By Quentin Langley
Let us start by accepting that there are serious negative consequences to the latest batch of Wikileaks. They are less serious than the previous tranche, which covered actual battlefield tactics in the war against the Taliban, but they are serious nonetheless. They are highly embarrassing to the US, and even more embarrassing to other governments, including key western allies. It is even possible that they will put lives at risk, as the State Department claims. That Julian Assange claims to have redacted everything that would expose Afghan sources to reprisals is, I suppose, to his credit. But it is unlikely that he succeeded in this aim. He doesn’t know what information al Qaeda and the Taliban already have, so he cannot know what new information, when combined with this unknown old information, will point them in the direction of patriotic Afghans who oppose the Taliban. The whole Wikileaks project will therefore certainly lead to death and torture for innocent Afghan and Iraqi patriots.
But the fact that there are risks, does not make the project as a whole one which is a bad thing, on net. The motor car has killed huge numbers of people, but, overall, the wealth and freedom it has promoted has saved and enhanced more lives than it has cost.
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