Diplomat – look it up. In the dictionary the meaning is pretty clear. A Diplomat is an ambassador, an envoy for his or her country in a foreign land. As a Diplomat one is required to be diplomatic ie tactful, respectful of the customs of the land you are being a Diplomat in while representing the best about your country and dealing with any situations that arise with Diplomacy – I think you can see where this is going.
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last few days you can’t fail to have read about the new WikiLeaks info dump either from the site itself or in the various press reports. Depending on your point of view it either matters or doesn’t matter who said what to whom, who called who a light weight, who ordered US diplomats to spy on their UN counterparts, who the US government considered unstable ( newsflash – he was)
The fact is that those comments are a matter of record and as such should be subject to the Freedom of Information Act but as they are covered by a cloak of diplomatic secrecy some parties would have you believe that the world will end if they see the light of day.
So here’s what I want to know. Why did the diplomats and government officials in question write or say those things? There are other ways of expressing your opinion of the French PM or Chancellor Merkel or Blair or the current situations in certain countries that don’t cause sharp intakes of breath or strained relations with the countries involved. More diplomatic ways, shall we say.
Of course one answer is that they never expected their comments to see the light of day. Another is that they hold the rest of the world in such contempt that they don’t care. If lessons are learned from this then WikiLeaks will still publish the same kind of information but it won’t be controversial or interesting.
Did this article raise your hackles do you want to discuss it further? You know where you can reach me.
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