"Who says everybody's worried this WikiLeaks stuff, at least the stuff I'm reading, is gonna damage US credibility.  Isn't that the idea?  Isn't that the point of this administration?  Isn't this the exact kind of thing Obama's been looking to do?  Isn't this the exact kind of thing this administration, this guy has hoped for, less respect for the United States?  Great respect for him, but less respect for us?  Well, it's hurting Britain, too, but damn the Brits need to be hurt because, you know, they hurt Obama's grandfather.  Don't forget now, Obama took the Churchill bust out.  The Brits deserved to get hurt, the colonialists out there taking over and colonializing all these different peoples of color, the Mau Mau Revolution, Obama's grandfather, or father, whatever, got his butt kicked by the Brits.  So, look, I mean doesn't all this kind of make sense? "

"Never before in history has a superpower lost control of such vast amounts of such sensitive information -- data that can help paint a picture of the foundation upon which U.S. foreign policy is built.

"Never before has the trust America's partners have in the country been as badly shaken.  Now, their own personal views and policy recommendations have been made public -- as have America's true views of them."

Scheuer -- No, I think the President has a pretty established, pretty good record of not talking about things that would defend America.  He and Holder have been very good at criticizing America about how we lost our moral compass.  He always has time to talk about some has been Burmese journalists and Chinese writers you never hear of but when it comes to defending America Bill he’s generally pretty quiet.

Scheuer -- Well you have to assume, you don’t know what goes on inside someone's head, but somebody who acts or doesn’t act tells you clearly what he thinks.  The President, when the first announcement was made, that these things were going to be leaked, could of ordered the US military or the Central Intelligence Agency to destroy the website that Mr. Assange was going to use and prevent any leaks at all.

Schuer -- I think he thinks it’s a first amendment issue when it’s really just a matter of trafficking in stolen material.  The President is clearly cheek by jowl with the ACLU, he doesn’t want to upset those people or the New York Times.  Somehow committing treason now has become protected by the first amendment.

The latest WikiLeaks revelations should be a call to action for all Americans.  It is time to tear down the empire that has been created in their name.  Two tasks are first and foremost.  We need to create a vibrant movement to end the wars being waged in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan.  No more occupations, no more military surges and no more drone attacks.  Simultaneously, we must demand that the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay be closed immediately.  Achieving such demands will open a political space to more directly challenge the centre of the military industrial complex by calling for an immediate reduction of the military budget by 50% and the closing of all US military bases abroad.

As democratic socialists, we imagine another society, where the great wealth this world produces is put to use to meet human needs.  Such a world would not need the secret cloak that covers the operations of the US empire.  It would, instead, be based on notions that seem very distant from our current reality -- democracy, free association and self-determination.  We think that democratic socialism holds the potential to live up to these lofty ideals.  Let the WikiLeaks disclosures provide the motivation for you to join in this struggle.

Embassy dispatches show America used spying, threats and promises of aid to get support for Copenhagen accord

Hidden behind the save-the-world rhetoric of the global climate change negotiations lies the mucky realpolitik: money and threats buy political support; spying and cyberwarfare are used to seek out leverage.

The US diplomatic cables reveal how the US seeks dirt on nations opposed to its approach to tackling global warming; how financial and other aid is used by countries to gain political backing; how distrust, broken promises and creative accounting dog negotiations; and how the US mounted a secret global diplomatic offensive to overwhelm opposition to the controversial "Copenhagen accord," the unofficial document that emerged from the ruins of the Copenhagen climate change summit in 2009.

Negotiating a climate treaty is a high-stakes game, not just because of the danger warming poses to civilization but also because re-engineering the global economy to a low-carbon model will see the flow of billions of dollars redirected.

Seeking negotiating chips, the US state department sent a secret cable on 31 July 2009 seeking human intelligence from UN diplomats across a range of issues, including climate change.  The request originated with the CIA.  As well as countries’ negotiating positions for Copenhagen, diplomats were asked to provide evidence of UN environmental "treaty circumvention" and deals between nations.

But intelligence gathering was not just one way.  On 19 June 2009, the State Department sent a cable detailing a "spear phishing" attack on the office of the US climate change envoy, Todd Stern, while talks with China on emissions took place in Beijing.  Five people received emails, personalized to look as though they came from the National Journal.  An attached file contained malicious code that would give complete control of the recipient’s computer to a hacker.  While the attack was unsuccessful, the department’s cyber threat analysis division noted: "It is probable intrusion attempts such as this will persist."

The Beijing talks failed to lead to a global deal at Copenhagen.

Because of its failure to act, responsibility for the damage done by these most recent disclosures now rests with the Obama administration.  Perhaps this latest release crosses a line that will finally spur the administration to action.

WikiLeaks raised the stakes tonight in its battle with the United States with the release of a secret list of vaccine suppliers, mineral sources and pieces of infrastructure that Washington believes would harm US security if attacked.

Experts said the cable, published by the whistle-blower website as part of an unauthorized trove of diplomatic correspondence, was a gift for terrorist organizations wanting to harm the United States as it spelt out the pipelines, undersea cables and factories across the world -- including a number in Britain -- that would cause most damage to US interests if destroyed.

Want to prevent this from happening again? Let the world see a man who can’t sleep in the same bed on consecutive nights, who fears the long arm of American justice… it would be nice if people like Assange were made to worry every time they go out in the rain.

"...His secretary of state does not comprehend that America is the subject of the attack, his department of defense is not interested in defending us, and the president himself seems utterly indifferent to the whole affair. All of this underscores the real problem. It is not WikiLeaks that ultimately imperils our national security, but the failing Obama administration, which ignores the nature and extent of threats we face, and which is too often unwilling to act to thwart them."

•  Apologizing for America.
•  Denying her exceptionalism.
•  Undermining our military, as reporter Arnie Rosner describes here in detail.
•  Suing Arizona for simply upholding federal immigration law.
•  Kowtowing to and cozily fist-bumping our country's enemies.
•  Being as incapable of saluting Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Staff Sergeant Salvatore Giunta at a recent White House ceremony as he has been at saluting the American flag on numerous occasions, just two examples here and here.
•  And enacting, as Ben Lieberman chillingly describes, job-killing measures in industries that are the lifeblood of our country, but that he and his fellow environmental radicals revile: oil exploration, factory manufacturing, mining, and fishing
But all this is not surprising, as a new book by Stanley Kurtz -  Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism - demonstrates.