WikiLeaks sheds light on Obama’s secret war
On his eponymous CNN show Sunday, Fareed Zakaria made the sweeping claim that unlike leaks about U.S. foreign policy in past decades, the still-spilling WikiLeaks cables do not demonstrate U.S. duplicity in foreign affairs. I think, for the most part, he’s right. However, Zakaria ignores the fact that the cables do show that the U.S. has acquiesced in the propagation of falsehoods and duplicity by at least one U.S. ally — an approach which has implications for the U.S. domestic audience in our globalized news environment. In addition, the U.S. may sometimes have gone even further to divert public attention from its activities abroad.
“The cables don’t show the United States doing anything duplicitous or underhand[ed] or scandalous. Now, remember, in the 1960s and ’70s, America was often engaged in operations and policies that were clandestine and were actually the opposite of its stated foreign policy,” Zakaria insisted Sunday in a commentary at the outset of “Fareed Zakaria GPS.” “But now, in these cables, there are no stories of coups, attempted assassinations, or closet deals. Washington’s secret diplomacy is actually remarkably consistent with its public diplomacy on Iran, on North Korea, on all kinds of issues.”
No “closet deals”? What about the widely reported cable indicating that Yemeni President Ali Saleh told U.S. officials of his plans to continue lying publicly about the involvement of U.S. forces in military strikes against alleged Al Qaeda targets in the country, including a Dec. 17, 2009, strike that reportedly killed 14 Al Qaeda fighters along with 14 women and 21 children?
“We’ll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours,” Saleh said, according to a State Department cable describing a January 2010 meeting with U.S. Gen. David Petraeus.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com
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