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The recent leak of highly classified Pentagon documents is being labeled as a "Nightmare for the Five Eyes" intelligence network. The leaked documents reveal that the U.S. was spying not just on Russia, but also on its allies including Ukraine, Israel and South Korea. Hardly surprising! As the U.S. has a long history of spying indiscriminately against its friends and foes.

To understand this complex history and the implications of the latest Pentagon leaks, CGTN's Sr. International Editor Abhishek G Bhaya spoke with Ray McGovern, a former CIA officer turned peace activist. McGovern served at the CIA as an intelligence analyst for 27 years from 1963 to 1990. He received the Intelligence Commendation Medal at his retirement but returned it in 2006 in protest of the CIA's involvement in torture.

Edited Excerpts:

CGTN: This is not the first time we've seen such leaks from the U.S. How critical are these leaks in your opinion and who could be behind this? What's your hunch?

McGovern: There's so much contradictory and other information out that it's really hard to tell. But I think one has to proceed from the cui bono perspective: Who profits from these leaks? Also, The New York Times and Washington Post just deciding to publish these things. Now that's big. They could have suppressed it, just as they have suppressed many key stories for several years at a time. But they decided to publish this one. Now, why?

I believe that Ukraine (war) may be at the bottom of this. I believe that it could be that some senior policymakers in the Pentagon at the highest reaches of the Department of Defense have decided that this is a fool's errand in Ukraine. Maybe, we got to get out the truth. Maybe we got to expose people like the Joint Chief of Staff (General Mark A.) Milley and (Defense) Secretary (Lloyd J.) Austin for the lies they have told about Ukrainian progress and Russians being just pulverized. And maybe, that will stop this widening of the war because this spring is critical.

CGTN: Is the U.S. a reliable ally? Why haven't we seen any strong reactions from Ukraine, South Korea and Israel yet?

McGovern: When you talk about the U.S. allies, they are really U.S. vassals. The relationship is very, very uneven. The U.S. calls the shots; the U.S. shares the bulk of the information with the allies.

As far as the U.S. being a reliable ally, every nation looks to its own interests. Some nations, when they conclude an agreement, stick to it. The history of the United States since the fall of the Soviet Union, when we promised not to extend NATO one inch to the east; well, there are 31 countries in NATO, and half of those were incorporated into NATO after that promise. And they are all many more miles than one inch to the east. So some countries make promises and then don't abide by them.

CGTN: The leak is being described as the "Nightmare for the Five Eyes" intelligence network. What is the driving factor for the Five Eyes network?

McGovern: The Five Eyes of course are the (group of) English-speaking countries that decided after World War II that they would all share information. This includes the U.S., the UK, New Zealand, Australia and Canada. It is sort of a privileged group, like one of those fraternities up at Yale University. You got to really know somebody to get in but it's a wider question now.

People refer to the collective West. The collective West tells that Russia is isolated. We have a collective West which I call the "Lily-White West." Look at NATO, what's the distinguishing characteristic? All white.

So, you have the collective West against the rest of the world now. People of color (comprise) 80 percent (of the world's population) – China 1.4 billion, India 1.5 billion, Indonesia, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Brazil for God's sake. So, it's not really Russia that's isolated, it's the United States that has isolated itself and the Five Eyes are the epitome of that. So, this is a very unhealthy situation.

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