..listening to NPR - it's all about the Wikileaks. We got this yesterday in the mail (Slugbug used to be a moderator on Kerry's national website during 03-04.) My bias after listening to NPR is that the shit could rightfully hit the fan, and that the government position will be to cover it's ass, as they are claiming that alot of this information was already out there.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-MA) released the following statement this evening in response to the New York Times story on the leak of classified documents concerning Afghanistan and Pakistan:
"However illegally these documents came to light, they raise serious questions about the reality of America's policy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan. Those policies are at a critical stage and these documents may very well underscore the stakes and make the calibrations needed to get the policy right more urgent." (Senator Kerry)
The Center for American Progress sent out a big mailing today called the Afghan War Diaries. There stuff is generally well-researched. They report on the 92,000 classified reports from Wikileaks. They contain reports written from the ground over a six-year period. They were released to the New York Times, the Guardian in the UK and Der Spiegel in Germany, but only reported on yesterday.
Revelations include use of heat-seeking missiles by the Taliban as mujahadeen used to defeat the Soviets. They report a CIA squad that operated outside the chain of command. They highlight that the Afghan conflict was shunted aside until recently for the Iraq war, with Afghans unable to be paid promised money. Pakistan has apparently been playing a double game by aiding insurgents, with spies being paid by the US but then working also for the other side. Some agents may have plotted against Karzai or plotted to poison the beer of US recruits.
There are shocking, previously unreported accounts of civilians being killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Many were not suicide bombers or insurgents, and these occurrences have taken a toll on civilian morale. Then there is the issue of Afghan incompetence, from police brutality to drug partying, not to mention friction between soldiers and police. The official position will be that the revelations constitute a "security breach" and that more money and effort is now going into the Afghanistan conflict. Some of the reports are vague or not clearly substantiated, but the whole release is highly controversial. This is going to be a big fucking deal.
(info summarized from email report sent out by Center for American Progress)
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