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Leaked Documents Paint Devastating Portrait of the Failing war in Afghanistan
Afghanistan war
- Greatest government leak since the Pentagon Papers, NYT: The War Logs -
By Glenn Greenwald
The most consequential news item of the week will obviously be — or at least should be — the massive new leak by WikiLeaks of 90,000 pages of classified material chronicling the truth about the war in Afghanistan from 2004 through 2009. Those documents provide what The New York Times calls ”an unvarnished, ground-level picture of the war in Afghanistan that is in many respects more grim than the official portrayal.” The Guardian describes the documentsas “a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fueling the insurgency.”
In addition to those two newspapers, WikiLeaks also weeks ago provided these materials to Der Spiegel,on the condition that all three wait until today to write about them. These outlets were presumably chosen by WikiLeaks with the intent to ensure maximum exposure among the American and Western Europeans citizenries which continue to pay for this war and whose governments have been less than forthcoming about what is taking place [a CIA document prepared in March, 2010-- and previously leaked by WikiLeaks -- plotted how to prevent public opinion in Western Europe from turning further against the war and thus forcing their Governments to withdraw; the CIA's conclusion: the most valuable asset in putting a pretty face on the war for Western Europeans is Barack Obama's popularity with those populations].
The White House has swiftly vowed to continue the war and predictably condemned WikiLeaks rather harshly. It will be most interesting to see how many Democrats — who claim to find Daniel Ellsberg heroic and the Pentagon Papers leak to be unambiguously justified — follow the White House’s lead in that regard. Ellsberg’s leak — though primarily exposing the amoral duplicity of a Democratic administration — occurred when there was a Republican in the White House. This latest leak, by contrast, indicts a war which a Democratic President has embraced as his own, and documents similar manipulation of public opinion and suppression of the truth well into 2009. It’s not difficult to foresee, as Atrios predicted, that media “coverage of [the] latest [leak] will be about whether or not it should have been published,” rather than about what these documents reveal about the war effort and the government and military leaders prosecuting it. What position Democratic officials and administration supporters take in the inevitable debate over WikiLeaks remains to be seen (by shrewdly leaking these materials to 3 major newspapers, which themselves then published many of the most incriminating documents, WikiLeaks provided itself with some cover).
Note how obviously lame is the White House’s prime tactic thus far for dismissing the importance of the leak: that the documents only go through December, 2009, the month when Obama ordered his “surge,” as though that timeline leaves these documents without any current relevance. The Pentagon Papers only went up through 1968 and were not released until 3 years later (in 1971), yet having the public behold the dishonesty about the war had a significant effect on public opinion, as well as their willingness to trust future government pronouncements. At the very least, it’s difficult to imagine this leak not having the same effect. Then again, since — unlike Vietnam — only a tiny portion of war supporters actually bears any direct burden from the war (themselves or close family members fighting it), it’s possible that the public will remain largely apathetic even knowing what they will now know. It’s relatively easy to support and/or acquiesce to a war when neither you nor your loved ones are risking their lives to fight it.
It’s hardly a shock that the war in Afghanistan is going far worse than political officials have been publicly claiming. Aside from the fact that lying about war is what war leaders do almost intrinsically — that’s part of what makes war so degrading to democratic values — there have been numerous official documents that have recently emerged or leaked outthat explicitly state that the war is going worse than ever and is all but unwinnable. A French General was formally punished earlier this month for revealing that the NATO war situation “has never been worse,” while French officials now openly plot how to set new “intermediate” benchmarks to ensure — in their words — that “public opinion doesn’t get the impression of a useless effort.” Anyone paying even mild attention knows that our war effort there has entailed countless incidents of civilian slaughter followed by official lies about it, “hit lists” compiled with no due process, and feel-good pronouncements from the Government that have little relationship to the realities in that country (other leak highlights are here). This leak is not unlike the Washington Post series from the last week: the broad strokes were already well-known, but the sheer magnitude of the disclosures may force more public attention on these matters than had occurred previously.
Whatever else is true, WikiLeaks has yet again proven itself to be one of the most valuable and important organizations in the world. Just as was true for the video of the Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad, there is no valid justification for having kept most of these documents a secret. But that’s what our National Security State does reflexively: it hides itself behind an essentially absolute wall of secrecy to ensure that the citizenry remains largely ignorant of what it is really doing. WikiLeaks is one of the few entities successfully blowing holes in at least parts of that wall, enabling modest glimpses into what The Washington Post spent last week describing as Top Secret America. The war on WikiLeaks — which was already in full swing, including, strangely, from some who claim a commitment to transparency– will only intensify now. Anyone who believes that the Government abuses its secrecy powers in order to keep the citizenry in the dark and manipulate public opinion — and who, at this point, doesn’t believe that? – should be squarely on the side of the greater transparency which Wikileaks and its sources, sometimes single-handedly, are providing.
Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=41676
Posted by Yanira Farray on Jul 26 2010, With 0 Reads, Filed under AfPak, WarZone. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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Is it a conspiracy to push Obama for quick attack on Islamic Iran? The three newspaper mentioned in the article are all pro-Israel.
Furthermore, there is no mention of the real reasons behind the October 2001 invasion of Afghanistan which was conceived by the neocons (mostly Jewish) several months ahead of 9/11. the real reasons for the occupation of Afghanistan was (is) the oil/gas pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Pakistani port of Gwadar (Balochistan) – and the andundance supply of heroin. Both reasons were for the financial benefits of Jew drug lords and their oil-gushing puppets. The added attraction was for Israel – destablizing the only Muslim nuclear power (Pakistan) and the Hizbullah/Hamas supporter Islamic Iran.
All those targets except the pipeline have been successfully implemented.
Now Joe Lieberman has made the final call – ‘Pentagon is ready to strike Iran’
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2010/07/26/lieberman-pentagon-is-ready-to-strike-iran-2/
A lot of people, including myself, agree with you. This ‘leak’ is designed to put Pakistan but mostly, Iran in the hot seat. Anytime I see a mainstream news source claiming to publish leaked documents, I question what their motive is. I don’t believe a word of what they print anymore.
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To me this is an attempt to portray the obvious as news. Create a little drama to justify an action and discussion is all this so called leak is to me.
This so called leak is like saying inside reports and sources tell us Lindsy Lohan is a spoiled self indulgent troubled alcoholic. And that is the news!
Now we have 92,000 classified documents from Wiki Leaks and the N. Y. Times has polished over all of them to make them fit to read in the U.S. and reporting ” really nothing new or revealing hear pleas go back to sleep”
Any Bets $$$$$$$ out there that there will be major stories “yet revealed” on our Unbreakable Life Partner were supporting with Dollars, Weapons of War and the Lives of our Finest against the unarmed Palestine’s. As Israel continues playing the
U. S. as fools ? Ronald Douglas Kennedy
Thanks M. Leon for this post ‘n the valuable links within. I would say as long impunity f. documented lese humanity crimes exists, the effects of any leak is negative for peace-democracy-transparency. As things stand now, the leaks serve-act as psych op, an instrument to condition the public opinion to the “N.W.O.”, a new way-rationale of “doing business”, the players on the theatre of ops irrational way:The invasion of Afghanistan was based on lies-cover ups f. drug-arms deals-against Iran Pakistan-China.
The US administration has again started giving ‘orders’ to Pakistan to “do more” and now she is exerting all the pressures for a military action on North Waziristan and if Pakistan did not, USA is all prepared to do so by herself, come what may, as Obama has been convinced by CIA that Osama Bin Laden is in N. Waziristan. Therefore, it is more likely that USA may attack on N. Waziristan possibly in Oct/Nov-2010, like she did in Tora Bora using all her might. Now will also do the same as the US forces don’t want Osama to slip away this time whom they missed once in Tora Bora on the instructions of an important personality in Bush administration, which is a State secret.
CIA got the issue of Osama’s death, resolved as Osama’s son, suddenly spoke just out of blue and gave a statement that his father is alive. Who asked him to give such a statement…? No one.!! Then why did he announce it..? (possibly)CIA asked for it. Who can refuse million dollars to give such a statement. And there is no harm in spending a million dollars from the drug money which can’t even be audited. But, now the critics who were repeatedly saying that Osama died in Tora Bora mountains, will not be able to speak on this issue ever again.
A big WIN for CIA and the US administration.Cheers…..
Is Julian Assange immune to the CIA and Mossad? I doubt it. The fact that he is alive, and this is released, tells me that it is COINTELPRO. Mix some reports that have been available online for years, with the desired disinfo. The attack on Pakistan as working with the Taliban was probably the raison d’etre of the leak.
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CIA got it leaked with the sole purpose of to malign ISI and Pakistan army, convincing and inducing Obama to allow attack on N. Waziristan and then onward onto Pakistan’s nuclear installations in collaboration with India and Israel.
If so happens, they will find us prepared to use even the last bullet (nuclear missile), and Israel is within the range of our nukes now, not to speak of targets in Afghanistan, Arabian waters and India.
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