WikiLeaks continues exposure of predatory US foreign policy

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WikiLeaks continues exposure of predatory US foreign policy
By Patrick Martin
6 December 2010

In the face of an unprecedented campaign of US harassment and intimidation, the
Internet-based WikiLeaks group is continuing its efforts to expose the predatory
role of American foreign policy around the world, releasing secret diplomatic
documents every day.

WikiLeaks has acquired over 250,000 leaked US diplomatic cables, most of them
generated over the past five years, and it has posted about 700 of them so far
on its web site, as well as turning over the entire cache to four news
organizations in Europe. One of the four, the British daily Guardian, in turn
gave access to the New York Times.

Material made public Sunday sheds light on the increasingly incendiary state of
world relations, under conditions of deepening world economic crisis. In
particular, the declining world power, the United States, is seeking to maintain
its domination against the rise of rivals like China. This conflict is the focus
of a State Department cable on March 24, 2009, describing a meeting between
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, then visiting Washington, and US Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton.

According to the summary, Clinton complained during a luncheon discussion about
the difficulty of the US taking action to curb China’s growing overseas
influence, given the huge US balance of trade deficit with China and China’s
massive stockpile of nearly $2 trillion in dollar-denominated assets, including
Treasury bills. “How do you deal toughly with your banker?” she asked.

Rudd’s reply was eye opening. Describing himself as “a brutal realist on China,”
he said that Australian intelligence agencies were paying close attention to
China’s growing military strength, and that Australia was building up its naval
forces as “a response to China’s growing ability to project force” in the south
Pacific. He said the US and its allies should make efforts to integrate China
into the US-dominated structure of state relations in the Asia-Pacific region,
“while also preparing to deploy force if everything goes wrong.”

There is no record of Clinton’s response to this suggestion that a military
conflict between the two strongest world powers, both armed with nuclear
weapons, was to be considered as a policy option. Nor was her reaction reported
to another declaration by Rudd, that he had invited another nuclear-armed power,
Russia, to join his proposed Asia-Pacific Community, in order to forestall any
thoughts of a “Chinese Monroe Doctrine.” Rudd used that term as shorthand for an
effort by China to exclude outside powers—like the United States—from the
Asia-Pacific region.

The exchange is reminiscent of the secret discussions held among the Great
Powers in the decades leading up to World War I and World War II, as they
jockeyed for power and influence while building up their military forces for the
ultimate test of force. In both periods, localized and regional tensions—in the
Balkans, the Far East, and North Africa—became the spark of a global conflict.

The Middle East is one of the regions most likely to play the role of detonator
today, with US forces already deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan and the US and
Israel openly threatening military action against Iran if economic sanctions
fail to bring the regime in Tehran to heel.

Secret documents made public in summary form Sunday by the New York Times and
the Guardian underscore the rising tensions in that region. A classified memo
from Secretary of State Clinton in December 2009 complains that Saudi Arabia and
the Arab sheikdoms of the Persian Gulf were the principal financiers of
anti-American terrorist activity. “Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most
significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide,” the memo
declares.

This assessment is in sharp contrast to the public US focus on Afghanistan and
the tribal territories of Pakistan as the base of Al Qaeda terrorism. The real
purpose of the war in Afghanistan is to establish a dominant US role in Central
Asia, the second largest source of world oil and gas exports.

As the Guardian notes in its coverage (but not the Times), the US complaints
about the Saudi role in financing terrorism play second fiddle to US oil
interests. The Guardian observed: “The cables show that when it comes to
powerful oil-rich allies, US diplomats save their concerns for closed-door
talks, in stark contrast to the often pointed criticism meted out to allies in
Pakistan and Afghanistan. Instead, officials at the Riyadh embassy worry about
protecting Saudi oilfields from al-Qaida attacks.”

A second set of cables from the Mideast, summarized in the Guardian, cite the
view of Iraqi government officials that Saudi Arabia, not Iran, posed the
biggest threat of destabilization. A cable from the US ambassador in Baghdad,
sent in September 2009, explains that Iraqi leaders viewed the Saudi objective
as “to enhance Sunni influence, dilute Shia dominance and promote the formation
of a weak and fractured Iraqi government.” The newspaper concluded that this
dispatch, “feeds claims, prevalent after the 9/11 attacks, that religiously
conservative, politically repressive Saudi Arabia, where most of the 9/11
terrorists came from, is the true enemy of the west.”

