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US Hunts Afghan War Files Leaker
The US Defense department has launched an investigation to identify who leaked tens of thousands of classified documents on the war in Afghanistan to a whistleblower website.
Officials said on Monday that whoever handed over the about 91,000 documents to Wikileaks appeared to have security clearance and access to sensitive documents.
"We will do what is necessary to try to determine who is responsible for the leaking of this information," Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said.
He warned that while it remained unclear who had handed over the information more leaks were possible.
"Until we know who's responsible, you have to hold out the possibility that there could be more information that has yet to be disclosed. And that's obviously a concern."
Bradley Manning, a US army intelligence analyst, was charged earlier this month in connection with the leak of a classified video, showing a 2007 helicopter attack that killed a dozen civilians in Baghdad, to Wikileaks.
The Pentagon said in June that it was investigating allegations that Manning had handed over classified video and 260,000 secret diplomatic cables to the website.
It was not immediately clear if he was being investigated about the leak of the files on the war in Afghanistan and the Pentagon has declined to name any suspects.
Assessing damage
The unverified files suggest that Pakistan's intelligence agency has been holding strategy sessions with Taliban leaders to aid their efforts in Afghanistan.
The documents also include descriptions of a covert US special operations unit formed to target high-level al-Qaeda and Taliban figures, incidents that caused civilian casualties and a host of other operational reports.
The Pentagon said its review of the documents made public would take "days if not weeks" and that it was too soon to assess any damage to national security.
Still, US military officials played down the significance of what had emerged so far, saying that they appeared to be low-level assessments that largely confirm the military's publicly stated concerns about the Afghan war.
"The scale of [the leak], the scope of it, is clearly alarming. I don't think the content of it is very illuminating," Morrell said.
The Pentagon said it was also looking at possible damage to the war effort on the ground in Afghanistan.
Michael Hayden, a former CIA director, said the leak was a gift to the enemies of the United States.
"If I had gotten this trove on the Taliban or al-Qaeda, I would have called it priceless," he said.
He predicted that the Taliban would take anything that described a US attack and the intelligence behind it "and figure out who was in the room when that particular operation, say in 2008, was planned, and in whose home".
Then the fighters would likely punish the traitor who had worked with the Americans, Hayden said.
'Enemies list'
Jane Harman, a Democratic congresswoman, said the White House had indicated the disclosures compromised a number of Afghan sources.
"Someone inadvertently or on purpose gave the Taliban its new enemies list," she said.
The leak of classified documents could create deeper doubts about the war at home, cause new friction with Pakistan over allegations about its spy agency and raise questions around the world about Washington's ability to protect military secrets.
The White House called the leak, which is one of the biggest in US military history, "alarming".
But Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, emphasized that the documents covered the period before Barack Obama, the president, ordered a major increase in US troops fighting in Afghanistan, and the administration denied they would cause any policy shift in the fight against the Taliban.
- Posted in
88 Comments so far
Show AllWiki and the Newspapers redacted anything that might reveal informants identities.
The informants are traitors to Afghanistan. But I do sympathize because many are being blackmailed ,threatened and bribed by the USA.
I do not condon killing but if informants may be identified I rather see the guilty executed rather than the innocent by mistake.
There we have it.
The US Defence department, the Pentagon, the CIA, the Democratic congresswoman, the White House and dear Robert Gibbs are insane.
They think this is the leak of a grocery list.
"Michael Hayden, a former CIA director, said the leak was a gift to the enemies of the United States."
Actually, the leak is a gift to everyone. Both the American and Afghan people have a right to know what is being done, whether in their name or to them.
If this leak makes it more difficult to force locals to betray their own neighbors then it may accomplish something positive.
q
If you do not know, the enemies of the United States are the working-class, taxpayers, also known as the middle class.
American's can't handle the truth. Honey, pass me the remote.
Know the Truth, and it shall set you free! The fascist amerikan empire fears Truth ! Its coming to a "Life" theater near you !
It certainly is heartwarming to see so many Democrats defend Manning who exposed what the United States is doing in Afghanistan. These cables that have been revealed to the public are clear indications that war crimes have been committed against the Afghan people. Instead of raising that issue the Democrats want to claim that these documents are a breach of national security. Apparently the last thing that the Democrats wish to do is to ever wonder if the cause set by Obama is the right one to take which would seem to support the claim that the Democrats do not hesitate to place party over principle.
What is going on in Afghanistan is indicative of what veteran correspondent Malcolm Browne, who had covered the war in Vietnam, had noted in Susan A. Brewer's book Why America Fights: Patriotism and War Propaganda from the Philippines to Iraq:
"Honest reporting is the last thing most people want when the subject is war. War is thundering good theater, in which cheering the home team is half the fun."
