Wikileaks' First Release of U.S. Embassy Cables Goes Live

They're up. Long awaited, and the subject of U.S. government condemnation, the Wikileaks publication of 251,257 U.S. embassy cables has begun. As explained in their statement reproduced below, Wikileaks will be publishing the full catalog of files over the next months. Those interested in reading and studying the cables can click here to be taken to the relevant Wikileaks site. UK Guardian is also posting their analysis of the data, which was released before hand also to four other news agencies, including the New York Times.

The following is a reposting of the introduction to the Secret U.S. Embassy Cables release at Wikileaks. In it, we can see the political reasoning behind this extraordinary leaking of materials -- a belief that with public knowledge and political transparency the lies governments tell cannot be maintained.

Wikileaks began on Sunday November 28th publishing 251,287 leaked United States embassy cables, the largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain. The documents will give people around the world an unprecedented insight into US Government foreign activities.

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.

The embassy cables will be released in stages over the next few months. The subject matter of these cables is of such importance, and the geographical spread so broad, that to do otherwise would not do this material justice.

The cables show the extent of US spying on its allies and the UN; turning a blind eye to corruption and human rights abuse in "client states"; backroom deals with supposedly neutral countries; lobbying for US corporations; and the measures US diplomats take to advance those who have access to them.

This document release reveals the contradictions between the US’s public persona and what it says behind closed doors – and shows that if citizens in a democracy want their governments to reflect their wishes, they should ask to see what’s going on behind the scenes.

Every American schoolchild is taught that George Washington – the country’s first President – could not tell a lie. If the administrations of his successors lived up to the same principle, today’s document flood would be a mere embarrassment. Instead, the US Government has been warning governments -- even the most corrupt -- around the world about the coming leaks and is bracing itself for the exposures.

The full set consists of 251,287 documents, comprising 261,276,536 words (seven times the size of "The Iraq War Logs", the world's previously largest classified information release).

The cables cover from 28th December 1966 to 28th February 2010 and originate from 274 embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions.

"U.S. Building Massive Embassy With Slaves?"

I just saw this. The U.S. is shanghaiing workers from across the Middle East and putting them to work with substandard wages, inadequate food, with raw river water to drink, all to build their bloated imperial palace of an embassy in occupied Baghdad. It seems almost impossible to believe, and yet... Go read the entire article by Maccabee at Daily Kos.

Here's a snippet:

Every US labor law was broken,” says an American labor foreman, John Owens, who adds that he never witnessed a safety meeting. Once an Egyptian worker fell and broke his back and was sent home. No one ever heard from him again. “The accident might not have happened if there was a safety program and he had known how to use a safety harness,” charges Owen, who left the embassy project last June…Owen offers a different take on the workers he supervised. After having worked construction on US embassy sites in Armenia, Bulgaria, Angola, Cameroon and Cambodia, nothing compares to the mess he saw in Baghdad. “I’ve never seen a project more fucked up.”