Press TV of Iran is rising to new heights of professionalism and global relevance as witnessed by its feature program last night on how the leak of top secret documents from the Pentagon has sparked a major political scandal in South Korea. The main contributor to this program was the Iranian station’s own very capable correspondent in Seoul, Jennifer Chang, who made her remarks via telephone link. I played a vignette role, commenting on the likely genuineness of the documents that were leaked and on the context of U.S. surveillance of leaders in allied as well as hostile countries going back to the very big dump of top secret data that Edward Snowden deposited at the door of global media just under eleven years ago.
Among the secret documents from US intelligence agencies released to social media these past few days are the findings of US spying on the South Korean political leadership. Here we see that in violation of their country’s basic policies barring delivery of lethal weapons to countries at war, under heavy US pressure, the South Koreans concluded contracts worth more than 5 billion dollars to deliver to Poland their most modern tanks, self-propelled howitzers and munitions, understanding full well that the final destination of these deliveries would be Ukraine. Delivery of fighter jets was also on the table. The scandal has jeopardized the pending state visit of the country’s president to Washington in the coming week or two, where he was scheduled to deliver a speech to a joint session of Congress, which is an exceptional honor for foreign dignitaries.
I note that this morning’s editions of The Financial Times and The New York Times do not carry a word about the outrage in Seoul over US spying.
Gilbert Doctorow is a Brussels-based political analyst. His latest book is Does Russia Have a Future? Reprinted with permission from his blog.
© Gilbert Doctorow, 2023
I bet the Koreans were just shocked that they are spied on by us.
NOT
Sure they have to express outrage at this big “reveal” that Uncle Sugar spies on them and are telling them to ship stuff to Ukraine (as if we aren’t going to replenish it with newer and more powerful stuff at greater numbers than they shipped) but honestly were we to believe these armaments weren’t coming out of everyone’s inventory?
And that everyone spies on everyone?
That should make South Korea end its’ alliance with the US & close all US Bases there. It won’t happen. No nation should consider the US its ally if it does that.
South Korea should also switch sides in the Ukraine War but of course will do neither.
Countries all spy on each other and they all know it, so this is just political grandstanding in Korea. It’s just the opposition party trying to make something of nothing for political gain.
That sounds like a reasonable assessment Jeff.
Podcaster Jimmy Dore said he thinks this was a fake leak by the CIA, because it didn’t really provide any new information. I don’t know one way or the other, but that’s certainly something to consider.
I’ve always enjoyed Press TVs coverage. It is good to know they are utilizing such good analysis.