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 U.S. intelligence agencies released to social media these past few days are the findings of U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. spying.
South Korea will demand 'appropriate measures' after Pentagon documents leak