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WikiLeaks' Afghan War Diary: Evidence of a Failed Mission
WikiLeaks' Afghan War Diary just fills in details of what we already knew: The Afghanistan War is too costly to continue.
WikiLeaks' Afghan War Diary, a trove of 91,370 previously secret documents, is an important first history of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. Of course, mistakes will be found--but these are reports of military leaders to others in the military. This is where they tell the truth. It's significant that the Obama administration has not tried to claim the reports are inaccurate. Instead, they're claiming that disclosing the reports somehow endangers U.S. troops, while at the same time disparaging the documents as having no new information.
Afghans and Pakistanis clearly know far better than we do what the U.S./NATO forces are actually doing in their countries--so it's not the reports, it's the actions they document that put U.S. and allied troops at risk.
What the leaks will do is stoke even greater global anger around the world, as evidence comes to those who didn't know firsthand what the U.S./NATO occupation means for Afghans and Pakistanis. That will certainly mean rising anger toward U.S. policy and Americans as a whole. But more importantly, it will spur enormous antiwar activity in places like Europe, Canada, Australia, and Turkey. And that means greater pressure on those governments now providing troops for the war in Afghanistan--and on the Obama administration to end the war.
There's no evidence yet of a new smoking gun among the documents. But taken as a whole, the documents provide a collective arsenal of evidence of a brutal war that never did have a chance to succeed--and evidence of two administrations of a government determined to mislead its own people and the rest of the world.
The documents indicate significant shifts in the nature of how the war is being fought, with documentation of escalating Special Forces operations and drone attacks. The Pentagon's "nation-building" efforts are failing in places like Marja, last spring's poster-city of a U.S.-backed government-in-a-box. The handpicked mayor-in-a-box, who spent most of the last 15 years living in Germany, is so unpopular that he has to be ferried into town on military helicopters for occasional meetings and then quickly whisked away.
So perhaps it isn't surprising that the new documents describe activities like those of Task Force 373, a death-squad that goes after identified individuals on a kill-or-capture list. No trial, of course. And if drones are called in to do more of the dirty work so U.S. troops are not at risk, and more Afghan or Pakistani civilians are killed as a result--well, that's just part of the cost of war.
The documents include evidence of civilian deaths never reported in the press, many of them probably never even mentioned or asked about in the virtually nonexistent congressional oversight of the years documented in these reports. They detail massive levels of corruption, extortion, and constant violence inflicted on Afghan civilians by the U.S.-backed, U.S.-trained, and U.S.-funded militias known as the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police.
And they demonstrate, again, the continuing links between Pakistan's top military intelligence agency, the ISI, and the top leadership of the Taliban--despite claims by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others in the Obama administration that Pakistan is a reliable U.S. ally that just needs to work a little harder on going after terrorists. Ironically, the Obama administration's answer to the documents repeats the effort to blur the very distinct organizations known as the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban into a generic presence in Pakistan known as "the terrorists" or "the Taliban."
The WikiLeaks documents provide a treasure trove of evidence--of what we already knew. This war has already failed. Every death, of civilian and soldier, is needless. The cost of this occupation and this war--in Afghan blood, in U.S. and NATO military blood, in billions of dollars needed for jobs at home and real reconstruction in Afghanistan and elsewhere--is too high.
We need to stop the funding now, bring the troops and contractors home, support regional diplomacy, and begin the long effort of repaying our huge debt to the people of Afghanistan and Iraq.
- Posted in
9 Comments so far
Show AllThe repaying our huge debt to Afghanistan is impossible when we are in debt now.
When the money stops goin to the corrupt puppets and War Lords, it would be best for the troops to be gone because that is when the soldiers we trained over there will join with the resistance to kick the US out.
The long war with history harmony.
Domestically and internationally, Obama has become the master relabeller.
He relabelled the war on terror and is now relabelling soldiers so there will be no "combat" troops inj Iraq after Aug. 31.
Look for major relabelling in the near future in Afghanistan.
Relabelling will assure that the military industrial media complex's profits never falter.
Domestically and internationally, Obama has become the master relabeller.
He relabelled the war on terror and is now relabelling soldiers so there will be no "combat" troops in Iraq after Aug. 31.
Look for major relabelling in the near future in Afghanistan.
Relabelling will assure that the military industrial media complex's profits never falter.
"What the leaks will do is stoke even greater global anger around the world, as evidence comes to those who didn't know firsthand what the U.S./NATO occupation means for Afghans and Pakistanis."
I wouldn't be my bottom dollar on that. The average sheeple hasn't even heard or noticed the leaks and the rabid ones that may have heard something thru their mouthpieces have already forgotten about it. What WikiLeaks was necessary, incredibly courageous and commendable yet useless. Nothing, except the arrest, and perhaps even the assassination, of the top WikiLeaks guys. We live in a world that has lost its moral compass altogether.
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The esteemed author of this brilliant piece ended with "...bring the troops and contractors home, support regional diplomacy, and begin the long effort of repaying our huge debt to the people of Afghanistan and Iraq."
____________
1- They are not "contractors". They are mercenaries.
2- The indigenous Americans, the descendants of slaves and many other groups are still waiting to be paid their version of the "huge debt".
Point: We, as a society, have moved beyond moral constraints and have become pure devils. Devils are not imaginary beings in storyland. They are living human-beings willing to kill and cripple innocent people for personal gain.
I have great respect for Phyllis Bennis, but Afganistan is not a "failed mission" to the corporate interests who control the United States of Global Domination. To them, it continues to be a hugely profitable venture.
The key indicator of our dismal prospects can be found in the fact that when Phyllis Bennis writes about anti-war activities, she (quite accurately) doesn't even mention the U.S. We are largely disconnected from the horror we make happen.
And on top of all this comes the revelation that the military has again "misplaced" around 8 1/2 billion dollars meant for reconstruction. They "misplaced" about the same amount back in 2005. Yeah, i know, this is just one of the costs of war.
Once again, the Washington military and political establishment attempts to destroy the whistleblower and not face the issues they, the establishment, have wrought. Idiot surrogates such as Marc Thiessen, former Bush speech writer, call for the Wikileaks "criminal syndicate" to be pursued by civilian and military resources- including where such pursuit would violate international law. Criminal syndicate? A better case can be made that the criminal syndicate is the Obama administration, US Congress and military/industrial complex. Where exactly is that 9 billion dollars of development aid to Iraq? Just whose pockets did this line? Cutting food stamps and giving X billion dollars to the Taliban (who is fighting against us)?
Nothing new in the Wikileaks disclosures? US assassination squads OK? 20,000 previously unaccounted for civilian deaths OK? Hundreds of thousands of private military contractors- many of whom are engaged in covert activities and have access to sensitive intelligence? Intelligence they could conceivably sell to the highest bidder? I could go on and on. Perhaps what we need is an international war crimes investigation with the United States being the target of investigation.
The US Congress (particularly Republicans) showed its true colors by recently voting down a measure that would force corporations to disclose to whom they contribute vast sums to. Oh yes, the unlimited spending that corporations can now make to pursue their narrow, selfish, entirely profit driven interests? Brought to you by the Supreme Court. Criminal syndicate indeed. Just how will democracy- or some relic of it succeed if billions of dollars will flow from corporations to fund politicians- who are already subservient to their interests. Fascism by definition.
Citizens have a right to be angry- but turning to the Republicans in November is quite literally going out of the frying pan into the furnace. The Democrats? We need to do better.