17 December, 2010 — guardian.co.uk

What the US embassy cables reveal about Washington’s malign influence should make Latin American nations quit the UN force

Supporter of ousted Haitian President Aristide, 2010 A boy holds a picture of the ousted former president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, as he sits on a chair outside the presidential palace during a visit by France's President Nicolas Sarkozy to Port-au-Prince, in February 2010, in the wake of the earthquake. Photograph: Carlos Barria/Reuters

The polarisation of the debate around WikiLeaks is pretty simple, really. Of all the governments in the world, the United States government is the greatest threat to world peace and security today. This is obvious to anyone who looks at the facts with a modicum of objectivity. The Iraq war has claimed certainly hundreds of thousands, and, most likely, more than a million lives. It was completely unnecessary and unjustifiable, and based on lies. Now, Washington is moving toward a military confrontation with Iran.

As Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, pointed out in an interview recently, in the preparation for a war with Iran, we are at about the level of 1998 in the buildup to the Iraq war.

On this basis, even ignoring the tremendous harm that Washington causes to developing countries in such areas as economic development (through such institutions as the International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organisation), or climate change, it is clear that any information which sheds light on US ‘diplomacy’ is more than useful. It has the potential to help save millions of human lives.

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