The accounts published by the “authorized” newspapers have undoubtedly been
cleared in advance with the US State Department and the British Foreign Office
to minimize the damage done to ongoing imperialist activities. These reports
therefore fail to provide an adequate picture of the sheer skullduggery of
American imperialism all over the world.

A few examples—all from a single weekend’s posting on the WikiLeaks site—give a
glimpse of the systematic double-dealing that are the essence of the predatory
foreign policy of Washington. In each instance, the cable tells the truth, in
direct contradiction to the public position of the US government, which is a lie.

September 9, 2009—A cable from the US embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, reports on a
visit by two unnamed leaders of the Kashgai tribe in the adjacent region just
across the Iranian border. Three months after the disputed Iranian presidential
election, the two men note that while members of their tribe regarded opposition
candidate Mehdi Karroubi favorably, as a member of a related Turkic-speaking
ethnic group, “most Kashgai probably voted for Ahmadinejad, as a result of
gratitude for improved health, education, and infrastructure services and/or
monetary inducements.”

This cable directly contradicts the official US lie that Ahmadinejad “stole” the
presidential election, one of the principal components of the ongoing propaganda
campaign against Iran. The failure of Karroubi to win the vote in his home
region of northwest Iran was invariably cited as “proof” of official ballot
rigging. But the embassy cable demonstrates that the US government knew that
Karroubi’s support there was weak.

December 26, 2009—A cable from the US embassy in Sana, Yemen relayed the Yemeni
foreign minister’s request that the Obama administration should deny
responsibility for US air strikes against alleged Al Qaeda targets in that
country, which left dozens of civilians dead. Instead, the official urged the US
to “highlight … indigenous counterterrorism capabilities.”

In other words, the Yemeni government asked the US government to help it lie to
its own people, as well as the world, and Washington obliged.

January 15, 2010—A cable from the embassy in Morocco reported a successful US
operation against Dadis Camara, leader of a military coup in the West African
country of Guinea, who was receiving medical treatment at a Moroccan hospital.
The State Department regarded Camara as less reliable than the officer who
replaced him during his illness.

Moroccan officials put Camara on board a small plane, telling him he was going
back to Guinea, but he was instead flown to Burkina Faso, a neighboring country,
and placed under house arrest. In effect, Camara was kidnapped at the behest of
the US government, which publicly denied any role in the affair.

Another series of cables from the US embassy in Paris in March 2010, track the
visit of French President Sarkozy to former French colonies in Africa, noting
shifts in French military and economic policy in that area. The cable noted that
while in Niger, Sarkozy acted as a shill for the giant uranium monopoly AREVA.

This dispatch underscores one of the driving forces of foreign policy for all
the imperialist powers: the financial interests of the giant corporations. The
United States is no exception, as demonstrated by two more excerpts from the
weekend postings on WikiLeaks:

The US embassy in Madrid noted the intercession of the American ambassador in
January 2009 on behalf of General Electric, which had complained that the
Spanish government “was not welcoming US bidders on procurement contracts.” When
the Spanish Ministry of Defense awarded a contract to provide helicopter motors
to the British-based Rolls Royce, Prime Minister Zapatero “overturned the
decision and it was announced that GE had won the bid. The Ambassador is
convinced that Zapatero personally intervened in the case in favor of GE.”

Another cable, sent in August 2007 by the US embassy in Bolivia, details attacks
on the property of American corporations by the nationalist government of
President Evo Morales: “A number of Evo’s recent actions and statements have
been seen as anti-investment by the industries affected: to give only a few
examples, the forced renegotiation of petroleum contracts, the nationalization
of Glencore’s Vinto smelter, Evo’s stated intention to create a state energy and
electricity company.”

The embassy adds, “One U.S. investment which is vulnerable is San Cristobal
mine, which is 65 percent owned by Apex Silver. San Cristobal would be
particularly hard-hit by a bill currently in Congress, which would increase
mining taxes.”

Imperialism is the global policy of finance capital, rapacious and predatory.
This remains as true today as it was when Lenin wrote his classic work
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism in 1915. It is to the great credit
of WikiLeaks that the organization has provided irrefutable documentation of
this historical reality.

http://wsws.org/articles/2010/dec2010/wiki-d06.shtml

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