Julian Assange and Team Wikileaks are at it again. Using Twitter and their own website, the organization released some 35,000 cables after months of only a handful being released each day.
Perhaps one of the most amusing and telling cables comes from way back in 1987. It begins:
AFGHANS SELL US STINGERS TO KHOMEINI
THE UNITED STATES HAS CUT OFF SUPPLIES OF STINGER
ANTI-AIRCRAFT MISSILES TO AN AFGHAN GUERRILLA GROUP
AFTER DISCOVERING THAT AT LEAST 16 OF THE WEAPONS WERE
SOLD BY THE RESISTANCE TO IRAN.
A mere 24 years later, the tables have turned as the US is accusing Iran of supplying arms to the Taliban. While these accusations have faltered tremendously under intense scrutiny, the back and forth movements of American supplied weapons, from ally to enemy and back again, highlight how reactionary and near sighted American foreign policy is.
As Onion-esque as all of this may sound, the cable gets even better:
UNCOMFIRMED REPORTS EARLIER THIS YEAR MAINTAINED THAT
THE IRANIANS HAD USED STINGERS TO SHOOT DOWN IRAQI
AIRCRAFT IN THE GULF WAR.
The United States denied these reports, and while their veracity may be debated, that misses the point.
The point is that the United States has become so nosy and imperialist that weapons provided to the Taliban in Afghanistan, now our enemies, were used to fight the Soviets, now our allies (unless we invade Georgia to establish a beacon of democracy, or something like that), which were sold to the Iranians, still our enemies, to fight against an American backed Saddam, who ultimately fell out of grace with the US in 2003 that resulted in a war in which the US is still involved in today.
Providing arms to proxy groups in hope of defeating an enemy is never a safe bet and liable to many, many changes. This is especially the case when American foreign policy seems to bipolar (condemning human rights abuses in Iran while turning a blind eye to the slaughter in Bahrain, etc. ad nauseam) and subject to constant change.
As dizzying as this maze of deceit and backstabbing may be, there is just one more spectacle of irony:
THE US… IS CONCERNED THAT THE WEAPONS WILL FALL INTO
TERRORIST HANDS, OR WILL BE COPIED AND SUPPLIED IN
LARGE NUMBERS TO OTHER HOSTILE STATES SUCH AS LIBYA.
That should speak volumes by itself.