How we feel about the Afghanistan leak

[Recursion]

I'm curious. I've seen a lot of generalities about the leaked documents but very little specific.

Can anyone who has read through more of them than me (and I've already read a lot of them) point to an example of any of the following:

1. A report of a war crime being committed
2. The naming of an informant or other person helping the NATO forces (I've seen them referred to by codenames only)
3. Any description of US operations that are not already publicly available
4. An actual concrete report of Afghan government corruption or incompetence (I've seen several reports where the officer said something to the effect of "Man, these guys are clowns", but no concrete examples)

I guess what I'm saying is, I think the pro-war and anti-war wonks in the country are very much overselling the importance of these leaks. What have they actually, concretely told us or the Taliban that neither of us knew before?

[robdogbucky]

1. I haven't read them yet, but some folks that have rendered this:

The huge scale of Pakistan's complicity
The Globe and Mail, July 30, 2010


(Thanks to WikiLeaks, the involvement of Inter-Services Intelligence in the Afghan conflict is now obvious, argues Chris Alexander, Canada's former ambassador to Afghanistan. )


Both Afghanistan and Pakistan are now in the grip of a single escalating conflict, punching eastward from Khyber Pakhtunwa (the former Northwest Frontier Province) into Punjab's heartland, as well as westward toward Kabul, Kandahar and Kunduz. .. As a direct consequence, reconciliation has failed to get off the ground: the Pakistan-based Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan – the official name for the Taliban and its allies – clearly prefer to fight. (Full Article)


_____________


Special Report
'The Sun in the Sky: the relationship between Pakistan's ISI and Afghan insurgents'

June 2010 --"Taliban commanders and a wider group of Afghans close to the insurgency believe that the highest levels of Pakistan's government are actively involved in protecting and sustaining the insurgency presents a great challenge to senior Pakistani civilian and military officials to demonstrate their commitment to reaching a peace settlement." (Full Report)


When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
So-oldier _of_ the Queen!

-- Rudyard Kipling

http://newsforreal.com/



My friend Steve Pizzo at his website had the above, along with the lead-in paragraphs that I will paste per protocol, IOW, only 4 paragraphs from it here. More later:



Secrets Kill Too
Part Two


"If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied."
Kipling


"Much has been said this week about the wisdom, or lack thereof, of the WikiLeaks Af/Pak war secret document dump.

Critics claim the exposure will cost lives. Supporters – count me one – believe that history argues far more convincingly that millions of lives have been lost because of secrets, that should never have been kept secret in the first, because they were flawed, wrong or just plain false. Keeping such secrets meant no one could vet them, no one could compare them to the facts on the ground guaranteeing that even the most transparent lies remained unassailable.

So, for those whining about WikiLeaks spilling the beans on the Af/Pak war fiasco I say, go ahead, show proof of all the dead informants you have, And we'll produce historical records proving our contention that some secrets are more deadly -- FAR more deadly.

Oh look -- we win..."





Hands off my Social Security!
Hands off Latin America!





Just my dos centavos


robdogbucky

[robdogbucky]

2. And further opinion on the general efficacy of "leaking" "secrets"

I regret this isn't rifle shot on your overiding question confining the issue to the "Taliban."

Weren't they in large part our creation in the first place? Kind of reminds me of other "Puppets gone bad." I recall Noriega and Hussein right off the top of my head.

More from Pizzo at NewsforReal:


"...On your side you have the "possibility" that WikiLeaks might get -- what? -- a few dozen informants killed? On our side we have – oh gawd, were to begin....Pick a date... pick a war. Here's a complete list. Knock yourself out.

Among those wars on that list where false secrets played a key role in getting all kinds of people killed -- unnecessarily – count the 1898 “sinking” of the US battleship, Maine, in Havana Harbor and the so-called Gulf of Tonkin “attacks” that gave President Lyndon Johnson justification for ramping up the Vietnam War and, more recently, the Bush administration's BS WMD.

The 1971 leak of some 5000-pages that came to be known as the Pentagon Papers. The leak revealed the utter bankruptcy of logic, morality and truth underlying the prosecution of that war.

Among the documents leaked was a memo from the Defense Department under Johnson listing the REAL motivation behind the war:


70% - To avoid a humiliating U.S. defeat.
20% - To keep South Vietnam (and the adjacent) territory from Chinese hands.
10% - To permit the people of South Vietnam to enjoy a better, freer way of life
- ALSO - To emerge from the crisis without unacceptable taint from methods used..."

http://newsforreal.com/



Hands off my Social Security!
Hands off Latin America!



More centavos


robdogbucky