Cablegate has broken
The first batch of Cablegate cables has been posted to Wikileaks. NY Times reports:
A cache of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables, most of them from the past three years, provides an unprecedented look at back-room bargaining by embassies around the world, brutally candid views of foreign leaders and frank assessments of nuclear and terrorist threats.
Here is example of one leaked dispatch, entitled “A Caucasus Wedding” (which the Times refers to at the end of the above article). It’s fascinating:
After the fireworks, the musicians struck up the lezginka in the courtyard and a group of two girls and three boys — one no more than six years old — performed gymnastic versions of the dance. First Gadzhi joined them and then Ramzan, who danced clumsily with his gold-plated automatic
stuck down in the back of his jeans (a houseguest later pointed out that the gold housing eliminated any practical use of the gun, but smirked that Ramzan probably couldn’t fire it anyway). Both Gadzhi and Ramzan showered the dancing children with hundred dollar bills; the dancers probably picked upwards of USD 5000 off the cobblestones. Gadzhi told us later that Ramzan had brought the happy couple “a five kilo lump of gold” as his wedding present. After the dancing and a quick tour of the premises, Ramzan and his army drove off back to Chechnya. We asked why Ramzan did not spend the
night in Makhachkala, and were told, “Ramzan never spends the night anywhere.”
Here is the NY Times’ justification for publishing reports about this data. On the other hand, I think that the ethical and other grounds that Wikileaks stands on are far more questionable.
5:37pm 
