WikiLeaks: Afghanistan

I leave it up to Nettertainment's readers to determine for themselves whether this leaking of 90,000 military records regarding Afghanistan to the WikiLeaks site is tantamount to treason or a public service similar to the leaking of The Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg back when the Vietnam War was being propped up with horrendous lies, but it seems like something of a bombshell being covered by major newspapers as well as throughout the blogosphere. One thing The New York Times focuses on in their lead story is how the documents reveal Pakistan aiding the Afghanistan insurgency:

The documents, made available by an organization called WikiLeaks, suggest that Pakistan, an ostensible ally of the United States, allows representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organize networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders.

Taken together, the reports indicate that American soldiers on the ground are inundated with accounts of a network of Pakistani assets and collaborators that runs from the Pakistani tribal belt along the Afghan border, through southern Afghanistan, and all the way to the capital, Kabul.

Much of the information — raw intelligence and threat assessments gathered from the field in Afghanistan— cannot be verified and likely comes from sources aligned with Afghan intelligence, which considers Pakistan an enemy, and paid informants. Some describe plots for attacks that do not appear to have taken place.

But many of the reports rely on sources that the military rated as reliable.

England's The Guardian is digging deeply into these logs, and their coverage of this hour-by-hour account of the war is accompanied by an explanation of why WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange posted these logs:



Clearly the ability to keep governmental secrets is diminished, if not demolished, in our brave new Internet age. Is the answer greater fortresses of secrecy or, as I suspect will happen, markedly less guile in the future. This can cut both ways, with a country that commits to war doing without apology, damned the torpedoes.

And, of course, these documents are going to force consideration of the key question to it all:

Is it (well-past) time for our United States to get out of Afghanistan?