The New York Times’ Bill Keller has renewed his feud with Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks. In his latest column, Keller attempts to set the record straight on the leaks organization, but his efforts seems a petulant attack that fails to establish the charges he lays at WikiLeaks feet.

The world is better off because the contents of the cables are known, but the United States policy is not. Its recoil and refusal to confront and apologize for the majority of what became known has put it on a path of further disgrace and shame. It remains committed to prosecuting accused whistleblower Pfc. Bradley Manning, even though he may have played a role in exposing Tunisians, Egyptians and others to details on corruption in their countries.

In the Committee to Protect Journalists’ (CPJ) report on attacks on the press in Ethiopia in 2010, the advocacy organization for press freedom summarized how the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (ERDF) had “imprisoned journalists, jammed foreign broadcasters and blocked websites as it swept general elections in May.” The summary recounted an instance where police interrogated two editors of the weekly Sendek for seven hours just as Prime Minister Meles Zenawi gave a speech on “freedom of choice.”

It highlighted how the government intimidated Awramba Times staffers for “challenging coverage.”

A Major Crimes Task Force (MCTF) assisted by the FBI and other US investigators interviewed 77 adult and juvenile detainees. They reported their jailers: forced them to confess to crimes they did not commit, beat them with wooden sticks or subjected them to electric shocks and raped them or sodomized them with objects. Juveniles reported being raped “multiple times by the same person or persons.”

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed an International Criminal Court (ICC) complaint case that calls on the ICC to investigate and prosecute the Vatican for crimes against humanity. The complaint details what the two groups call “systematic and widespread concealing of rape and child sex crimes throughout the world.”

The US has no problem with pressuring, even meddling in a country’s affairs, if only to get the outcome it desires—whatever will be best for US interests. Yet, it knows that it must consider all the variables, stick to talking points and not apply too much or too little pressure in order to achieve success in getting whatever the US wants from a country’s government.

There’s been a sudden explosion of interest in Wikileaks cables down under, after every single one of the US diplomatic cables on Australia was suddenly released online to the public this week. While hardened Aussie journalists insist there are no major “bombshells,” plenty of intriguing new stories are now exploding onto the media landscape. Overall, the US cables reveal a sovereign nation absurdly subservient to US foreign policy, with Australian ministers queuing to discuss confidential party deliberations with their friends in the US embassy.

One could make the argument that the fact people are rediscovering these “revelations” is giving the cache a second-life. The major news media organizations that had access to the entire cache had their chance to sift through the cables, now it’s time for citizens of the world to have a turn. Additionally, regional news organizations had access to cables relevant to their region. They wrote about the cables in their newspapers for the people of their country. Those stories did not always make international news. So, for the first time, people are seeing the cables that made big news in various countries, which perhaps even had the effect of creating a massive political crisis in the country.

The batch of US State Embassy cables recently published by the media organization WikiLeaks contain a few assessments of how other countries’ governments manage their terrorism watch lists. The assessments reveal much about how countries have tried to implement security regimes for travel in the aftermath of 9/11. And, each assessment is in the form of questionnaire.

Rania Khalek, a blogger and independent journalist who writes for AlterNet, published two major WikiLeaks stories that garnered a lot of attention—”5 WikiLeaks Hits of 2011 That are Turning the World on Its Head—And That the Media are Ignoring” and “5 WikiLeaks Revelations Exposing the Rapidly Growing Corporatism Dominating American Diplomacy Abroad.” She’s recently been writing about the militarization of police and the ever-expanding surveillance state in America. [*Follow her on Twitter at @rania_ak.]