At Democracy Now, Amy Goodman presents a fascinating discussion regarding the most recent of a series of leaks by Wikileaks. But first, her summary of the leaks:

Among the findings, Arab leaders are privately urging the United States to conduct air strikes on Iran; in particular, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has repeatedly called on U.S. to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear program, reportedly calling on American officials to “cut off the head of the snake”. Jordan, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, also said they support a U.S. attack. The cables also highlight Israel’s anxiety to preserve its regional nuclear monopoly; it’s readiness to 'go it alone' against Iran, and its attempts to influence American policy. The cables also name Saudi donors as the biggest financiers of Sunni militant groups like Al-Qaeda. The cables also provide a detailed account of an agreement between Washington and Yemen to cover up the use of U.S. warplanes to bomb targets in Yemen. One cable records that during a meeting in January with General David Petraeus, the Yemeni president Abdallah Saleh said, “We will continue saying these are our bombs, not yours.” Among the biggest revelations is how the U.S. uses its embassies around the world as part of a global spy network. U.S. diplomats are asked to obtain information from the foreign dignitaries they meet including frequent flier numbers, credit card details, and even DNA material. The United Nations is also a target of the espionage with one cable listing the information-gathering priorities to American staff at the UN headquarters in New York. The roughly half a dozen cables from 2008 and 2009 detailing the more aggressive intelligence collection were signed by Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton. The New York Times says the directives, quote: "Appear to blur the traditional boundaries between statesmen and spies." The cables also reveal that U.S. officials sharply warned Germany in 2007 not to enforce arrest warrants for CIA officers involved in an operation in which an innocent German citizen with the same name as a suspected militant was abducted and held for months in Afghanistan. The cables also document suspicion of corruption in the Afghan government. One cable alleges that Afghan vice president Zia Massoud was carrying fifty two million dollars in cash when stopped during a visit to the United Arab Emirates. Only 220 cables were published by WikiLeaks on it’s website on Sunday with hundreds of thousands more to come. The Obama administration has been warning allies about the expected leaks since last week. A statement from the White House on Sunday said, “We condemn in the strongest terms the unauthorized disclosure of classified documents and sensitive national security information.” It also said the disclosure of the cables could, "deeply impact not only U.S. foreign policy interests, but those of our allies and friends around the world."

I approve of these leaks by Wikileaks. We the People supposedly run this country, but we are kept totally in ignorance regarding many of our nation's foreign policy adventures. Our mainstream media should be gathering this sort of information by aggressively reporting by doing investigative reporting, and by reporting when our government fails to be forthright. But they have failed miserably. This is thus what it has now come to: massive dumps of "unauthorized" information that embarrasses our government and should embarrass our government. But instead of seeing our mainstream media praise Wikileaks, we continue to see scurrilous attacks on Wikileaks and Julian Assange. Glenn Greenwald understands why:

Focusing on the tabloid aspects of Assange's personal life can have no effect -- and no purpose -- other than to distract public attention away from the heinous revelations about this war and America's role in it, and to cripple WikiLeaks' ability to secure and disseminate future leaks.

It's not hard to see why The New York Times, CNN and so many other establishment media outlets are eager to do that. Serving the Government's interests, siding with government and military officials, and attacking government critics is what they do. That's their role. That's what makes them the "establishment media." Beyond that, the last thing they want is renewed recognition of what an evil travesty the attack on Iraq was, given the vital role they know they played in helping to bring it about and sustain it for all those years (that's the same reason establishment journalists, almost by consensus, opposed any investigations into the Bush crimes they ignored, when they weren't cheering them on). And by serving as the 2010 version of the White House Plumbers -- acting as attack dogs against the Pentagon's enemies -- they undoubtedly buy themselves large amounts of good will with those in power, always their overarching goal. It is indeed quite significant and revealing that the John Ehrlichmans and Henry Kissingers of today are found at America's largest media outlets. Thanks to them, the White House doesn't even need to employ its own smear artists.

Our federal government and our mainstream media could put Wikileaks out of business in a heartbeat if only they could stop being such liars and manipulators of information. Our government and most of our popular media seem to be under the impression that their sole purposes for existing are to maintain power and make money. This is the perfect storm for the creation of an organization like Wikileaks, because there are many of us who have strong hunches about what is going on out there in the real world and we want to see virtually all of that information made public. George Carlin exactly expresses my sentiments tonight: