Afghanistan War Weekly: August 2, 2010

Despite a small avalanche of bad news from and about Afghanistan last week, Congress gave the Obama war managers $33 billion to fund the “surge,” though more than 100 Democrats voted NO. The collective finger in the wind has added dozens of Democrat opportunists to the 30 congressional stalwarts who opposed war funding last time around. Record-breaking casualties, the WikiLeaks leak, and the huge sums consumed by the war have moved the boundaries of acceptable talk about the war significantly to the left. “The war is not working” position now has a seat at the pundits’ table and will only grow stronger as more things don’t work.

The WikiLeaks leak was the main story this week. It filled in lots of details about the war, made it clear that civilian casualties had been understated, raised questions about our Pakistan “ally,” and spotlighted the terrorist/assassination operations of US Task Force 373. But much of the story was in the treatment and analysis by the mainstream media, as well as many excellent contributions by the dissenting media. Because of the great volume of useful WikiLeaks material, I have added a WikiLeaks Supplement at the end of this newsletter.

The war on the ground is proceeding now without the Dutch troops, and the US will lose more allied troops soon. According to a New York Times article linked below, to fight off the Taliban the new US counterinsurgency strategy is being replaced by the old US assassination/terror strategy. It certainly seems like community development, etc. has come and gone, as the excellent article by Ann Jones (just below) makes clear for Afghanistan’s northeast. Just north of Kandahar, US-led forces are attempting to subdue resistance in the Arghandab Valley; several very good reports show how the military operation depends on gaining civilian support, which just isn’t there.

Finally, Pakistan – and its engagement as an ally in the Afghanistan war – seems to be reaching a new level of volatility. The salience given by the New York Times and the war managers to the WikiLeaks documents about Pakistan’s covert support for the Taliban, and British Prime Minister Cameron’s statement along the same lines during has recent visit to Pakistan, have caused an uproar in the Pakistan media. The record-breaking floods now engulfing much of Pakistan’s Swat Valley (and moving south), plus the near-universal perception that the Pakistan government is handling this disaster incompetently, is rocking the already unsteady civilian leadership. (In the government’s defense, the Prime Minister’s spokesperson states that the PM will not return from Paris just yet, where he is seeking business contacts at trade shows, all for the greater good.)

I would appreciate receiving suggestions about good articles to link here, and also comments (pro & con) that would help to make this newsweekly better. My email is fbrodhead@aol.com. This “issue” and some previous editions of the Afghanistan War Weekly are posted on the websites of United for Peace and Justice (www.unitedforpeace.org) and War is a Crime (www.afterdowningstreet.org/aww).

----Frank Brodhead, Concerned Families of Westchester (NY)

FEATURED ESSAYS
In Bed With the US Army

By Ann Jones, TomDispatch [August 02, 2010]

---- In the eight years I’ve reported on Afghanistan, I’ve “embedded” regularly with Afghan civilians, especially women. Recently, however, with American troops “surging” and journalists getting into the swing of the military’s counterinsurgency “strategy” (better known by its acronym, COIN), I decided to get with the program as well. …Throughout Afghanistan, insurgent attacks have gone up 51 percent since the official adoption of COIN as the strategy du jour. On this eastern front, where the commander had served six years earlier, he now faces a “surge” of intimidation, assassination, suicide attacks, roadside bombs, and fighters with greater technical capability than he has ever seen in Afghanistan. A few days after we spoke, the Afghanistan command was handed to Gen. Petraeus, the sainted refurbisher of the military’s counterinsurgency manual. I wonder if the base commander has told Petraeus yet what he told me then: “What we’re fighting here now – it’s a conventional war.” http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2010/08/01/in-bed-with-the-us-army/

(Video) Andrew Bacevich on Afghanistan War: "The President Lacks the Guts to Get Out"

From Democracy Now! [August 2, 2010] [33 minutes]

---- Retired US Army colonel and historian Andrew Bacevich joins us for his first interview about his new book, Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War. "The question demands to be asked: Who is more deserving of contempt?" Bacevich asks. "The commander-in-chief who sends young Americans to die for a cause, however misguided, in which he sincerely believes? Or the commander-in-chief who sends young Americans to die for a cause in which he manifestly does not believe and yet refuses to forsake?" http://www.democracynow.org/2010/8/2/andrew_bacevich_on_afghanistan_war_the

Afghanistan and the "Sacrifice Trap"

By Simon Moyle, Waging Nonviolence [August 1 2010]

---- The last month has seen six Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan, bringing our country’s total to seventeen. Yet even with a federal election looming and 61 percent of Australians wanting troops brought home, our involvement in the war has bipartisan support. In fact, far from raising questions over our mission there, these deaths seem to only strengthen the government’s resolve to remain. The same seems to be true of the U.S. and many other NATO countries. It strengthens their resolve not because it makes the mission there any more necessary, or more strategically important, but because of a principle called “the sacrifice trap.” This psychological principle works through an escalating commitment to a failing course of action, ironically in order to justify that course of action. The more one sacrifices in pursuit of a particular objective, the more difficult it is to change course from that objective, and the more stridently it will be defended. http://www.truth-out.org/afghanistan-and-sacrifice-trap61907?print

THE WAR IN WASHINGTON

Obama’s Afghanistan Strategy Increasingly Under Siege

By Jim Lobe, Antiwar.com [July 27, 2010]

---- Monday’s release by WikiLeaks of tens of thousands of classified documents detailing the travails of the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s secret support for the Taliban from 2004 through 2009 comes amid a growing crisis of confidence in the nearly 9-year-old war. Even before the latest events, key figures in the foreign policy elite were breaking with the prevailing consensus of just a few months ago: that Obama’s strategy of combining classic COIN military tactics – notably, prioritizing the protection of the population – with building the capacity and extending the reach of the central government through a “civilian surge” could indeed reverse the Taliban’s momentum and force them to sue for peace. http://original.antiwar.com/lobe/2010/07/27/obamas-afghanistan-strategy/

Kucinich, Paul Force Afghanistan Debate

By Naftali Bendavid, Wall Street Journal

---- The House this afternoon engaged in a full-throated debate over the U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan — a debate heavily colored by the release earlier this week of 92,000 war-related secret documents obtained by the group WikiLeaks. The congressional debate was prompted by an unlikely alliance of Reps. Dennis Kucinich (D., Ohio) and Ron Paul (R., Texas). The two congressmen offered a resolution ordering President Barack Obama to withdraw U.S. military personnel from Pakistan, saying their presence violates the War Powers Act since it was not approved by Congress. The resolution failed by a wide 38-372 margin. (Voting for the amendment were 32 Democrats and six Republicans.) http://freedomsyndicate.com/fair0000/wsj0001.html

US Casualties

Introduction

Sixty-six US soldiers were killed in July, the highest monthly total since the war began; 60 US soldiers were killed in June. While 42 soldiers from other NATO countries were killed in June, the number fell to 23 in July. This reflects the increasing burden of the fighting borne by US troops [see below under “War on the Ground”].

Casualty graphic

Wars take a heavy toll on one California school

By Diana Marcum, Los Angeles Times [July 31, 2010]

---- The seventh funeral was Friday. The church was full, even strangers lined the streets and everyone in sight stopped what they were doing and bowed their heads as Brian Piercy's body moved from church to cemetery — the same as they had done for six others. Seven boys from Clovis' Buchanan High Shool have been killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. With Piercy's death, Buchanan has the somber distinction of more war dead than any other school in California. There's no sure answer as to how such a thing could happen. But many people in this Central Valley city say Clovis is an extraordinarily patriotic community and its children are raised on God and country, duty and honor. They're willing to serve and willing to die, the same as Clovis' generations who went before them. Buchanan's school colors are red, white and blue. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-clovis-wardead-20100731,0,564415...

(Video) Soldiers in Crisis

From The New York Times

---- A call comes in to the Veterans Administration suicide prevention hotline center in Canandaigua, N.Y.

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/07/30/us/1247468493376/soldiers-in-c...

=th

See also: James Dao, “Taking Calls from Veterans on the Brink,” New York Times [July 31, 2010].

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/31/us/31hotline.html?_r=1

The Cost of the War

[FB - According to the website www.costofwar.com, expenditures on the Afghanistan war have reached $287 billion, and the total for both wars is $1.024 trillion. For a useful resource on the costs of war, go to “Bring Our War $$ Home,” at www.bringourwardollarshome.org/index.html]

Afghan war spending faces new scrutiny

By Karen DeYoung, Washington Post [July 30, 2010]

---- As part of its attempt to boost Afghanistan's economic and political development, the United States is paying thousands of Afghan contractors and subcontractors to perform much of the work that supports U.S. efforts there. But the "Afghan First" program could be achieving just the opposite of its intended effect, according to officials trying to figure out where the money is going. Initial assessments by newly organized military task forces and government investigators indicate that instead of promoting new small and medium-size businesses, building trust and spreading the wealth, many of the contracts appear to have enriched Afghanistan's traditional power brokers and created new ones. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/29/AR201007...

