“Yes We Scan” – US and UK in shameless spying on guests of State
It
was a good take off from “Yes We Can” from Barack Obama’s presidential
campaign in 2008, by the headline in a German publication to mark Barack
Obama’s visit to Germany this week. The complete text was – “Yes We
Scan” – with an image of Obama with earphones on listening into the
sub-text that read: “United we can progress towards a perfectly
monitored society”. The lampooning and lambasting of the Barack Obama
and David Cameron duo caught in the coils of spying on citizens and
foreign guests could not be missed anywhere on the Internet, although
the mainstream Western media was playing down the scandals.
Edward Snowden |
In is interesting to know why rights organizations such as Amnesty
International, Human Rights Watch, Transparency International et al that
are so loud when it comes to issues of transparency and accountability,
as well as privacy and human rights in this part of the world, have
played a very low key in all of this.
Is it possible that they are all busy trying to hunt for
unsubstantiated material on inhospitable diplomacy of the UK, for a
Channel 4 on the “Fire that Is” in Western disrespect for hospitality
and the courtesies of diplomacy?
There is no end to the countries of the West, especially the UK and
USA, preaching to the world about human rights, transparency and
accountability. They give the impression of being paragons of virtue on
matters of international relations, projecting their systems of
governance as what should be emulated by all others who can claim to be
democratic or share the values of the West.
We see today an outrageous display of the lack of basic hospitality
to one’s own invitees to these countries, lacking in the courtesy and
decorum of good diplomatic relations. After the shocking exposure of the
extent of cyber snooping done by the United States revealed in the past
two weeks, we now have the even worse exposure of the UK – just as David
Cameron began receiving the leaders of the G8 nations for their summit,
hosted by the UK in Northern Ireland.
It is now revealed without any contradiction, or even an attempt at
explanation (which would be futile), that the UK Government
Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) intercepted and spied on
communications of foreign participants at the G20 Summits held in the UK
in 2009.
This shameless violation of the privacy of Heads of State, ministers
and foreign delegates to an international conference of the highest
ranking held in the UK, is a shocking revelation of the contemptible
attitude of politicians and administrators in the “Mother of
Parliaments”, the ready torch bearers for human rights, transparency,
accountability, privacy and good diplomacy.
All such values and principles have been wholly negated by this
shameless act of spying on one’s own guests, passing on some of the
information obtained to the US – the ally with the closest relationship
with the UK, causing much more than ripples of concern in the world.
The whole exercise in the horrific invasion of privacy has upended
the civilized values that the West claims to stand for, and calls for a
serious look at the value systems that drive the West today, in the
holier than though attitudes towards Islamic and other political forms
found in the world. It is as bad as the shock of drones that kill
civilians in the hunt for terrorists, and certainly worse than how the
US has been eavesdropping and collecting information from the telephone,
radio and Internet communications of all of its citizens, and those of
other countries too, in a so-called operation to protect the US from
terrorist attacks.
Not surprisingly, Russia, Turkey and South Africa have openly
expressed outrage over revelations that both Britain and the United
States spied on foreign delegates at the G20 meetings in London in 2009.
“Scandalous” - Turkey
The foreign ministry in Ankara said it was unacceptable that the
British government had intercepted phone calls and monitored the
computers of Turkey's finance minister as well as up to 15 others from
his visiting delegation. If confirmed, the eavesdropping operation on a
NATO ally was "scandalous", it said.
The ministry summoned the UK's ambassador to Ankara to hear Turkey's
furious reaction in person.
A spokesman at the foreign ministry read out an official statement
saying: "The allegations in the Guardian are very worrying … If these
allegations are true, this is going to be scandalous for the UK. At a
time when international co-operation depends on mutual trust, respect
and transparency, such behaviour by an allied country is unacceptable."
Barack Obama |
Dmitry Medvedev |
David Cameron |
Gordon Brown |
The Guardian revealed that the UK’s GCHQ targeted Mehmet Simsek, the
Turkish finance minister and a former Merrill banker, during a G20
economics meeting hosted in London in September 2009. It also considered
monitoring the communications of 15 named members of his staff and of
Turkey's central bank. The goal was to collect information about the
Turkish position on the reform of the global financial infrastructure in
the wake of the world banking crisis.
“Deepened mistrust” - Moscow
In Moscow Russian officials said the Guardian report that US spies
had intercepted top-secret communications of (President) Dmitry Medvedev
at a G20 summit in London in April 2009 would further harm the
struggling US-Russia relationship and cast a shadow over the G8 summit
in Northern Ireland, earlier this week.
Details of the spying, set out in a briefing prepared by the National
Security Agency (NSA), revealed by the Guardian late on Sunday, show
that US spies based in Britain spied on Medvedev, then the Russian
president and now prime minister.
Senior Russian officials said the revelations had deepened mistrust
between the US and Russia, whose relations have already sunk to a
post-cold-war low following a brief and largely unsuccessful "reset"
during Medvedev's four-year reign in the Kremlin.
Igor Morozov, a senator in Russia's Federation Council, the upper
house of Parliament, suggested that the Obama administration's attempts
to improve relations were clearly insincere: "2009 was the year the
Russian-American 'reset' was announced. At the same time US special
services were listening to Dmitry Medvedev's phone calls."
He added: "In this situation, how can we trust today's announcements
by Barack Obama that he wants a new 'reset'? Won't the US special
services now start spying on Vladimir Putin, rather than correcting
their actions?" he told RIA-Novosti, a state-owned news agency. "This
isn't just an act of inhospitality, but a fact that can seriously
complicate international relations," he said. "Big doubts about Obama's
sincerity appear."
The Guardian reports that South African computers were also singled
out for special attention, in this ugly swoop in visiting delegates,
prompted Pretoria to warn against the abuse of privacy and "basic human
rights". "We have solid, strong and cordial relations with the United
Kingdom and would call on their government to investigate this matter
fully with a view to take strong and visible action against any
perpetrators," the South African foreign ministry said.
Trickery
The steps the GCHQ took to spy on the guests of the UK, including its
fellow members in the European Union and NATO, were bizarre. They go far
beyond the stuff of whimsical espionage writers. It is now revealed that
delegates to the G20s were allegedly tricked into using specially
prepared Internet cafes which allowed British spies to intercept and
monitor email messages and phone calls through BlackBerry devices. GCHQ
was also able to track when delegates were contacting each other and
targeted certain officials of their choice, and visiting ministers.
The fact that this dismal exercise in spying “diplomacy” took place
during the previous Labour government, under Prime Minister Gordon
Brown, does not reduce the opprobrium this has brought to the UK.
Prime Minister David Cameron has little choice but to state, as he
does, that he would not comment on intelligence matters, but the
revelations are undoubtedly most embarrassing as he hosts the G8 Summit,
with this adding to the difficulties in winning over President Vladimir
Putin to the Obama-led Western line of arming the Syrian rebels – that
admittedly include those who are closely linked to al-Qaeda – the focus
in the “War on Terror” by President Obama and most other Western states.
Media mockery
The Western media were also caught up in these exposures, with little
choice but to report what was being revealed, mainly by the Guardian, or
be left out of the picture.
The Guardian gave more to readers with an Internet interview with
whistleblower Snowden, while the South China Morning Post also gave him
an opportunity to make his case for the scathing revelations for which
he has been named a traitor by Dick Cheney. Snowden claims it an honour
to be so named by such a manipulator of the truth to US citizens.
Yet, it did not take long for the key names in Western media such as
BBC, CNN, Fox and MSNBC to try and subdue the impact of all this by
using commentators and analysts to say what a normal and necessary
practice surveillance of communications is, and trying to play down the
aspect of damaged good relations and the very scandalous nature of the
absence of standards of civilized hospitality that all of this revealed.
“Red Line”
Both
Obama and David Cameron were trying hard to maintain the best face
amidst the huge embarrassments caused by these revelations of
contemptible spying, which was not made any easy by the sudden discovery
by Obama that President Assad of Syria had crossed the “red line” of the
West’s own making, through alleged proof of the use of chemical weapons.
Once again the Western media made themselves readily available to spread
the message of Assad crossing the “red line” and to justify arming the
Syrian rebels, including admitted an avowed al-Qaeda groups.
It did not need much effort to recall how close this call of “poison
gas” was to the open lying to the entire world by then US President
George W Bush and UK Premier Tony Blair about Saddam Hussein having
weapons of mass destruction, based on wholly flawed intelligence
reports, to justify the invasion and regime change in Iraq, a decade
ago. The Syrian issue is not one that has an easy solution, but it is
clear that the West has no solution to offer to the Syrian people,
trapped in a bloody power struggle to define the new realities of the
Middle East.
Although there may be disagreements with the continued Russian
support for Damascus, (not forgetting that Syria is on its border),
President Putin thought it necessary to call Obama’s new intelligence
about poison gas as not convincing. He made a stronger statement in a
the media conference with David Cameron, who was pressing for arms to
the Syrian rebels, in asking whether the West wanted to arm those who
pulled out and ate with relish the innards of those killed in battle. It
was a reference to the viral image of Syrian rebels tearing out the
heart of a dead Syrian soldier and biting into it.
Learn from us
All of this calls for a good evaluation of Western policy vis-a-vis
terrorism and the much touted claims to be defenders of human rights,
transparency, accountability and diplomacy. This reminds us of how the
same countries, especially the UK, although having banned the LTTE as a
terrorist organization, was trying hard to pressure Sri Lanka for an end
to the operations to defeat in 2008/09, knowing very well the nature of
the LTTE and its total commitment to terror. It was Gordon Brown’s
Foreign Secretary, David Miliband who as among the strongest and loudest
in making these demands, that are still echoed by those who draw a thick
veil over LTTE terror.
The past two weeks have shown the difficulty in having good relations
with honesty and a unity of civilized purpose with governments that have
no regard for the decencies of civilized life. Those who lack the
courtesies of diplomacy cannot be expected to do much to genuinely
defend the cause of transparency and accountability. In fact they have
now been exposed for their total lack of transparency and accountability
- the loudest charges against Sri Lanka - in both national interstate
matters. It seems time for them to learn the practice of good
hospitality from the East. Sri Lanka certainly has much to teach both
Barack Obama and David Cameron about friendship and hospitality. |