Hmmm….this could well be the worse diplomatic blow out that US government has ever been pitted against. The New York Times and Wikileaks’ uncloaking of the US diplomacy, its manner of negotiating for favors and brutal views on world leaders, is going to haunt the White House longer than they may be willing to admit right now.
First a quick snap shot of what’s in the 3 million leaked state cables that will rock boats in the world community:
- “Gaming out an eventual collapse of North Korea: American and South Korean officials have discussed the prospects for a unified Korea, should the North’s economic troubles and political transition lead the state to implode. The South Koreans even considered commercial inducements to China….. the American ambassador to Seoul…told Washington in February that South Korean officials believe that the right business deals would “help salve” China’s “concerns about living with a reunified Korea”.”
- “Bargaining to empty the Guantánamo Bay prison: ….American diplomats pressed other countries to resettle detainees…Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if it wanted to meet with President Obama, while the island nation of Kiribati was offered incentives worth millions of dollars to take in Chinese Muslim detainees…. The Americans (also) suggested that accepting more prisoners would be “a low-cost way for Belgium to attain prominence in Europe.”
- “An intriguing alliance: American diplomats in Rome reported in 2009 on ….an extraordinarily close relationship between Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian prime minister, and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister and business magnate, including “lavish gifts,” lucrative energy contracts and a “shadowy” Russian-speaking Italian go-between. They wrote that Mr. Berlusconi “appears increasingly to be the mouthpiece of Putin” in Europe.”
- A “cable’s fly-on-the-wall account of a January meeting between the Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, then the American commander in the Middle East, (on Yemen covering up for American missile strikes on a local Al Qaeda branch)….. is nonetheless breathtaking. “We’ll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours,” Mr. Saleh said, according to the cable sent by the American ambassador, prompting Yemen’s deputy prime minister to “joke that he had just ‘lied’ by telling Parliament” that Yemeni forces had carried out the strikes.
Phewww…if there is one job I wouldn’t envy right now, it is US Secretary of State Hilliary R Clinton’s. This is the classic case, as I see it, of a butterfly flapping its wings --- a small-time disgruntled US intelligence officer here who took advantage of a security breach – and causing diplomatic tsunamis across the world. Why do I say so?
¯ US will find it increasingly harder, if it wasn’t hard enough already, to clinch global agreements on policy and military issues with other nations across a bargaining table. With so much dirty laundry out there, it may not find many vociferous allies.
And I don’t even want to imagine how unbending China, with its increasing assertiveness in the world order, is going to get hereafter. The country clamped down on Google and Facebook, paranoiad as they are on security breaches and information crossing borders. This is a whole different level even for them to react to!!
¯ US’ diplomatic and state officials are bound to be under greater suspicion, hence scrutiny, may risk expulsion and will certainly be blocked from carrying out their duties smoothly. I wonder why these officials were looped in when they have had no training or expertise in clandestine methods of “Humint”, a spy-world jargon for human intelligence collection, NYT explains.
¯ There will be a rise in counter-intelligence on US, its agencies and its officials by other nations. Intrusion and heavy handedness by one country is invariably a slippery downward spiral; if one goes down, many others will likely follow it.
On the extreme: this is the kind of stuff that can pull down governments – in some instances, it should -- or stoke violent backlash from a surging ‘anti-American’ sentiment globally.
The US government machinery is in full fire-fighting mode with Clinton reportedly on stand by for any damage control. She had spoken to leaders in China, Germany, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Britain, France and Afghanistan on Friday pre-empting the Sunday release of documents. India, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Poland too had been warned.
But forewarning may not blunt the edge of the actual content. Especially such scathing, personal content…and compromising ways of governance globally.
Philip J Crowley, assistant secretary to the US Department of State in a November 24 briefing had told reporters that this was “harmful to our national security”, it put countless “lives at risk” and was “going to create tension in our relationships between our diplomats and our friends around the world.”
“We wish that this would not happen,” said Crowley.
I wonder if ‘wishing’ was for the leaks to not happen or for the US government to have been more discreet, less intrusive and hence less vulnerable to Wikileaks.
NYT’s Note to readers : why they published what they did and how they balanced the conflicting interests of informing the readers but not over-educating the terrorist outfits to the point of disserving the country.
that was great!
what are they going to do with you guys?
I feel that is special treat from them.
Posted by: essay writers | 01/05/2012 at 10:16 AM