Afghanistan: Why Wikileaks Should Not Be Plugged (Dissected News)

Dissected News analyses the issue of Afghanistan, Wikileaks, and information on the US conduct of the war:

Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, is VERY good at making headlines.  The last two leaks have justified those headlines, however, with the publication of classified information from inside the U.S. military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.  (Read an Iraq War veteran’s analysis of the leaked video showing the killing of two reporters in Iraq.)

In the newest wave of leaks, more than 90,000 classified documents pertaining to the war in Afghanistan have been posted. The findings are sprawling: Pakistani intelligence (Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI) is supporting the Taliban, Afghanistan has become a new front for the battle between India and Pakistan, Iran is supporting militants on its border, the Karzai government is corrupt, the U.S. military has killed too many civilians, and the militants now have access to some heat-seeking missiles… in short, the war is a mess.

Afghanistan: After the Wikileaks “Petraeus to Stop Corruption” (Partlow)
Afghanistan: What Did Wikileaks Reveal? What I Wrote in Kabul in 2005 (Shahryar)

As my colleague Josh Shahryar points out, not much of this is new information.

We’ve known, for instance, that the ISI supported the Taliban in the leadup to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. We’ve also known that the Indian-Pakastani conflict in the region was complicating the effort in Afghanistan. The problem is that large portions of traditional media sources have largely ignored these developments, and thus the American public is surprised by them.  As a result, no one has been holding the U.S. government accountable for actually fixing any of these problems.

For various reasons, now that this information is coming from leaked United States intelligence, this story is finally being paid attention to. Josh suggests it’s the sexy factor, and he’s probably right.

And this is why we need people like Julian Assange.

Not that Wikileaks doesn’t have its detractors. Many people, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), have condemned him for endangering national security, as well as the life and well being of people on the ground in places like Afghanistan. Assange, a zealot for the freedom of information and the American first amendment, has himself admitted that Wikileaks may wind up with “blood on our hands,” but he is convinced that the campaign for transparency will be worth the price. I’m not arguing that this point of view isn’t extreme, Assange is as radical as they come, and I’m certainly not arguing that the ones who are leaking this material haven’t broken the law (at least) and possibly their oaths of office and allegiance.

But with a situation as complicated and covered up as the developments in a place like Afghanistan, how are the common citizens of the world supposed to know what’s going on if the mainstream media doesn’t spend the resources to cover these stories, and the only ones with access to this information are under a sworn oath to keep the information secret?

Much has been made about a Washington Post report that over 800,000 people have “top secret” clearance in the U.S. intelligence circle.  Part of the problem is that there is this massive-yet-insulated community of people making our policy. If so many of our linguists (a limited and precious commodity that our educational system is failing to produce), analysts, and experts are included in this group, then a massive part of the expertise of this country is inside of the veil of secrecy. In other words, the few people who do have expertise on this part of the world have their voices shut off to anyone not inside the administration.

Read rest of article....

Afghanistan & US Politics: National Interests and Ending the War (Mull)

Josh Mull is the Afghanistan Blogging Fellow for The Seminal and Brave New Foundation. He also writes at Rethink Afghanistan:

By now, the full implications of the data contained in the 91,000 Wikileaks files are starting to sink in. Americans have been questioning the war for some time now, and they're finally putting their foot down and demanding an end. Thousands of calls are pouring in to Congress from around the country, all demanding a NO vote on today's war funding vote, and thousands more are signing a petition declaring "the Wikileaks ‘War Logs’ are further evidence of a brutal war that’s not worth the cost. I vote, and I demand my elected officials end this war by Dec. 2011."

Afghanistan: At Least 45 Civilians Killed in Rocket Attack

Sure, war supporters gave it the old college try. The White House and other political leadership stressed that the leaks contained no new information, incidentally clearing up once and for all the confusion we had over whether they were ignorant or merely incompetent and negligent prosecutors of US foreign policy. Some even tried to deflect the argument on to Wikileaks operator Julian Assange, as if the leak coming from him --- or Paris Hilton or Spider-Man --- has anything to do with the information it contained.

But their arguments are for naught, the war is now simply indefensible. These leaks confirm and validate the criticism so far levied against the war in Afghanistan. The headline in an article by Gareth Porter, "Leaked Reports Make Afghan War Policy More Vulnerable", seems like the understatement of the century:

Among the themes that are documented, sometimes dramatically but often through bland military reports, are the seemingly casual killing of civilians away from combat situations, night raids by special forces that are often based on bad intelligence, the absence of legal constraints on the abuses of Afghan police, and the deeply rooted character of corruption among Afghan officials.

The most politically salient issue highlighted by the new documents, however, is Pakistan's political and material support for the Taliban insurgency, despite its ostensible support for U.S. policy in Afghanistan.

You could pick just one of those things Porter mentions and it could spell catastrophe for the war. Instead we have all of them. It does more than make the war policy more vulnerable, it puts any war supporting politician in Washington in serious electoral peril.

Left to their own devices, the mainstream media will craft their own stupid and obnoxious narratives about "lefty insurgencies" or "anti-incumbent fever," and this will poison the eventual policy outcome. However, if we understand the facts now, and see this as not only a US political dilemma but as part of a global anti-war movement finally winding up at President Obama's doorstep, then the US can begin to accelerate its withdrawal more responsibly than the standard media narratives might allow (Get out now! No, stay forever!).

This is not simply a reaction to a failed policy, it is an articulation of an independent vision of selfish foreign and domestic policy interests. Americans, our NATO allies, and even our progressive allies in Pakistan are all working to end the war. Domestically, political candidates who are putting ,members of Congress in electoral peril are doing so as a response to outcry from their constituents.

Elaine Marshall, candidate for Senate in North Carolina, has been a strong opponent of the President's escalation in Afghanistan. She says that, throughout her campaign she has been approached by supporters who tell her, "‘I appreciate your stance, I appreciate you talking about it, I appreciate that you’re looking at more than just the headlines." She explained in an interview with the Seminal:

I live in North Carolina, a strong military state. When you talk to people who’ve been [to war], and you understand the sacrifices folks are making, and then you look at the reason why they are stepping up to make that sacrifice, or those maybe joined before the actual situation came up and they now, because they’re good soldiers, become involved in it. In our prior engagements for the most part, we had a goal. We knew who the enemy was, we knew why we were there, we had a line drawn that we knew would be success, achievement, victory. We don’t have any of that in the war in Afghanistan.

The same is true for candidate Tommy Sowers, running for Missouri's 8th congressional district. He recently published an opinion piece questioning the President's strategy of bolstering Afghan security forces, and asking whether or not such a massive, long-term financial commitment was feasible in the economic environment. He has received high praise for his essay, as well as for his position on the war itself, as he conducted town halls across the state. He explained what he was hearing from his constituents in an interview with me and Jason Rosenbaum last week:

First, across the country, districts like this carry the burden of the war in a visceral way. When I’m in a room, I ask folks if they are veterans or if they’re related to people currently serving – it’s almost the entire room. So, on a very personal level, these people are asking, "What are we accomplishing over there?" A lot of families ask their own family members that are over there this question.

Second, on a fiscal level, this district has suffered under Republican incumbent rule in terms of infrastructure. There’s great concern about the debt, and people ask, "Why are we spending so much money over there?"

Sowers served in combat during the Iraq war, and many in Marshall's family chose to serve their country in the military, so it's clear where their personal convictions are rooted. And the overflow of public outcry and support from their constituents gives them the momentum to go from average anti-war candidates to populist juggernauts.

Did you catch Sowers' comment about "suffering under incumbent rule"? The electoral peril is not a hypothetical, it's very real. Sowers is coming directly at his opponent on this issue. He told us:

My opponent sits on the NATO parliamentary assembly, so you’d think she’d have an interest in the issue, but I’m not certain she’s even visited Afghanistan. The only thing I’ve heard from her is we need to do everything over there – more troops, more money. That’s what you get with a former lobbyists trying to influence military policy.

His opponent doesn't even have much chance to reverse her position, her hands are already all over this war. Now she's staring down the barrel of Tommy Sowers, all because she couldn't even hedge her bets on an exit timetable. She had to do the lobbyist thing and give it all away, "more troops, more money". Marshall's opponent in North Carolina is no better, refusing to fund a $32 billion one-year extension for teachers on one hand while on the other having plenty of freebie money for Wall Street and the war-makers.

It's too late to change positions or blow this off as some kind of far-left anomaly in the primaries. These folks have had their resumes scrutinized, they've won their nominations, and now they've moved on to delivering a spirited beating to their opponents.

But what happens when they do get to Washington? That's where we truly see the selfish national interests laid out. They will not simply block the war and call it a day. Marshall has talked about expanding international cooperation in terms of developing Afghanistan, as well as reforming our port/border security with an eye on counter-terrorism. Sowers also has a definite objective in mind when it comes to securing US interests in Afghanistan.

I’m a secure our nation sort of guy, an ass-kicking Democrat. I think we should pursue and kill and capture terrorists where they are. That’s the problem in Afghanistan, we’re pursuing them where they were. For every special forces team tied up training an Afghan police force that one day won’t be paid is a special forces team that can’t operate in Yemen, Pakistan or Somalia. [...]

My strategy is informed by history. We are fighting an ideology. I’ve seen first hand when I had price on my head in Iraq. But there’s ways to fight this war much more intelligently.

Look back to the history of the cold war, how did we combat that? We contained, we deterred, we used trade, aid, proxies. And we occasionally sent guys like me to kill and capture the real bad folks. Overall, we let the system collapse in on itself.

Sowers is putting forward his own strategy for fighting terrorism. I've made my reservations about that strategy clear, but these candidates are not mirror images of activist bloggers; they are independent political actors. Sowers and Marshall are not conforming to any ideological constraints. They are putting forward their own, selfish national security strategies and are backed by popular momentum.

Pakistan is where we see those same selfish interests replicated. Just as our candidates look out for the United States, Pakistanis are looking out only for their country. Take, for example, their reaction to the Wikileaks' "War Diary" confirmation of the involvement of Pakistani army and intelligence services with the insurgency. Mosharraf Zaidi writes:

Virtually no serious commentator or analyst anywhere, even those embedded deep in the armpit of the Pakistani establishment, claims that the Pakistani state was not instrumental in the creation, training and sustenance of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan. Given the nature of the relationship between the Pakistani state and the Afghan Taliban, one that goes right to the genetic core of the Taliban, it is hard to imagine that all ties can ever be severed. Again, for serious people, this is an issue that is done and dusted. Pakistan's state, and indeed, its society, had, has and will continue to have linkages with the Afghan Taliban. Moral judgments about these linkages are external to this fact.

These linkages do, however, deserve the scrutiny of the Pakistani parliament. If somehow, Pakistanis are involved in supporting any kind of violence against anyone, that kind of support had better be couched in a clear national security framework that articulates why it is okay for Pakistanis to underwrite such violence. Absent such a framework, the violence is illegal, and the space for speculation and innuendo about Pakistan is virtually infinite. It is that space that Pakistan's fiercest critics exploit when they generate massive headlines out of small nuggets of insignificant and stale information that implicates Pakistan in anti-US violence in Afghanistan (among other things).

Zaidi is representative of a broader progressive movement in Pakistan, the closest parallel and ally that Americans have there, and yet what is his response? It is not a call for an immediate end to Pakistan's "Strategic Depth", its support of militants, and there is no mourning the loss of American lives because of that policy. There is only acknowledgement that the relationship with militants --- specifically the Afghan Taliban ---  is deeply embedded in Pakistani society, as well as a call for the government to better articulate this relationship in a "national security framework".

Zaidi is not looking out for our best interests --- refraining from support to militants who kill American soldiers --- he's looking out for Pakistan's best interests, and that includes their historic ties to militancy in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Jammu & Kashmir, etc. Seems harsh, but it is a parallel to the US. When was the last time an American pundit, even a liberal one, shed a tear for the thousands of Pakistani soldiers and policemen killed doing our selfish American bidding? The answer would be never.

But there's also the actual Pakistani anti-war movement. Appealing directly to the principles of the "American Founding Fathers", the group calling itself the Coalition of Conscience put forward this list of demands:

1. The foreign presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan is part of problem rather than the solution; > The coalition Governments must immediately order a cessation of all military and sting operations in the region and allow peace to be negotiated.


2. Al-Qaeda is a convenient tool to blanket all opposition to US policies in the region and impose unilateral policies; > All efforts to use this pretext to prolong the presence in the region and to pursue an international agenda other than peace must cease.


3. On going coalition operations have a fragmenting effect on both Pakistan and Afghanistan; > All coalition operations with divisive effects must be stopped.


4. The entire spectrum of violence and instability in Pakistan is a backwash from Afghanistan created by the presence of foreign forces. Support to insurgent and terrorist groups in FATA and Balochistan originate from Afghanistan. If this is not stopped, the instability will spread to other regions as well; > We demand the Government of Pakistan to make its own independent policies to ensure peace and development in the region; the mother of all civilizations.


5. Afghan movement is led by leaders who are indigenous to Afghanistan and legitimate representatives of resistance to foreign occupation; > These leaders must be treated as party to peace and brought into a comprehensive dialogue process as reflected in Pak-Afghan Jirga of 2007.


6. Failing a clear timetable from the coalition for the cessation of war; > The Government of Pakistan will be urged to exercise this nation’s legitimate right to secure its interests against all hostile bases inside Afghanistan, supporting and funding terrorism and insurgency in Pakistan.


7. In order to ensure long term stability and prosperity in the region; > The Government of Pakistan must carry forward the inconclusive negotiations of 1996 and assist all Afghans (Resistance and Northern Alliance) to mediate peace. We welcome support from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey and China with no covert agendas.


8. It is not Pakistan’s responsibility to ensure logistics for coalition forces in Afghanistan knowing well that much of it is used to destabilize and terrorize Pakistanis; > This support must stop unless approved by UN and conducted under transparent international safeguards and inspections.


9. Gross violations and exercise of human rights on selective bases are widely documented; > All Pakistani prisoners kept by coalition countries, Pakistan, and Afghanistan in illegal detention centers must be brought back immediately and subjected to Pakistani courts.


10. Rendition centers, trials under duress and extra judicial killings including drones and blanket air strikes violate basic human rights; > War reparations and criminal trials of coalition leaders who have knowingly falsified evidence in support of war before their own people; their Parliaments; and before the UN Security Council must be brought before Law. All Pakistani leaders guilty of same must be tried under Pakistan laws.

The "coalition Governments" they refer to are the US and NATO allies. They are demanding "independent policies" from the Pakistani government, a reference to American interference. Most of the rest is pretty mundane, nothing you haven't seen from almost any other peace movement, Pakistani or otherwise. But make a special note of Number Six:

Failing a clear timetable from the coalition for the cessation of war; > The Government of Pakistan will be urged to exercise this nation’s legitimate right to secure its interests against all hostile bases inside Afghanistan, supporting and funding terrorism and insurgency in Pakistan.

That means war with the United States. All of our troops operating supply lines in Pakistan, all of our troops stationed in Afghanistan, all of our intelligence centers and facilities for launching drone and special forces raids --- these are what they are referring to by "all hostile bases." When I warned about the collapse of Pakistan, and our troops getting caught in the middle of it, this what I meant. From their perspective, our war is the root of their terrorism and insurgencies, and they will react to secure themselves.

This is the state of the present anti-war movement, in the United States and in Pakistan. In the US, Americans are putting forward their own policies, an end to the war, revamped port security, as well over-the-horizon counter-terrorism. In Pakistan, they are demanding an end to the war, our war, which is so destabilizing for their country.

None of this is remotely ideological or partisan, nor is it merely reactionary to the existing policy of war. It is an independent calculation of interests.

Ending the war is firmly in our national interests, and any politician who doesn't start supporting the United States will be put in serious danger of losing their seat. How long until our war supporting representatives come to be seen as puppets for Hamid Karzai and General Kayani, much the same as some Pakistani politicians are viewed as puppets of the United States?

With the leaks confirming so much of the criticism about the war, every action the supporters take is automatically drenched in blood. Every time they are voting for more war funding, they are voting for American soldiers to be killed by InterServices Inteligence and Pakistan Army operatives. Every time they vote against an exit timetable, they are voting against the economic interests of the United States.

This is what's happening as we watch the war disintegrate in front of us. The facts show that the war is destroying our economy, it is making us less safe, and continuing it will lead to even further disaster. There is no angry far left, no hippies, no anti-incumbent fever, no bleeding-heart liberals, and no wobbly pacifists. There are only Americans stepping up and taking their country back, back from the catastrophe of war, and setting it on a better path toward securing our interests at home and in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Anyone who still supports the war, after all of our facts have been confirmed by the Wikileaks release, now stands firmly against American national interests, both domestic and foreign. The consequences will be hellish come November.

Latest Iran Video: Ahmadinejad on Afghanistan, Sanctions, & the US (26 July)

Brief notes on this interview of President Ahmadinejad by CBS News:

1. As Marc Lynch has noted at Foreign Policy, there is a real danger of a superficial portrayal of the Wikleaks "War Diary" showing a link between Tehran and the Taliban or even between Tehran and Al Qa'eda.

There is a massive difference between documents recording that "US officials say there are links...." and documents establishing evidence of links. As far as I know --- and this is a general remark on some of those claiming what the documents "show" --- those putting forth the Iran-Taliban-Al Qa'eda connections have not actually read any of the documents, only summaries put out for the press.

2. Beyond Afghanistan, CBS played nicely into Ahmadinejad's hands with softball questions on the nuclear programme, sanctions, and relations with Washington.

3. Most importantly, where was there any reference to Iran's internal situation? Is a major US network really that blinkered?

UPDATED Afghanistan: At Least 45 Civilians Killed in Rocket Attack

UPDATE 27 July: From Reuters....

*Afghan government and NATO officials on Tuesday disputed each others' accounts of reports that over 50 civilians were killed after being caught up in fighting between foreign forces and Taliban insurgents.

Government spokesman Siamak Herawi said 52 people, many women and children, were killed by a NATO-rocket attack on Friday in Sangin, Helmand province, but the NATO-led force said a preliminary investigation had not yet revealed any civilian casualties....

Afghanistan LiveBlog: Wikileaks and The Truth About the US Occupation
Afghanistan: The Wikileaks “War Diary” of 91,000 Documents

Herawi said information that 52 civilians had been killed came from the country's intelligence service in the district.

Karzai strongly condemned the attack and asked NATO troops to prioritize the protection of civilians in their military campaign, his office said in a statement citing the same casualty figures for the attack.

ISAF, however, insisted that a joint investigation with the Afghan government had so far found no evidence of civilian deaths, while a provincial official suggested local residents could even have made it up....

An ISAF spokeswoman said the team was still in the area, trying to establish the truth.



"We take any civilian casualty very seriously but there was no report of operational activity in Rigi," said Lt. Cmdr. Katie Kendrick.*

Amidst the chatter over the Wikileaks "War Diary" of 91,000 documents on the military intervention in Afghanistan, Al Jazeera reports that a rocket attack on an Afghan village last Friday killed at least 45 civilians, including women and children.

Waheed Omar, a spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, said an investigation was underway to determine who was responsible for the attack in Sangin district in the southern province of Helmand.

According to witnesses, helicopter gunships fired on villagers who had been told by fighters to leave their homes, as a firefight with the International Security Assistance Force loomed.

According to witness accounts, men, women and children fled to Regey village and were fired on from helicopter gunships as they took cover.

Abdul Ghafar, 45, who said he lost "two daughters and one son and two sisters" in the attack, claimed that the gunship fired on areas of shelter: "Helicopters started firing on the compound killing almost everyone inside. We rushed to the house and there were eight children wounded and around 40 to 50 others killed.".

The BBC said it sent an Afghan reporter to Regey to interview residents, who described the attack and said they had buried 39 people.

Colonel Wayne Shanks, an ISAF spokesman, said the location of the reported deaths was "several kilometres away from where we had engaged enemy fighters". An investigation team dispatched after the casualty reports emerged "had accounted for all the rounds that were shot at the enemy....We found no evidence of civilian casualties."

Afghanistan LiveBlog: Wikileaks & The Truth About the US Occupation

UPDATE 2010 GMT: Nick Schifrin at ABC follows up on the angle that the Wikileaks documents show officials from Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence aiding the Afghan insurgency.

Al Jazeera interviews the former head of ISI, General Hamid Gul, who denies the claims:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqkQKk9S_8E&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]

Afghanistan: At Least 45 Civilians Killed in Rocket Attack
Afghanistan: The Wikileaks “War Diary” of 91,000 Documents
General Kayani’s “Silent Coup” in Pakistan: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Mull)

UPDATE 1655 GMT: And how is Afghan President Karzai using the Wikileaks "War Diary"? To turn attention to Pakistan: "The recent documents leaked out to the media clearly support and verify Afghanistan's all-time position that success over terrorism does not come with fighting in Afghan villages, but by targeting its sanctuaries and financial and ideological sources across the borders. Our efforts against terrorism will have no effect as long as these sanctuaries and sources remain intact."

UPDATE 1515 GMT: Amy Davidson in The New Yorker starts from one incident revealed in the Wikileaks document:

The Obama Administration has already expressed dismay that WikiLeaks publicized the documents, but a leak informing us that our tax dollars may be being used as seed money for a protection racket associated with a narcotics-trafficking enterprise is a good leak to have. And the checkpoint incident is, again, only one report, from one day. It will take some time to go through everything WikiLeaks has to offer—the documents cover the period from January, 2004, to December, 2009—but it is well worth it, especially since the war in Afghanistan is not winding down, but ramping up...."