US Public Opinion re: the War

Public opinion on the war in Afghanistan

[FB – This useful website lists and links the major public opinion polls about the war taken in the US and other countries with troops in the war. Linked below are the two most recent polls about US public opinion.]
---- CBS Poll for July 9 – 12, 2010. The majority 58% of Americans want their troops withdrawn from the nine-year U.S. war in Afghanistan within the next one or two years. Only a minority 35% of Americans are willing to have U.S. troops stay longer than two years from now. One third, 33%, of Americans think large numbers of U.S. troops should be withdrawn in less than a year, another 23% think that should be done within one or two years, and 2% want an immediate withdrawal. The majority 54% of Americans want a timetable to be set for withdrawal from Afghanistan, while 41% do not. Only 26% of Americans think U.S. troops should remain for as long as it takes. The majority 62% of Americans think the war is going badly for the the United States, up from 49% in May, while 31% still believe it is going well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_public_opinion_on_the_war_in_...

---- ABC Poll for July 16, 2010. Support for the war in Afghanistan has hit a new low and President Obama's approval rating for handling it has declined sharply since spring  results that portend trouble for the administration as the violence there grows. With Obama's surge under way  and casualties rising  the number of Americans who say the war in Afghanistan has been worth fighting has declined from 52 percent in December to 43 percent now. And his approval rating for handling it, 56 percent in April, is down to 45 percent. Potentially complicating matters, the public by 51-37 percent opposes a negotiated settlement between the Afghan government and the Taliban that would allow Taliban members to hold government offices if they agreed to stop fighting. That kind of deal commands far higher support in Afghanistan itself  65 percent in an ABC News/BBC/ARD poll there in December. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obama-loses-ground-afghanistan-wars-inten...

The Time Magazine Cover Story

TIME Magazine Cover Explains What Happens To Afghan Women If 'We Leave Afghanistan,' But That Tragedy Is Already Occurring

Nick Wing, The Huffington Post July 29, 2010]

---- Time Magazine is out with a new cover story that attempts to explain "What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan." The piece is accompanied by a powerful portrait of Aisha, an Afghan woman who had her nose and ears cut off by Taliban decree after attempting to escape abusive family members. The intense image sets the scene for the crux of the article's argument -- that the rights of Afghan women would be destroyed by a potential settlement between the U.S. and the Taliban. …Though such a conclusion does raise a number of concerns about the terms of an American withdrawal, it also seems to overlook a variety of tragic conditions that Afghan women currently face, even with the heavy U.S. military and diplomatic influence in the country. Despite promising rhetoric for women's rights in the 2004 version of Afghanistan's Constitution and subsequent legislation, the country has largely resisted implementing any meaningful progress in the treatment of women. In fact, in 2009, amid international protest, Afghan President Hamid Karzai signed a bill that was seen by many as the legalization of rape against women.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/29/time-magazine-cover-expla_n_663...

See also: Derrick Crowe, “Time’s Epic Distortion of the Plight of Women in Afghanistan,”

Derrick Crowe, AlterNet [July 31, 2010] http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/07/31/time%e2%80%99s-epic-disto...

TRAINING THE AFGHAN ARMED FORCES
All the Strangeness of Our American World in One Article

By Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch [July 27, 2010]

---- In 2008, by which time $16.5 billion had been spent on army and police training programs, the GAO chimed in again, indicating that only two of 105 army units were “assessed as being fully capable of conducting their primary mission,” while “no police unit is fully capable.” In 2009, the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction reported that “only 24 of 559 Afghan police units are considered ready to operate without international help.” http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2010/07/26/opposites-game/

See also: Heidi Vogt, “Afghan army struggles with ethnic divisions,” Associated Press http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewFreeUse.act?fuid=OTM0NzM0NQ%3D%3D; and Terry McCarthy, “Marine Corps Teach Afghan Cops how to read,” CBS News [July 30, 2010] http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20012209-503543.html

