Reactions to US spying scandal, boiling Europe, silent Middle East

Cryptome Digital Library, a big library in the US, has been in charge of keeping secret documents, has recently announced that the US has carried out about 124 million spying operations on different Middle East countries in January with Afghanistan with 23 million ranked first, Pakistan with 13 million stood in the second and Saudi Arabia and Iraq with 7.8 million jointly stood on the third ranking. Following them are India with 6.28 million, Egypt with 1.9 million, Iran with 1.73 million and Jordan with 1.6 million stand in the next ranks.

However there are some interesting points in this report.

First is that Afghanistan issues are on top of the operation for the US regarding the due withdrawal of the US forces and hindrances for suspension of security agreements and peace deals with Taliban; hence, to observe the news on Afghanistan is prioritized similar to those of Pakistan which are important from the same view.

Interestingly enough is the issue of spying on countries like Saudi Arabia which since long has been known a close ally for the US.

However these spying operations, either on European or Arab allies, show that contrary to a seemingly trust there is no true trust among them and this lack of trust is more on the US side.

Of course other questions are proposed on the same issue, including that why is Saudi Arabia or other Arab countries, contrary to European countries, did not launch propaganda turmoil? The answer is that firstly, these countries do not find themselves capable of confrontation with the US and secondly, they are quite concerned over the outcome of these operations and also their fragile situation.

For instance, the popular uprising in the Middle East and Northern Africa Arab countries started following the release of Wikileaks scandal which unveiled economic and moral corruption of some Arab rulers.

Also regarding the point that many Arab media do not have enough freedom in their own countries, they have not been able to help with expanding the different aspects of this scandal like what some western and European media has done against US spying scandal.

On the question that why western media has avoided to relate on spying on Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries it has to be mentioned that Saudi Arabia usually leads a policy of bribing these media to prevent the disclosure.

And finally what is also noteworthy in this report is that there is no word on the Zionist regime. In the first view it might seem that the US, regarding the nature of its relations with the Zionist regime does not feel the need for spying or collecting information but because there have been frictions between Washington and Tel Aviv since empowerment of Obama administration on settlement expansion in the West Bank or in in the recent changes in Washington-Tehran ties; therefore, closeness of ties cannot be a good justification for the US not spying on Israeli regime.

Another theory might also be correct that since US spying operations are carried out as a preemptive measure to prevent terror attacks, there has been no need for spying on the Zionist regime because the country does not include Al Qaeda-based groups as it has been on Saudi Arabia.

But even this reasoning cannot be justifiable to exclude the Zionist regime from spying targets of the US because it has been proved that this regime has penetrated into Al Qaeda group to hire it in line with its objectives to the point that all measures by Al Qaeda and Takfiri (excommunicating) groups in fueling sectarian and religious gaps in the Middle East has been in full accordance with strategies of the Zionist regime. Therefore, it stands a big chance that the Zionist regime has also had a major role in managing and conducting the new series of disclosure by the US to avenge on the country by harassing it in this scandal.

HK