Indeed as America's political leader also seem to have taken Browne's accurate observations to heart as they refuse to look objectively at what the U.S. military is doing to the Afghan people. Unfortunately our leaders today have neglected to listen to what former Senator William Fulbright once remarked and that is that:
"The biggest lesson I learned from Vietnam is not to trust government statements."
Perhaps one of the most trenchant observations that one finds in Ms. Brewer's book is when she has writer and former Vietnam veteran Philip Caputo remembering how he viewed American soldiers, as they searched the huts of the peasants in Vietnam, as acting more like "bullying Redcoats" rather than "all-American good-guy G.I. Joes."
This is what our elected representatives seem unable to comprehend and that is that the good guys are people like Bradley Manning and Julian Assange while the bad guys are the American soldiers who are committing war crimes against the Afghan and Iraqi people.
the soldiers are NOT the bad guys, lets not start down that road again
the vast majority are decent people who are doing their job and trying to do the right thing, often risking their own lives
the bad guys are the ones starting and maintaining the war for their own profit,
and so they can exploit these other countries in future
It think this depends on your perspective. If, for example, these decent people just doing their job have just kicked down your door and blown away your family you might not have such a chariitable opinion of them.
Voxclamantis
Bravo as your comment most certainly places in perspective what those allegedly decent people are doing to those people in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The soldiers are not the bad guys? Who slaughtered those 12 civilians in Iraq in 2007 in that video released by Wikileaks a few months ago? Did those bullets that were fired from that helicopter rip into the flesh of those people by osmosis? It seems that every day one reads of yet another atrocity being committed by American and NATO forces in Afghanistan and yet you want us to believe that the soldiers are "decent people." Those soldiers that you adore are brutalizing and terrorizing and harassing those people on a daily basis. Try asking the average Iraqi and Afghan if they believe that our sterling defenders of freedom are decent people. Five will get you ten that they will disagree with your patriotic flag waving statement. As a soldier who had returned from Vietnam told other soldiers who faced the possibility of being shipped out to Vietnam in the powerful documentary Sir! No Sir!, do not think that because you end up being a clerk typist that that will somehow get you off the hook because that will not obviate the fact that you are still part of an organization that is illegally and immorally occupying another country. That statement, of course, equally applies to our current military as those robots are still meekly obeying the illegal orders that they are given and which, under various sections of the UCMJ, they are obligated to disobey.
You may believe and advocate that drivel of supporting the troops but I most certainly do not. As a qualifier, the only troops that I support are those soldiers who have renounced what the United States is doing to those wretched people in the Middle East.
Long live the GI rebellion.
Erroll,
Well stated.
C :)
As you know, sometimes it takes a while for soldiers' eyes to be opened to what they are actually doing. The good ones, the bravest ones, then say no.
In my mind, the soldiers are not much more guilty than the people here who go shopping and watch TV and do nothing while we invade countries and slaughter civilians. We are all responsible to do something to stop this.
Guiltiest of all are the war profiteers and the liars in Congress, the Pentagon and the White House who sit in their AC offices, sail on their yachts and entice the mostly poor soldiers into this criminal enterprise, in which the soldiers are most likely to lose their dignity, their mental health, their limbs and their lives.
Joe
What is this? The pentagon is the independent world cop? Where do they get the authority to "hunt" the citizen of ANY country? Is the pentagon it's own world power answerable only to itself? If so, citizens of the world need to do precisely what Wikileak is doing. The pentagon needs enemies and tax payer money. Together with powerful corporate alliances they get to rule the world, transfer wealth to themselves, make promotions, justify killing, ignore citizen world responsibilities, suppress the weak and hungry, and enlist the loyalty and support of thousands by buying the vote, the image, and the spin. It is time for the rule of just law, not just of law. To leak is to make transparent. To vote as an informed citizen should be to hold the pentagoners accountable. People like Mr. Gates and Mr. Hayden are disturbingly delusional, and so far fairly successful in making us all delusional. Question and hint: Who decided that the Taliban would be the Enemy? When? And for what purpose?
"where do they get the authority...?"
Fascists create their own authority.
The leak is a breath of fresh air in this stultified, repressive, manipulative, deceitful, insidious, threatening, death-driven, fraudulent, phoney, corrupt atmosphere called American political life.
Let's hope it turns into dynamite.
In essence the US GOvernment and the Pentagon are stating this.
"Our democracy (Republic) is so fragile, our security so at risk even as we spend 1 trillion a year on the apparatus of the security state, we can NOT as a nation allow people in the USA or elsewhere to have access to the truth".
They are stating in no uncertain terms "Our security can only be protected by the LIE and we must continue to LIE without fear that those lies will be exposed"
The people must be kept in the dark. This no different then the Roman Catholic Curch at the height of the Inquisition. Champions of darkness.
Donald Rumsfeld resigned but yet we are still getting Rumsfeld policies, Robert Gates and Obama have been nothing but cosmetic window dressing on what are archaic, antiquated Rumsfeld policies. Like somebody previously posted, it's about time to let some fresh air in. That's why Robert Gibbs is on the defensive sounding like a parrot of Donald Rumsfeld espousing 9/11. Somebody should tell the White House Rumsfeld did not survive politically and neither will Obama.
It is not horseless carriage. It is a runaway train.
I wonder what punishment the leaker will get if he's caught. Probably a lot worse than the torturers of Abu Graib or the folks who lied the country into war...
I agree with you 100%. I wish it was not this way though.
Why are war criminals, Heroes?
And Why are whistle blowers considered terrorists?
Let me guess they will find this guy, but still haven't found (Osama Bin Laden)the made up bad guy/scapegoat.
All I can say is 9/11 was an inside job, and this war probably won't stop until everyone in the middle east is dead.
___________________________________________________________________________________
(just a thought) why do people get suprised when they hear the military killed some civilians????
(just for those who don't know)
THE MILITARY IS SUPPOSED TO KILL PEOPLE THATS WHAT THEY WERE CREATED FOR. AND EVERY PERSON IN ANY COUNTRY ARE ALL CIVILIANS OF THAT COUNTRY....GET IT....WE ARE ALWAYS KILLING A CIVILIAN OF SOME COUNTRY.
INFANTRY: military term: Young minds that are molded into killers. Hence the term Infant.
Talk about enemies lists. The courageous whistleblower's name is going to be Osama Bin Leaker.
In an interview between Gen. Wesley Clark and Daniel Ellsberg, Clark argued in a sense that defending the Empire was the same as defending the Constitution.
Clark just proves that wearing military brass can corrupt judgement and ethics. Think what it did to Powell and McCrystal. Both men traded their honor for the lies, warmongering, and manipulation of the Likud
Dont get me wrong. I love american generals. They were boyscouts once, no doubt and i'll bet they go to church every sunday, too.
They are truly pillars of empathy and compassion. How else could they rise to be the top of the world's most powerful military? It is a career that instills the highest of virtues and only the most high minded would choose such a path.
But to be honest, i do consider the term 'war criminal' to be a redundancy. So, that may undermine my credibility.
peace.
Gen. Wesely Clark is a leader of the Democratic Party and ran a campaign to be the Democratic Party nominee for President of the US. He is the general that designed the murderous slaughter of civilians in Kosovo by aerial bombing. These are the Democrats, liberal or otherwise. Republicans are not worth discussing.
Bingo!
C :)
Our country should be going after the war crimes, not the good people who bravely and ethically exposed the war crimes. Those good people should be rewarded by the public for bringing the truth to light. Without these brave honest people our country would be lost.
War criminals have injured and killed innocents in our name, and have betrayed the people of the US in the worst possible way. They must be prosecuted, and never protected by our government.
I know what is must have felt like to live as a German in the rise of Nazism. Our version of corporate fascism is far more powerful, far scarier because of the MSM.
BRILLIANT
You get people to download military secrets the same way you get Sunnis to stop shooting at Americans. You pay them. Information is a liquid, like oil. It is easier to leak it than to contain it.
The government is right to be worried. The age of keeping secrets is coming to an end. The Bald Iggle is back from the dead, and this time he's pissed.
" Michael Hayden said the leak was a gift to the enemies of the U.S. ". Another fascist corporate whore! Interpretation: The leak was a gift to the enemies of American hegemony. These leaks are a gift alright; a gift of transparency and truth of the Afghanistan war, to the public around the world, that knows they have been lied to over and over again. Afghanistan has been called the grave yard of empires; lets hope it becomes the grave yard of American hubris,arrogance and obstreperous, hegemony.
It's such a shame that kleptrocratic political whores, warmongers, cowardly chicken-hawk hypocrites and necrophagists like Jane Harmon can't be sent to Afghanistan for a 12 month tour in the back-country. No latrines, no hot food, carrying a 60 pound pack etc. After their nervous breakdowns and PTSD they can serve the rest of their terms out in a VA hospital.
Instead we send kids from poor families to die, while the rich necrophagist voyeurs collect the profits.
Asset stripping and cannibalism are things the elite have become quite good at.
Kill the messenger, blame the victim and hide the truth.
The idiocy of killing the messenger lives on. What a pathetic shame for what could be one of the finest governments in the world, to do everything possible to become king of all fascist states.
Anyone "going after the messenger," or advocating it, should be locked up for treason, with a life-long sentence.
If America was a true Democracy, the headline would read: U.S. HUNTS AFGHAN WAR CRIMINALS.
Bring America Back !!!!
****Those who are endangering our Troops are the treasonous fools who put them in those countries in the first place.
****The Neocon (both repubbys and demmys) Congress who voted to give "W" the war on terrorism authority. This includes then Sen Hillary Clinton who voted FOR the war without even reading the national intelligence estimate which evidenced NO WMDs. This does not include then Sen Barak Obama who voted against the war authorization.
****Pre-emptive invasions are illegal in International Courts of Law and by UN precepts. The USA Govt leadership committed War Crimes in invading Iraq, and Afghanistan, while lying about their relationship to 9/11.
****Elected to stop this War, Obama has absolutely failed to do so, and has adopted the War with all its dire consequences of 5000 dead troops, tens of thousands injured, and troop mental illness up 65 percent--including about one troop suicide every day !
****Therefore it is Obama who continues to keep our troops in the line of danger, not Wikileaks, nor the fantasy Boogeyman bin Laden.
If the morally corrupt, criminal Pentagon wishes to do a witch hunt on those endangering US troops, that search according to Pres Dwight D Eisenhower must begin with the Exec Office of the Pres and the US Congress and Senate.
But of course, just as Nixon went after Daniel Ellsberg, the Neocon MIC will go after Wikileaks, instead of looking into the mirror at their sick selves.
Truth... I agree with everything you've said EXCEPT for the "not Wikileaks" in the "therefore" paragraph. That the Pentagon, the Whitehouse and the "Free Press" are all accomplices in illegal and immoral activities, has been established and is in my opinion irrefutable. The posting of several thousand documents all at once, however, screams of irresponsibility.
There ARE legitimate intelligence gathering channels and techniques which may well have been compromised with this. I can't say for sure, nor can the Pentagon, without investigating each and every report, but I'd suspect that some areas of concern may be in jeopardy. IF and only if the agent that released this information took the time to sanitize the reports can I say "good job". We NEED more "whistle blowers" for those items which are wrong and do not compromise legitimate albeit covert activities. That said, there might often be a fine line between "whistle blowing" and "treason". Also, the mindset of one that would release so many documents wholesale is questionionable. I have not seen all the reports, nor will take the time to look them up, but the sheer numbers should cause one to question if indeed SOME might be counter-productive.
I would RATHER HAVE SEEN an independant press researching and releasing this reported information as it occured. IF we are to have a free society (which it is not at present), we need truthful and accurate information with which to make decisions. When the press willingly became subservient to the government freedom was lost. Along with that goes our ability to determine who to or not to vote for, since we're being fed horse dung and being told its prime rib.
Murder of civilians is seldom justified. I have never subscribed to the Sherman doctrine, but understand the mindset. "Wars" such as this can never be won. One man's perspective of an "insurgant" is another's freedom fighter or patriot. Fighting FOR a cause will win out over fighting AGAINST a cause. We need to get out of the middle east and take back our country. I'd bet that if we cut the "defense" budget by three forths, we'd balance our budget and still have plenty left over for heath care... except nobody wants to acknoledge the elephant in the room.
I liked your posting.
...the mindset of one that would release so many documents wholesale is questionionable...
No. The mindset of the ACTS that would necessitate the release of so many documents is questionable.
And, as you rightly pointed out, we do have a subservient press, causing loss of freedom. Look at the leaks as an antidote to the wretched reporting of the M$M, a sort of counter-terrorism.
Well, trying not to split hairs on this, BOTH should cause question. From what I've seen reported, most of the acts are indefensable. BUT, it is impossible to determine if some legitimate intel might have been compromised. I would normally support 'whistle blowing' without hesitation, but the sheer number released at one time goes beyond leeking. I also disagree with 'leeking' the names of those working for allied forces. This serves no purpose (for the most part) except to have entire family trees cut off at the base. HONOR might dictate that the person working for 'infidels' and the persons immediate family be expunged.
