All Spiegel Online, first July 25, rest July 26
The Afghanistan Protocol
Explosive Leaks Provide Image of War from Those Fighting It
Leaked Afghan War Documents
Former Pakistan ISI Chief Gul Denies AccusationsThe Truth about Task Force 373
War Logs Cast Light on Dirty Side of Afghanistan Conflict
The Helpless Germans
War Logs Illustrate Lack of Progress in Bundeswehr Deployment
Plus NY Times, July 25, lots more at “The War Logs“:
View Is Bleaker Than Official Portrayal of War in Afghanistan
Pakistan Aids Insurgency in Afghanistan, Reports Assert [with map]
And the Guardian:
The War Logs
Update: News stories on reaction:
1) NY Times:
Leaks Add to Pressure on White House Over Strategy
2) Washington Post:
WikiLeaks disclosures unlikely to change course of Afghanistan war
3) WS Journal (with a “person of interest”):
Afghan War Leak Sets Off Effort to Control Damage
Opinion (NY Times):
Getting Lost in the Fog of War
ANYONE who has spent the past two days reading through the 92,000 military field reports and other documents made public by the whistle-blower site WikiLeaks may be forgiven for wondering what all the fuss is about. I’m a researcher who studies Afghanistan and have no regular access to classified information, yet I have seen nothing in the documents that has either surprised me or told me anything of significance. I suspect that’s the case even for someone who reads only a third of the articles on Afghanistan in his local newspaper…
It all sure depends on how one looks at things, don’t it?
Upperdate: BruceR. of Flit has been there with the CF and has some initial comments, esp. on incidents he knows about directly:
…people should be mindful this is still just largely a summary of first-reports, based on relayed messages from headquarters at least two levels lower in many cases, however, and is often going to be inaccurate. For instance, these three reports (1 – 2 – 3) are all of the same incident on Dec. 26, 2008. (I was sort of in the vicinity at the time.) So the Wikileaks count of 4 Afghan KIA and 5 Afghan MIA for the three incidents together that day is exaggerating by a factor of three. Wikileaks has added its own sometimes erroneous interpretations, too: just looking through the incidents I was involved in, I’ve also noted a couple undoubtedly insurgent fatalities in the Canadian AO during my roto classed as civilian deaths, a civilian encounter with an old Soviet minefield classified as an IED strike, and so on.
A lot of this is pretty unavoidable fog of war, first-reports-are-always-wrong stuff. Just as one for instance, here’s one report in the database based on information I was personally involved in passing on…
Plus some good stuff from Brian Platt at The Canada – Afghanistan Blog.
Mark
Ottawa
This entire Afghan operation has turned into a farcical exercise in global face-saving. The Afghan government is corrupt to the core. The Pakistanis are aiding the Taliban while extorting money from the west. We have sent our troops into a fight which we have no intention or hope of winning because we are treating it as a scaled up police action rather than a war.
Since when have wars been fought with troops fighting with one hand tied behind their backs. Don’t injure civilians; treat enemy combatants as poor, misguided souls; respect all the customs of the locals; allow your own citizens to undermine your efforts by publishing supposedly classified documents. (this was once considered treason)
In wars, the idea is supposedly to bring all your resources to bear to win a victory then get out. If you can’t beat the enemy then the field is his; but if you lose because you are using your armed forces as cannon fodder while the diplomats and NGOs try to talk the populace into throwing away centuries of tradition then you have done a disservice to the people who you send to carry out an impossible task.
What are you proposing exactly? Limiting civilian deaths is not only a noble end in itself, but also a necessary part of “winning” the war. After all, troops are fighting an insurgency and with every civilian killed, the insurgency grows as anger turns to violence.
So again, what are you proposing? That we just bomb the snot out of everyone?
People are comparing this leak to the Pentagon Papers, which is probably overstating just how explosive the information is. But its impact may still be the same in turning public opinion decisively against the war.
Well, considering that Obama wants an American pull out in 2011 and Harper already is planning a pull out in 2011. Then screw it.
Pull out the troops and cut off ALL AID to that piss hole Pakistan and declare immigrants from Pakistan and Afcrapistan to be undesirables.
If the scumbags in Pakistan want to play both sides of the fence while our soldiers get killed and the low life Afghan “government” does the same thing then to hell with them.
We leave, so does our money.
I haven’t always been for the war but I’m surprised that the secret documents have been so positive about it in fact. You would expect a lot worse to come out and a lot more doom and gloom frankly.
Let India nuke the f*ck out of Pakistan without worrying about U.N. sanction from the likes of Canada.
Once the troops leave let’s start reviewing the charitable status of any nonprofit NGO thatsends aid to afcrapistan or Pakistan.
No charity to terrorist havens or narcostates.
[...] some of the story so far. Now, Kate McMillan at her juxtaposin’ best: Mainstream Journalism: Not Ethical [...]