Leaks are not just an academic discussion; they harm real flesh and blood people, people who like this man were allies of the U.S.
Via Geysar Gurbanov in the Tacoma News Tribune:
My name is Geysar, and I am seeking asylum in the United States. My native home is Azerbaijan, an oil-rich country — locked between Russia, Iran and Turkey — with deteriorating human rights and an authoritarian regime. Dissidents are harassed, persecuted and tortured.
By the time the country became independent in 1991, it was a war-torn state drowning in political chaos, economic crisis and military conflict with Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh. My early childhood memories were formed by Russian tanks invading my town, armed coup d’états, poverty and food shortages caused by a large influx of refugees.
At the age of 17, I was accepted into a fellowship program in Washington state funded by the U.S. Department of State. My goal was to prepare myself for a career that could support my country in building peace and democracy.
When the government agents in Azerbaijan approached me in 2009, they suspected that I had been working undercover for Americans. My employment history with various international organizations — NATO, OSCE-ODIHR, Council of the European Union, British Council and IREX — caught their attention.
Initially, the agents could not produce any solid evidence to prove their claims. They eventually got it, however, and, surprisingly, the evidence did not come from their local informants or operatives. It came instead from the other side of the ocean — from the Land of the Free.
Among documents leaked by Bradley Manning, a U.S. Army soldier who pleaded guilty in transmitting classified information to Wikileaks, was a cable dispatched on Oct. 10, 2008, from the U.S. embassy in Azerbaijan to the State Department, CIA, National Security Council and Defense Department.
This was the type of fate Geysar had to run from in Azerbaijan because of Wikileaks:
