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On Friday April 7, leaked Pentagon documents began circulating widely on social media. These documents contained highly classified information, leading to revelations about the state of the war in Ukraine and the extent of US intelligence on Russia. The documents also highlight illegal CIA spying on some of the most loyal allies of the US, including Ukraine, Israel, and Yoon Seok-yeol‘s government in South Korea.
The leaked documents reveal that the US has illegally intercepted communications within South Korea’s National Security Office (NSO) about the nation’s apprehensions around sending arms to Ukraine.
Late last year, reports emerged that South Korea agreed to sell artillery shells to the US. The Pentagon documents show that President Yoon’s secretary for foreign affairs, Yi Mun-hui, had told National Security Adviser Kim Sung-han that South Korea “was mired in concerns that the US would not be the end user if South Korea were to comply with a US request for ammunition.” The nation has an official policy of not sending lethal aid to countries at war, and worried that the weaponry would end up in Ukraine’s hands. The intelligence was gathered through CIA “signals intelligence,” or the gathering of information through electronic devices. This constitutes a grave violation of South Korea’s sovereignty.
In response, President Yoon’s administration has claimed, without evidence, that the leaked documents are forged. Explanations have been sparse. When the administration was asked on what grounds they believe the documents were forged, the presidential office responded, “When, how, or how much I know about an issue can be an important confidential matter so I will not touch on that directly.”
“We assessed [the situation] internally, and the US will have conducted its own investigation, but much of the disclosed intelligence was forged,” said Kim Tae-hyo, first deputy director of the NSO, showing a tremendous trust in the US government’s investigations of itself.
“The US claims its alliance with South Korea is built on an equal partnership,” Ju-Hyun Park, of the diasporic Korean anti-imperialist organization Nodutdol, told Peoples Dispatch. “The actions of the US government clearly demonstrate otherwise. Yoon has shamelessly supported US wars against Russia, China, and our fellow Koreans in the northern peninsula. But Yoon’s efforts to cozy up to the imperialists will never make a difference, because the US does not truly see Korea as an ally, or care about the Korean people. Korea is just another pawn in the US’s imperialist game.”
The White House has urged journalists to refrain from reporting on the Pentagon leak. Fox News and other mainstream outlets have acquiesced and agreed to not publish the documents. The leaked documents contain alleged classified information obtained by the US by spying on other sovereign nations. This includes that the Russian government is allegedly planning to pay a bonus to troops who can destroy NATO tanks, that the US could try to push Israel to supply lethal aid to Ukraine, and that the Ukrainian military is in dire straits, especially in Bakhmut.
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Featured image: South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol with US President Joe Biden. (Source: Peoples Dispatch)
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