With freedom comes responsibility. I abhore any Napoleonic Code legislation and believe in Constitutional Law. That said, "freedom of speech" that causes the needless deaths of people should be curtailed. And make no mistakes about it, people will die because of these releases. INTENT is often not the end result. The ends quite often do not justify the means.
Well, you point out a true dilemma. Any fight against evil causes sacrifice. War and oppression is a dirty business and loss of life is always regrettable.
The sheer number of incidences is given by this war and not by the number included in the leak. The mind-boggling number of incidences puts a whole new weight on our understanding, well at least on mine. I can see why people compare it with the Vietnam paper leak.
It stands to hope that all who loose their live have not died in vain if it is to end/shorten (this) war. It is a concerted interest of the MIC and Big Money, driving politics and policies, to instigate war. The people who die (soldiers, agents, partisans, insurgents and civilians) are pawns in this business. Only increased public awareness can change this system. It looks like the leaks are part of this process.
Bring America back?
Which America did you have in mind? The one that killed and/or drove the indigenous inhabitants to the deserts of the west? The one that maintained, even legally justified slavery in its constitution? The one that created the Monroe Doctine that claimed the Western Hemisphere for itself? The one that invaded Mexico? Or Cuba? Or Korea? Or the Phillipines? Or Vietnam? The one that treated everybody but adult male white christians of the proper persuasion as second-class citizens - and still does?
When in our history has it been any better?
Kill kids in an occupied country:
No problem.
Tell the world kids were killed in an occupied country:
Get hunted like a rabid dog.
Perfect comment.
ctrlz, excellent post.
Royce
It wasn't that long ago when we read that the US was unable to train Afghan pilots in English to fly US helicopters-- so we're buying them Russian helicopters instead. (You all know by now not to ask for logic, right?)
Now, according to Jane Harmon, we should worry about the Taliban's advanced English skills to scour 90k pages of ENGLISH text (encrypted, no less!!) to find traitors??? Really?!!? Unless Microsoft makes an F3-SPY key, I don't think the Taliban is going to extract a "new enemies list" from this download.
Jane Harmon needs to be drug-screened at work. She's gotta be smoking something.
Quasar is a type of galaxy. :) Al Jazeera is in Qatar, which is, as you say, a wealthy monarchy, albeit a relatively enlightened regarding social issues like women, labor and Gaza. It is a paradise compared with Saudi Arabia. AJ, like Qatar, walks a thin line, reporting on facts that are well known by its Islamic neighbors while keeping a door open for polite relations with the US government. I believe they see themselves as a place in which talks could potentially take place.
In this article they are reporting on the US government response to the leaks, which may not be their response. Al Jazeera employs a variety of talented newswriters who maintain a certain degree of independence. I'll bet you that many of them see the value of the leaks. It would be good for them to have an article covering the reactions of people here in the US who oppose our stupid invasions. AJ is not nearly as calculating and manipulated as NY Times et al.
Joe
When you consider that our government started dropping bombs on Afghanistan in October of 2001, about six weeks after the WTC towers fell, and since that time our government has remained in Afghanistan waging and escalating that war, and making every effort to keep the magnitude of that war a secret, it might lead one to put 2 and 2 together and figure out that the WTC towers were destroyed by our government for the purpose of justifying the start of the Afghan war. The people or entities who orchestrated the destruction of the WTC towers to start the war in Afghanistan are not going to roll over passively and allow the Wikileaks revelations to stop them from continuing in their program to enrich themselves and rule the world.
The multi-billion dollar a year military arms and services industry employs a lot of people in America. Americans are wage slaves serving the military machine and shackled by outrageous mortgages, automobile and insurance expenses, and lack of opportunities. Under these circumstances, it takes great courage and enormous personal sacrifice to walk off those military arms and support jobs to oppose the illegal and immoral wars. Imagine the world we could be living in if America's industrial power and technologies were applied to the building of mass transit systems, green technologies, affordable homes, non-GMO agriculture, and hundreds of thousands of family-sized organic farms.
...entities who orchestrated the destruction of the WTC ...
For comprehensive analysis:
“Collateral Damage” by E. P Heidner, part I and II.
>>> www.scribd.com/people/documents/2169400-ep-heidner <<<
What if this person is some foreign contractor? We have outsourced a lot of intelligence/security. Only US citizens can commit treason. Only US citizens are subject to US laws. Unless this is some further extension of the Bush Doctrine. Why don't we ask Sarah Palin! I love seeing that moose in the headlights look of hers.
Laws be damned. The US has reserved the right to assinate anyone, anywhere, to break any agreement or treaty and defy human decency as it wants. This has been openly stated on many occasions by many US leaders, past and present including Obama.