Monday, July 26, 2010

92,000 Afghan War Related Documents Leaked By Wikileaks Site

From Gateway Pundit:

92,000 Classified Documents Pertaining to Afghan War Released By Wikileaks


Posted by Jim Hoft on Monday, July 26, 2010, 5:46 AM

92,000 classified documents pertaining to Afghanistan War were leaked by Wikileaks this weekend. SPIEGEL, the New York Times and the Guardian have analyzed the classified documents already.

Der Spiegel reported, via Kristinn:



Close to 92,000 US documents have been uncovered that shed new light on the war in Afghanistan. In an unprecedented development, close to 92,000 classified documents pertaining to the war in Afghanistan have been leaked. SPIEGEL, the New York Times and the Guardian have analyzed the raft of mostly classified documents. They expose the true scale of the Western military deployment — and the problems beleaguering Germany’s Bundeswehr in the Hindu Kush.



A total of 91,731 reports from United States military databanks relating to the war in Afghanistan are to be made publicly available on the Internet. Never before has it been possible to compare the reality on the battlefield in such a detailed manner with what the US Army propaganda machinery is propagating. WikiLeaks plans to post the documents, most of which are classified, on its website.



Britain’s Guardian newspaper, the New York Times and SPIEGEL have all vetted the material and compared the data with independent reports. All three media have concluded that the documents are authentic and provide an unvarnished image of the war in Afghanistan — from the perspective of the soldiers who are fighting it.



The reports, from troops engaged in the ongoing combat, were tersely summarized and quickly dispatched. For the most part, they originate from sergeants — but some have been penned by the occasional lieutenant at a command post or ranking analysts with the military intelligence service.



UPDATE: Dan Friedman added this:



“The leaks” released on Sunday were perfectly timed and coordinated to dominate this week’s news (at least). WikiLeaks promises there’s going to be much more and its founder (who should be in jail) has already said “he believes there is evidence of war crimes.” At first blush, the reaction from conservatives, the ones who are all-in for the Afghan and Iraq wars, has been cautious and muted – a slight upgrade I suppose from stunned silence.





The Weekly Standard’s Gabriel Schoenfeld touched on the massive breach of security. Otherwise, the best the conservative magazine could muster this morning on the political fallout was the affair would “almost certainly reignite the public debate over the war in Afghanistan, and the Obama administration’s strategy there.” After the liberals and the left get finished picking at this bone, we’ll all look back and marvel at what a quaint understatement that turned out to be.

Make no mistake, the starting gun has sounded and a great game of recriminations and finger pointing has begun that – like the Pentagon Papers - will profoundly effect how this country wages war. And if the right naively believes the Afghan ball is in Obama’s court and they can find cover behind him, all they need to do is remember our brave commander-in-chief’s four favorite words: It. Was. Bush’s. Fault.



Yesterday, they were given new life.

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