WikiLeaks has just released documents that could pose a serious threat not only to US interests around the world, but also to the lives of ordinary citizens in countries as far afield as Congo, China, France, Germany, Russia, Switzerland, Yemen, and Canada.
WikiLeaks has blabbed the type of information that terrorists potentially exploit - a list of critical infrastructures and key resources that have been singled out by the US government for protection because attacks on them might potentially not only undermine the US economy and national security, but also pose a threat to the lives of ordinary citizens.
The cable is an action request labeled
NOFORN, NOT FOR INTERNET DISTRIBUTION.
It is the follow-up on a request by the Department of Homeland Security which is tasked under the National Infrastructure Protection Plan with keeping an inventory of critical infrastructure and key resources abroad
which, if destroyed, disrupted or exploited, would likely have an immediate and deleterious effect on the United States.
This includes infrastructure and resources from 18 key sectors:
agriculture and food; defense industrial base; energy; healthcare and public health; national monuments and icons; banking and finance; drinking water and water treatment systems; chemical; commercial facilities; dams; emergency services; commercial nuclear reactors, materials, and waste; information technology; communications; postal and shipping; transportation and systems; government facilities; and critical manufacturing.
These critical national infrastructures and key assets in countries abroad are significant to US interests because they fall into one of 3 types:
1) direct physical linkages (e.g., pipelines, undersea telecommunications cables and assets located in close enough proximity to the U.S. border their destruction could cause cross-border consequences, such as damage to dams and chemical facilities);2) sole or predominantly foreign/host-country sourced goods and services (e.g., minerals or chemicals critical to U.S. industry, a critical finished product manufactured in one or a small number of countries, or a telecom hug whose destruction might seriously disrupt global communications); and
3) critical supply chain nodes (e.g., the Strait of Hormuz and Panama Canal, as well as any ports or shipping lanes on the host-country critical to the functioning of the global supply chain).
The leaked cable itself is a request for an annual updating of the US list of these critical infrastructures and key resources. It is a routine annual update and is dated 2/18/2009.
On the bottom of the request itself is the existing list of such assets produced by the Bush Administration broken down by region and country.
The purpose of having this list is in part to ensure that the United States can coordinate with its allies to protect common interests. The purpose of the list is also for the United States to be able to disseminate best practices on the protection of critical infrastructure and key resources to governments throughout the world.
The list includes wide-ranging specific critical infrastructures and key assets such as strategic cable lines running between countries in Asia and the United States, pharmaceutical factories that produce vaccines, the Panama Canal, mines, ports, the wold's largest integrated chemical complex, a Foot and Mouth Vaccine finishing site, etc.
The fact that the US keeps such a list is certainly not exceptional and should come as no surprise. Like many of the WikiLeaks documents: this one reveals that the US is doing its job, as we would hope and expect. Other countries are certainly doing the same thing. So, this sort of information is likely not particularly useful to other governments.
However, one can hypothesize two audiences that might have some use for this material.
Since the bulk of these critical infrastructures and key resources are privately held, assumedly their corporate competitors might potentially find certain information useful.
The Times London says - this morning - that some security experts view this release as "a gift to terrorist organisations", and certainly it might reduce the cost of identifying targets. We need only remember 9/11 to realize how attacks on civilian infrastructure can have cascading effects and take human lives.
The US Government is the one endangering people by its actions. WikiLeaks is only revealing what exists; the profoundly corrupt and underhanded dealings of the US with other nations and its own people.
The US Government operates so outside any reasonable standards of behavior that it is forced to classify even low level documents like these in order to prevent open rebellion.
Secrecy and disinformation is the only thing supporting the house of cards that keeps power in the hands of the few corrupt people.
A government that was in earnest would take this as an opportunity to fix what isn't working and apologize to the public for misleading them and misrule.
It's clear that this government has no interest in doing that. It's only interest is in silencing those who shine a light on the perversity that pretends to be democracy and keeping power unsafely in the hands of those who should never have it.
Perhaps, but no more so than our own government in starting two illegal wars over lies.
Only liars are afraid of the truth.
I'd say endangering is better than actually killing innocent civilians which the US Government does routinely in Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan and has done in most mid east countries through the last century.
A larger threat to us is the killing of Civilians of those countries. As was released by Wikileaks, our forces were bombing Yemen mere months prior to the Yemeni "Underwear bomber". The local population there suspected the US of being behind the bombings even though the Yemeni government tried to take the blame. I don't know if the Underwear bomber was related to any of the civilian casulties but it wouldn't surprice me. Had he succeeded we would have gone into a full on war with that nation most likely months after we'd been bombing them.
The sooner that the military and government feel the US public and international coalitions is breathing down it's neck, keeping it accountable for it's actions and not cutting them any slack for the wreckless behavior in our name we'll be better off in the long run.
If a layman can figure them out, surely someone that actually puts effort into it could figure out more of what is on this list on their own by simply using Google.
We all know that thousands of people are totally EMBARRASSEÂD from their SECRET behaviors that have SHOCKED the entire WORLD. It's amazing how these same folks JUDGE us and put many people in JAIL for the same reasons what THEY are doing behind CLOSED doors.
If you are stupid enough to believe all the false accusation from "ANGRY" folks out there against Julian Assange then maybe you need a Doctor's check up.
I for one say let "FREEDOM" reign and let TYRANNY Vanish Forever!
Indian mines, the Panama channel... you basically have the US spying and securing foreign resources (echoes of blood for oil...).
This is against US interest.
The US continues to wage immoral and illegal wars, and puts the lives of MILLIONS of people around the globe in danger each and every second. We wage wars not for moral reasons, but for profit.
We have terrorism not because of something someone else did, but because of what the US did. We are to blame for the people who attack us. We created the world we now live in.
It seems very easy to attack someone telling the truth about the current state of events when you're blinded to the utter and complete evil of your own country.