And reaches this conclusion:

After more than eight years at war, how carefully are we even looking at Afghanistan? The [New York] Times had a piece in Sunday’s paper on the strange truth that our expenditure since 9/11 of a trillion dollars on two wars has barely scraped our consciousness. Fifty-eight Americans have died in Afghanistan so far this month; one of them—Edwin Wood, of Oklahoma—was eighteen years old. Maybe the WikiLeaks documents will make those numbers less abstract."

UPDATE 1455 GMT: Andrew Bacevich assesses in The New Republic:

"The real significance of the Wikileaks action is...[that] it shows how rapidly and drastically the notion of 'information warfare' is changing. Rather than being defined as actions undertaken by a government to influence the perception of reality, information warfare now includes actions taken by disaffected functionaries within government to discredit the officially approved view of reality. This action is the handiwork of subversives, perhaps soldiers, perhaps civilians. Within our own national security apparatus, a second insurgent campaign may well have begun. Its purpose: bring America’s longest war to an end. Given the realities of the digital age, this second insurgency may well prove at least as difficult to suppress as the one that preoccupies General Petraeus in Kabul."

And Andrew Sullivan on his Daily Dish blog:

When one weighs the extra terror risk from remaining in Afghanistan, the absurdity of our chief alleged ally actually backing the enemy, the impossibility of an effective counter-insurgency when the government itself is corrupt and part of the problem, the brutality of the enemy in intimidating the populace in ways no civilized occupying force can counter, the passage of ten years in which any real chance at success was squandered ... the logic for withdrawal to the more minimalist strategy originally favored by Obama after the election and championed by Biden thereafter seems overwhelming.

When will the president have the balls to say so?

UPDATE 1445 GMT: Simon Tisdall in The Guardian of London uses the documents to write, "How the US is Losing the Battle for Hearts and Minds".

Meanwhile we have posted on a specific incident on Friday which demonstrates the complications of military intervention and that supposed battle for hearts and minds, "At Least 45 Civilians Killed in Rocket Attack".

UPDATE 1145 GMT: The BBC is working the angle, "Cases of Afghan civilians allegedly killed by British troops have been revealed among thousands of leaked US military documents....The records include references to at least 21 incidents involving UK troops. The Ministry of Defence said it had been unable to verify the claims and it would not speculate on specific cases."

UPDATE 1140 GMT: Wikileaks director Julian Assange is currently holding a press conference. Take-away quotes: "The course of the war needs to change. The manner in which it needs to change is not yet clear"; "It’s war, it’s one damn thing after another. It is the continuous small events."

UPDATE 0920 GMT: "The Afghan government is shocked with the report that has opened the reality of the Afghan war," said spokesman Siamak Herawi.

UPDATE 26 July 0910 GMT: The White House has issued a far-from-surprising response to the Wikileaks "War Diary". National Security Adviser General James Jones said such classified information "could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk".

(Older readers may remember that the "national security" line was the response put out by the Nixon White House when the "Pentagon Papers" on the Vietnam War were published in 1971.)

And by the way, Jones added --- repeating a line put out by White House officials within hours of the story breaking --- the episode has little to do with us: the documents cover 2004 to 2009, before President Obama "announced a new strategy with a substantial increase in resources for Afghanistan".

UPDATE 2205 GMT: Simon Tisdall in The Guardian has a different approach based on the documents: "Iran is engaged in an extensive covert campaign to arm, finance, train and equip Taliban insurgents, Afghan warlords allied to al-Qaida and suicide bombers fighting to eject British and western forces from Afghanistan, according to classified US military intelligence reports contained in the war logs."

UPDATE 2155 GMT: Der Spiegel has posted a full package of articles. It also has an exposé of the Pakistan connection with the Taliban but also considers "German Naivety" with "trouble in the growing north" and profiles "Task Force 373", the US "black" unit hunting down targets for death or detention (the Guardian also has an article on the unit). It also has the first critiques of American operations: one on drones --- "the flaws of the silent killer" --- and one on "The Shortcomings of US Intelligence Services".

