Whenever there is a war, the victors have tales of gory atrocities committed by the vanquished. The aftermath of first and second world wars had stories of German and Japanese atrocities, the torture to the Allied PWs and mistreatment of the civilian population of the “liberated” areas. Since the vanquished were subjected to such a harsh treatment with complete censorship on the media, no one could say a word about what the visitors did.
We grew up watching films on WW-II, mostly made by Hollywood that showed angry and barbaric Japanese and German soldiers and their inhuman acts. None of the movies showed what the Allied did to the Germans and the Japanese in captivity. They were instead shown being hugged by women and cheered by crowds as their liberators.
But thanks to the independent media and bold journalism that has now started to unravel the atrocities by the forces of the so called civilized world. The treatment meted out to the Iraqi soldiers when they were stripped stark naked and subjected to humiliation by a female officer is still fresh in our memories. The world also now knows how Palestinian children are killed deliberately by the Israeli soldiers or the Kashmirs fighting for their freedom are being maltreated and tortured by the government forces.
Now there is yet another emerging voice that is exposing the inside stories – Wikileaks. Now unhidden moves, dirty tricks and behind the scene moves are being exposed. Today all newspapers had headlines of Us efforts to take away the enriched uranium from Pakistan “to save it from falling in the hands of the terrorists.” There were other news of Arab states calling for attacks on Iran and the Saudi monarch labeling the Pakistani president being the stumbling block in the progress of Pakistan. Another "leak' describes Pakistan's president Zardari as dirty but not dangerous, while it labels Mr Nawaz Sharif (the ex prime minister) as dangerous but not dirty.
And that is not all. The recent “leaks” reveal that American officials were also told to spy on the United Nations’ leadership and get biometric information on its secretary general Ban Ki-moon. It adds that Washington asked for credit card numbers, email addresses, phone, fax and pager numbers and even frequent-flyer account numbers for UN figures and “biographic and biometric information on UN Security Council permanent representatives”. The secret “national human intelligence collection directive” was sent to US missions at the UN in New York, Vienna and Rome as well as 33 embassies and consulates, including those in London, Paris and Moscow. The leaked memos also disclose how American diplomats compared Iran’s President Ahmedi Nejad with Adolf Hitler and labeled France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy as the “emperor with no clothes”.
Such is the impact of the disclosure by the Wikileaks that Robert Gibbs, a White House spokesman, has been quoted as saying, “When the substance of private conversations is printed on the front pages of newspapers across the world, it can deeply impact not only US foreign policy interests, but those of our allies around the world.”
This is the opening of the pandora box which may not only embarrass the US and its allies, but would also expose the many hidden secrets, the cruel game that is being played around the world in a uni-polar scenario. It will not be surprising that one day Al-Qaeda turns out to be a secret US plot and the 9/11 event a brilliantly articulated cover-up to unleash yet a long drawn War of Terror mainly at the behest of the world leading arms dealers and robbers of natural treasures of the countries presently being reigned by the terrorists (or hired merceneries?).
Having said this, I may also caution the readers that the so called leaks could also be a part of plot to mislead the world on many burning issues, create dissent in relations between countries (specially Pakistan and Saudi Arabia) and cause bitterness, hatred, and mistrust. "Leaks" of sensitive nature can not come out of the safeguards applied by the CIA / FIB and many high level espionage and spy agencies unless so allowed. We thus need to be very careful while analysing these "leaks", lest we fall in the trap laid so very cleverly for us.
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3 comments:
Let us get into that 'Pandora Box.'
Well said Jalal.
Thank you SAJS - we also need to concentrate on the last part of the post too.
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