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International News Title: WikiLeaks sheds light on Obama's secret war On his eponymous CNN show Sunday, Fareed Zakaria made the sweeping claim that unlike leaks about U.S. foreign policy in past decades, the still-spilling WikiLeaks cables do not demonstrate U.S. duplicity in foreign affairs. I think, for the most part, he's right. However, Zakaria ignores the fact that the cables do show that the U.S. has acquiesced in the propagation of falsehoods and duplicity by at least one U.S. ally — an approach which has implications for the U.S. domestic audience in our globalized news environment. In addition, the U.S. may sometimes have gone even further to divert public attention from its activities abroad. "The cables don't show the United States doing anything duplicitous or underhand[ed] or scandalous. Now, remember, in the 1960s and '70s, America was often engaged in operations and policies that were clandestine and were actually the opposite of its stated foreign policy," Zakaria insisted Sunday in a commentary at the outset of "Fareed Zakaria GPS." "But now, in these cables, there are no stories of coups, attempted assassinations, or closet deals. Washington's secret diplomacy is actually remarkably consistent with its public diplomacy on Iran, on North Korea, on all kinds of issues." No "closet deals"? What about the widely reported cable indicating that Yemeni President Ali Saleh told U.S. officials of his plans to continue lying publicly about the involvement of U.S. forces in military strikes against alleged Al Qaeda targets in the country, including a Dec. 17, 2009, strike that reportedly killed 14 Al Qaeda fighters along with 14 women and 21 children? "We'll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours," Saleh said, according to a State Department cable describing a January 2010 meeting with U.S. Gen. David Petraeus. The cable reports that Saleh's comment led "Deputy Prime Minister [Rashad al-Alimi] to joke that he had just 'lied' by telling Parliament that the bombs in Arhab, Abyan and Shebwa were American-made but deployed by the" Yemeni government. It may be, in the eyes of many, entirely appropriate, even necessary, for the U.S. government to acquiesce in such a falsehood. It may well be appropriate, even necessary, for Saleh to mislead the public about the U.S. government's role in order to stave off a massively hostile reaction from his own people. However, it is clearly a falsehood involving an aspect of U.S. foreign policy and one which the WikiLeaks cables definitively exposé. It's also worth noting that on the eve of the attack, the U.S. was issuing broadly worded denials about its military activities in Yemen, albeit in response to questions about northern Yemen, not the southern area that was struck on Dec. 17. (Please see UPDATE below.) At a news briefing on Dec. 15, 2009, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley had the following exchange with reporters: QUESTION: On the conflict in Yemen, Houthis say that U.S. warplanes have launched airstrikes in northern Yemen. Is the U.S. involved in any military operations in Yemen? MR. CROWLEY: No. QUESTION: No? MR. CROWLEY: But we — those kinds of reports keep cropping up. We do not have a military role in this conflict. In the wake of the Dec. 17 strike, the U.S. declined to comment on its role in that incident, but noted that "some people" had confused U.S. cooperation with Yemen on counterterrorism matters with assistance in Yemen's internal insurgencies in which the U.S. denied any role. The WikiLeaks cable also suggests that Yemen was rebuffing U.S. attempts to independently verify targets prior to strikes — the kind of "eyes on" verification that might have avoided or minimized the reported civilian casualties in the Dec. 17 strike. It is true that there have been anonymously sourced reports in major news outlets describing U.S. military operations in Yemen in some detail. Still, the official silence and the on-the-record denials about a U.S. military conflict in a faraway country — a fight that arguably broadens the scope of U.S. battle beyond that publicly advertised by U.S. officials — does seem to have at least some parallels to the secret war the Nixon administration launched against Cambodia. That war was exposed by New York Times reporter William Beecher on May 9, 1969, in an article titled, "Cambodia Raids Go Unprotested." That report, too, led to a round of leak investigations and wiretapping. I'm not the only one to see some similarities: The Times included the details about the Yemen operation in a collection called "The Shadow War" and described this way: "Articles in this series will examine the secret expansion of the war against Al Qaeda and its allies." It's also worth noting that the Times series raised questions about whether military operations such as the one in Yemen receive the degree of congressional oversight required for CIA operations abroad. I can't imagine congressional leaders are unaware of these activities at this point, but to suggest that the operations were part of a crystal clear, transparent U.S. government policy in advance of the WikiLeaks disclosure is simply wrong. UPDATE: Prior to posting this item, I did not contact Crowley for further explanation of his comments. I should have done so, especially since some have jumped on that reference to conclude that he "likely lied." I made no such claim in this post. Looking at what transpired here, it seems most likely that Crowley was intending his denial to refer only to the internal Yemeni conflict, but it sounded broader than that in the Dec.15 version. Crowley was then in a position where to correct or clarify his earlier comment completely he would likely have had to stray into matters that are classified, namely U.S. counterterroism operations in Yemen. Crowley issued the following statement to Salon on Tuesday: "I did not mislead anyone. Yemen is a country with multiple conflicts. As the transcript shows, I was asked to respond to a claim that the United States bombed the Houthis. As I said, the United States has no role in the conflict between the Yemeni government and the Houthis. Had the question been about Al Qaeda, my answer would have been different. And if you look through subsequent transcripts, in that context, we were careful to say we were supporting Yemeni counterterrorism efforts without being specific."
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