Is Why The World Doesn't Trust You

What an eventful day it's been. All this talk of espionage and terrorism and counter-terrorism and diplomacy.

One of my favourite websites after Counterpunch has just released sensitive documents relating to America's dubious foreign policy and a host of other nasties committed by that bastion of righteousness and democracy. The site which you most certainly must have either heard about, read about, or at the least visited, is WikiLeaks.

I watched with interest as they rounded up their heavyweight spin-doctors and mouthpieces, led by none other than Hillary Clinton, and tried valiantly to limit the damage caused by the leaking of these documents to the world at large.
For those that haven't seen the news or read about it, the documents contained correspondence between America, her allies, and high ranking members of state. It clearly shows the clandestine back-room politics taking place between the puppets and the puppet-master. Exposed and caught with her pants down, America resorts to the only response it knows best : Threatening the website with legal ramifications and accusing it of having the blood of the troops on it's hands.
How rich is that!?
The same America that sent it's young men and women to fight a war that the world now collectively regards as unwarranted and unjust, having watched as those same troops came back in body-bags by the thousands, now has the gall and nerve to accuse a whistle-blower of being unpatriotic? If this irony doesn't slap you in the face like a basketball hitting Obama, then I probably don't fully understand irony at all.

I had so much faith in Obama. He was like an American version of Nelson Mandela when he first came on to the scene. Leader of the free world, saviour of the planet as we know it.
At the tail-end of his term in office and suddenly we realize that he was no better than his predecessors. Full of promises, very short on delivery.
Remember his promise to shut down Guantanamo Bay if he were elected? Not happening.
Remember his promise to run a transparent administration? Think Espionage Act.
Now that his administration has been exposed for all it's devious intentions and plotting, the politically correct response would be to acknowledge the shortcomings and promise to do better going forward... Not so our leader of the most powerful nation in the world. He decides to attack the free press along with his henchmen.

Here's an extract from the Associated Press regarding WikiLeaks document release:

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday called the WikiLeaks release of a flood of diplomatic memos an "attack on the international community" and vowed to prevent future leaks.

"This disclosure is not just an attack on America's foreign policy interests. It is an attack on the international community," Clinton told reporters after meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

"I want you to know that we are taking aggressive steps to hold responsible those who stole this information," she added.

"I have directed that specific actions be taken at the state department in addition to new security safeguards at the department of defence and elsewhere... so that this kind of breach cannot and does not ever happen again."

I wonder what those aggressive steps could be?
Will we see more stifling of freedom of speech and restrictions on the media, to prevent the government looking like corrupt bastards and deceitful leaders?
Does this sound remotely familiar in the South African context?

If these WikiLeaks have done anything, I think they have forever changed the playing field between governments and media. The worldwide press would be fully charged and determined to root out the inherent evils lurking in the corridors of power in governments across the world, and those governments in turn would be doing all they possibly can in their powers (and sometimes skirting the law in these efforts too) in order to silence and gag the access to information.

We live in interesting times, but through it all, the truth shall prevail.

Alutta continua.