UPDATE 2145 GMT: The second New York Times article is a snapshot of Combat Outpost Keating:

"The outpost’s fate, chronicled in unusually detailed glimpses of a base over nearly three years, illustrates many of the frustrations of the allied effort: low troop levels, unreliable Afghan partners and an insurgency that has grown in skill, determination and its ability to menace."

UPDATE 2140 GMT: The first New York Times special report based on the Wikileaks documents focuses not on American but Pakistani involvement:

Americans fighting the war in Afghanistan have long harbored strong suspicions that Pakistan’s military spy service has guided the Afghan insurgency with a hidden hand, even as Pakistan receives more than $1 billion a year from Washington for its help combating the militants, according to a trove of secret military field reports to be made public Sunday.

The documents, to be 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."

UPDATE 2130 GMT: The New York Times has now posted a few of the documents and its first article on "The War Logs" of Wikileaks. The take-away points:

¶ The Taliban have used portable heat-seeking missiles against allied aircraft, a fact that has not been publicly disclosed by the military. This type of weapon helped the Afghan mujahedeen defeat the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.

¶ Secret commando units like Task Force 373 — a classified group of Army and Navy special operatives — work from a “capture/kill list” of about 70 top insurgent commanders. These missions, which have been stepped up under the Obama administration, claim notable successes, but have sometimes gone wrong, killing civilians and stoking Afghan resentment.

¶ The military employs more and more drone aircraft to survey the battlefield and strike targets in Afghanistan, although their performance is less impressive than officially portrayed. Some crash or collide, forcing American troops to undertake risky retrieval missions before the Taliban can claim the drone’s weaponry.

¶ The Central Intelligence Agency has expanded paramilitary operations inside Afghanistan. The units launch ambushes, order airstrikes and conduct night raids. From 2001 to 2008, the C.I.A. paid the budget of Afghanistan’s spy agency and ran it as a virtual subsidiary.

Over all, the documents do not contradict official accounts of the war. But in some cases the documents show that the American military made misleading public statements — attributing the downing of a helicopter to conventional weapons instead of heat-seeking missiles or giving Afghans credit for missions carried out by Special Operations commandos.



White House officials vigorously denied that the Obama administration had presented a misleading portrait of the war in Afghanistan.

---
Nick Davies and David Leigh write for The Guardian of London:

A huge cache of secret US military files today provides 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 fuelling the insurgency.

The disclosures come from more than 90,000 records of incidents and intelligence reports about the conflict obtained by the whistleblowers' website Wikileaks in one of the biggest leaks in US military history. The files, which were made available to the Guardian, the New York Times and the German weekly Der Spiegel, give a blow-by-blow account of the fighting over the last six years, which has so far cost the lives of more than 320 British and over 1,000 US troops.

Their publication comes amid mounting concern that Barack Obama's "surge" strategy is failing and as coalition troops hunt for two US navy sailors captured by the Taliban south of Kabul on Friday.

The war logs also detail:

• How a secret "black" unit of special forces hunts down Taliban leaders for "kill or capture" without trial.

• How the US covered up evidence that the Taliban has acquired deadly surface-to-air missiles.

• How the coalition is increasingly using deadly Reaper drones to hunt and kill Taliban targets by remote control from a base in Nevada.

• How the Taliban has caused growing carnage with a massive escalation of its roadside bombing campaign, which has killed more than 2,000 civilians to date.

In a statement, the White House said the chaotic picture painted by the logs was the result of "under-resourcing" under Obama's predecessor, saying: "It is important to note that the time period reflected in the documents is January 2004 to December 2009."

The White House also criticised the publication of the files by Wikileaks: "We strongly condemn the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organisations, which puts the lives of the US and partner service members at risk and threatens our national security. Wikileaks made no effort to contact the US government about these documents, which may contain information that endanger the lives of Americans, our partners, and local populations who co-operate with us."

The logs detail, in sometimes harrowing vignettes, the toll on civilians exacted by coalition forces: events termed "blue on white" in military jargon. The logs reveal 144 such incidents. Some of these casualties come from the controversial air strikes that have led to Afghan government protests in the past, but a large number of previously unknown incidents also appear to be the result of troops shooting unarmed drivers or motorcyclists out of a determination to protect themselves from suicide bombers. At least 195 civilians are admitted to have been killed and 174 wounded in total, although this is likely to be an underestimate because many disputed incidents are omitted from the daily snapshots reported by troops on the ground and then collated, sometimes erratically, by military intelligence analysts.