Category Archives: The Sublime Cables

Tales From The Beijing Embassy

Posted on December 8, 2010 by AK

Four cables from Cathay, courtesy of this excellent Cable Search tool. The first cable (Cable 1) is one of the last dispatches of Ambassador to the PRC Clark T. Randt, a long, analytical piece from January 2009. But it’s also … Continue reading →

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I’d Sooner See The World Burn Than Compromise With Rogue Scientists

Posted on December 7, 2010 by AK

Or at least that’s what seems to be going around in the mind of Condoleezza Rice, if this cable (Cable 1) from September 2008 is anything to go by. After successfully persuading countries like Brazil to let the American scientist Christopher … Continue reading →

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Orientalism Overload

Posted on December 6, 2010 by AK

This might well be my favorite cable so far – perhaps even better than the Caucasus wedding - courtesy of US ambassador to Iran Bruce Laingen in August 1979. Now maybe US diplomats are culturally West-centric and insular today, but they’ve … Continue reading →

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Chechnya, A Once And Future War?

Posted on December 5, 2010 by AK

Truly, if Willian Burns were to issue an anthology of his Moscow cables during his 2005-2008 ambassadorship, I’d seriously consider buying it. Just consider this cable from May 2006, on Chechnya’s “Once and Future War”, a nuanced US view of … Continue reading →

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Russia Arming The Rest, And US Views On This

Posted on December 5, 2010 by AK

Another Wikileaks cable – a secret one, not merely confidential – from our Caucasus ethnologist and bestest bud at the State Department, William Burns. Dated October 2007, it describes America’s perception of Russia’s global arms trade and emphasizes its concerns that … Continue reading →

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Cable Intermezzo: A Caucasus Wedding

Posted on December 3, 2010 by AK

One of the most endearing and surprising cables came from William Burns, US Ambassador to Russia from 2005 to 2008: a beautifully written account of a Daghestani wedding scene that might as well have come from a latter-day Prisoner of … Continue reading →

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New York Times Manipulation Of The (Alleged) North Korean Missile Sales To Iran Cable

Posted on December 3, 2010 by AK

It’s sad, but not unexpected, to see the usual motley of neocons, freepers and general creeps crawling about the interwebs, baying for Assange’s blood and calling for him to be disappeared into the Nacht und Nebel. But it is absolutely … Continue reading →

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Wikileaks As A Mirror On The West

Posted on December 2, 2010 by AK

EDIT: This article has been translated into Russian at Inosmi.Ru (Wikileaks как зеркальное отображение Запада); almost as if to prove my point here! A foreign “subversive” journalist, driven by fevered idealism, publishes reams of leaked internal documents from an Authority … Continue reading →

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