Frontpages of some of today's UK Newspapers.
The revelations from the Wikileaks' release of cable traffic between US embassies and the State Department in Washington will hurt the US in a number of ways.
People like Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, will be less likely to confide in the US Ambassador now that he knows his reservations about George Osborne have ended up as public knowledge.
Many world leaders will be offended - although not entirely surprised - at the ways in which they are described by American "diplomats". Afghan President Hamid Karzai was, for example, described as ‘an extremely weak man who did not listen to facts, but was instead easily swayed by anyone who came to report even the most bizarre stories or plots against him’. Italy's Berlusconi was described as "feckless" and "vain". Israel's Netanyahu couldn't keep promises, we learn. France's Sarkozy was described as "think-skinned and authoritarian". Germany's Merkel as lacking creativity.
Most of all, however, they damage American reputation for competence. The bungled early liberation of Iraq, the Katrina fiasco, Obama's handling of the Gulf oil spill and now this. How could it have been so easy for one renegade individual to have downloaded all of this sensitive information and passed it to Wikileaks on a USB stick? It's breathtaking incompetence.
