Revelations?

This is coolbert:

Thanks here to the Australian website Quadrant and the article:

"Christopher Andrew and the Strange Case of Roger Hollis" by Paul Monk.

Here placing into context, the proper perspective, the gravity of the WikiLeaks, the quantity and quality as contrasted with spies of a previous generation. Spies, Englishmen all of them, Philby, Cairncross, Maclean, Burgess, Blunt, traitors usually considered to be the blackest of the blackguards, arch-traitors!

The take, the number of documents [single page and multi-page "documents"] delivered by the Ring of Five [Englishmen spying for the Soviets] during a many decade period:

* "Guy Burgess supplied 4600 documents"
* "Anthony Blunt supplied 1771 documents"
* "Donald Maclean supplied 4593 documents"
* "John Cairncross supplied 5800 documents"
* "Kim Philby 914"

"'The total take from these five spies alone—17,526 classified documents'" [again, presumably single page and multi-page "documents"].

Consider then the case of Bradley Manning and the WikiLeaks.

One man - - a single CD - - a soldier labeled at various times as a sergeant, a specialist, a private - - able to make public [to the entire world through Julian Assange and his cohorts], over 400,000 documents. Again, documents, either single page or multi-page. NOT merely 400,000 pages.

And also in contrast to the celebrated "Pentagon Papers" from the Vietnam era, these reports, cables, "documents" as made public by Manning/Assange are not such a revelation after all. An astounding amount of "data", but sans analysis. The "Pentagon Papers" were an ANALYSIS by scholars at the highest level who were afforded access to "documents" at the highest level of classification and also an ACCESS to persons who actually were involved in decision making during the American involvement in Vietnam.

Thanks to the "revelations" of Manning/Assange, we learn [regarding Afghan alone] that:

* The Taliban are able to deploy and use MANPAD [man-portable-air-defense].
* Civilian casualties total are more than has been reported. Civilian casualties from ALL sources, American/NATO, Afghan central government forces and Taliban.
* Pakistan intelligence [ISI] is more deeply involved with the Taliban that publicly admitted.

And THAT IS THAT?

And these State Department "cables" are mostly [?] typical diplomatic chit-chat and gossip. Some interesting stuff, but NOT that much either.

400,000 documents still? Makes you wonder, doesn't it? The Ring of Five is a nothing compared to Manning/Assange quantity wise. But quality wise we have to wonder?

coolbert.