Most of what I've seen through Wikileaks has just been confirmations of things we already knew: Google hacked by the Chinese government; US diplomats using both the carrot and the stick with foreign countries to empty Guantanamo; that Arab Sunnis really don't like Persian Shiites.
But two things were new to me, and deserve more consideration than the media firestorm about whether or not Assange is guilty of the amusingly-named "Sex by surprise."
The first is that US contractors in Afghanistan hired child prostitutes and that the Afghan and US authorities sought to have that story quashed. It's pretty interesting, and pretty deplorable.
The second is that The US knew about the Honduran coup and dithered publicly in tacit support of the coup. Given the US's history in Latin America (death squads, holla!), you'd think we'd be a little bit better about condemning coups, especially military coups to oust reformers.
But, you know, Monroe doctrine, and military dictatorships are easy to deal with — you accept their natural resources at bargain basement prices, and in exchange, ignore human rights violations. Win-win.
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