Interesting View
Brian Stewart of the CBC has an interesting opinion piece on the effects of the current WikiLeaks document dump: Telling truth to power, and rather elegantly at that.
He essentially says that the cables show that the State Department has a lot of talented people all over the world who can write good, precise prose, and who are willing to give thoughtful and honest opinions about the governments they deal with. He compares them very favorably with top-line foreign correspondents.
People he spoke to about the piece talk about feeling more confident in the competence of US embassy officials after reading the cables, as they certainly reflect a more realistic view of the world, than what is often coming from Washington.
I would like to stress again that the majority of these documents are personal opinions by US officials, and no one can know for sure which are true, and which are designed to mislead foreign intelligence services. Without context, it is impossible to judge.
