Bradley Manning sentenced to 35 years

[Logue 1st MRB]

From the UK perspective:

-the wikileaks revealed that American diplomats were undertaking information gathering roles that would normally be assigned to the intelligence services. More shocking was that these were aimed at their peers at the UN and Europe and included very low brow gossip mongering.

China and Russia are possibly annoyed that US diplomatic cables paint an almost Cold War approach to relations with them behind the current facade of normalcy.

This all lays the ground work for everyone over here to get really pissed off when mass internet surveillance and programs specifically targeting European government networks are revealed by Snowden.

Basically the current mindset and mechanisms of, what we'll call for the sake of argument, the global American empire, (i.e. western civilization since WW2) have been laid bare. In Europe at least there is going to be lasting effects as there's little pretence left that we're all one big happy family with America. Cue even more people to wonder what we've been doing, fighting wars we can't afford for an ally that treats us as suspiciously as it does China and Russia (and has no qualms about betraying people's trust, for the sake of their own country.)

Again, this might all be par for the course in diplomatic and intelligence circles. But being democracies, it is the effect it has on public perceptions and understanding of the world around them that will have the greatest repercussions.

All in all, I guess it would all seem pretty arbitrary from an American standpoint, but the knock on effect is going to take place in the sphere of global politics, not questions of legitimacy or torture or internal US affairs. You guys already know you're under surveillance. I wish more than ever that the UK will stay in the EU, so I can rely on the Scandinavian countries and Germany to actually take an interest in my rights and privacy.

It's the end of an era and the first time in a long time that we can vote with some level of realistic understanding of what's actually going on beyond what the media offers. Conspiracy nutters have been vindicated, there's not one but multiple big brothers, and some countries are totally fine with that if it serves their own interests, others deal with a populace that still have fresh memories of the Gestapo and Stasi.

Edited August 22, 2013 by Logue 1st MRB