The Most Hilarious Stuff So Far from the Wikileaks Documents:
So, yeah, today diplomats from the United States and elsewhere are having their not-so-secret secrets revealed by Wikileaks. It's an act known as an "Assange steamer," where a shitload of documents are dumped on government officials' chests and they can go fuck themselves with them. More than anything, so far, the cables and analyses confirm things we already knew or suspected, with a surprise or two (like everyone wants to bomb the fuck out of Iran). Most of the reaction seems to be the embarrassment for different nations in having their asses shown to the world. However, there's also a hilarious and racist side to the leaked cables.
For instance:
- Libyan President Muammar Qadhaffi (Kadafy, Khadafi, etc.) is monkeyfuck insane and likes white titties. According to one 2009 cable, he "appears to have an intense dislike or fear of staying on upper floors, reportedly prefers not to fly over water, and seems to enjoy horse racing and flamenco dancing." Yep, he will not climb more than 35 stairs, so he has to stay on the first floor of any lodging. And he won't fly more than eight hours at a time.
Bonus points: "Qadhafi relies heavily on his long-time Ukrainian nurse, Galyna Kolotnytska, who has been described as a 'voluptuous blonde.'" Apparently, Kolotnytska is his favorite of four Ukrainian nurses. Seriously, this is like something out of a 1950s Sinbad movie.
- A 1985 cable about dealing with Iranians pretty demonstrates why we've been doomed to failure there for decades. In a missive that sounds like it could have been written by Sir John Malcolm back in the early 19th century, "The Persian experience has been that nothing is permanent and it is commonly perceived that hostile forces abound. In such an environment each individual must be constantly alert for opportunities to protect himself against the malevolent forces that would otherwise be his undoing. He is obviously justified in using almost any means available to exploit such opportunities. This approach underlies the so-called 'bazaar mentality' so common among Persians, a mindset that often ignores longer term interests in favor of immediately obtainable advantages." See? We're not negotiating with the Iranians. We're haggling, like over the cost of one of their flying carpets. The wonderful racism and colonialist attitude continues throughout the entire cable.
- Another 1985 cable, this one from the U.S. ambassador to the U.K. about riots in the slums of England, rakes the British over the coals for its racist attitudes towards the rioters: "Dickens described the squalor, overcrowding and poverty in Britain's cities over a century ago. What has changed is that the people affected are increasingly likely to be members of minority groups." But David Copperfield wouldn't be surprised at the status of the poor: There was "an alienated third-world nation within Britain, an under-class of the deprived, the hopeless, and the dispossessed, in large part but by no means entirely made up of minorities."
Wait. That last part isn't hilarious. It's just sad. Because even as Ambassador Raymond Seitz was quite poignantly describing a fallen England, the Reagan administration was doubling down in its support for Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's attacks on unions and welfare programs. Seitz, though, provides one of the only thoughtful and noble takes on international affairs amid a document dump that more often than not reveals craven self-interest, militarism, and paranoia.