THE WAR ON THE GROUND
Introduction

As the United States completes its “surge,” and as the Dutch troops go home (with other NATO troops to follow soon), the “Coalition” is becoming a US-only operation. According to the New York Times article linked below, the US is now abandoning “counterinsurgency” as unworkable, a point also made by Ann Jones in her article linked above. According to the Times, the US strategy is focusing again on assassinations (the Orwellian “targeted killings”). Ironically, this was the supposed strategic expertise of now-sacked General McChrystal, now to be inherited by the US military’s expert on counterinsurgency, General Petraeus. So far, the rate of assassinations is about one per day, obviously ineffective to have much military significance, and far below the record-assassination rate of Vietnam’s Phoenix program (1967-72). Apparently the war planners believe that the fear of being killed will cause the Taliban front-line military cadres to favor negotiations/surrender.

The US is still moving ahead on its slow-motion assault on Kandahar. Its strategy has been to “clear and hold” Kandahar’s rural outskirts, beginning with the ineffectual operation in Marjah. The current US operation is in the Arghandab Valley, just to the north of Kandahar. Meanwhile, British troops have launched “Operation Black Prince” (who writes this stuff?) in the vicinity of Marjah.

Burden of war in Afghanistan shifts even more to the US

By Laura King, Los Angeles Times [August 1, 2010]

---- The pattern of combat deaths in July pointed up an overarching truth that is likely to endure as the conflict grinds onward: More and more each day, this is an American war. With their numbers approaching 100,000 as a consequence of the troop buildup ordered by President Obama in December, U.S. troops now comprise about two-thirds of the NATO force in Afghanistan. And American deaths are commensurate with that dominance, accounting for more than two-thirds of Western military fatalities in July.. With North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies distancing themselves from the notion of an open-ended stay in Afghanistan, the American aspect of the war comes increasingly to the fore. In the United States, the rapidly rising combat toll in Afghanistan is feeding congressional doubts about the war's aims. But such qualms are rarely heard in the ranks, particularly in units that have arrived in the last six months as part of the buildup. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghan-war-deaths-20...

Targeted Killing Is New U.S. Focus in Afghanistan
By Helene Cooper and Mark Landler, New York Times [August 1, 2010]

---- When President Obama announced his new war plan for Afghanistan last year, the centerpiece of the strategy — and a big part of the rationale for sending 30,000 additional troops — was to safeguard the Afghan people, provide them with a competent government and win their allegiance. Eight months later, that counterinsurgency strategy has shown little success, as demonstrated by the flagging military and civilian operations in Marja and Kandahar and the spread of Taliban influence in other areas of the country. Instead, what has turned out to work well is an approach American officials have talked much less about: counterterrorism, military-speak for the targeted killings of insurgents from Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Faced with that reality, and the pressure of a self-imposed deadline to begin withdrawing troops by July 2011, the Obama administration is starting to count more heavily on the strategy of hunting down insurgents. The shift could change the nature of the war and potentially, in the view of some officials, hasten a political settlement with the Taliban.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/world/asia/01afghan.html?hp

The Arghandab Valley campaign

(Video) Fierce fighting in Afghanistan's Arghandab Valley

From AlJazeeraEnglish [July 28, 2010]

---- Map locating Arghandab Valley in AfghanistanUS and Afghan soldiers have launched a series of raids against the Taliban in the Arghandab Valley in southeastern Afghanistan. With the American soldiers being ill-prepared for the kind of war the Taliban is fighting, attempts to defeat the enemy have not yet been successful. http://www.youtube.com/aljazeeraenglish#p/u/32/K9kTWqVtAH0

Special forces relieve pressure in Afghan valley

By Rob Taylor, Reuters [July 28, 2010]

---- Elite U.S. Special Forces soldiers are relieving insurgent pressure on American outposts in the volatile Arghandab Valley with a series of night attacks on suspected Taliban hideouts. The raids, backed by a "Spectre" C-130 gunship and Afghan commandos, began four days ago in the village of Khosrow Sofla, and followed weeks of near-daily attacks by insurgents on American bases near the town of Jelawar. Last month, the U.S. military said special operations forces in Afghanistan had nearly tripled over the last year and that Afghan authorities were increasingly involved in their missions. U.S. Special Forces have also set up local defence forces in Arghandab, where armed villagers are trained and mentored to protect their own villages. "They probably just want us to leave," said one junior officer at Nolen who asked not to be identified. "But it has been quieter the last few nights since the Special Forces started up." http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SGE66Q0LL.htm

See also: Heidi Vogt, “Taliban stymie NATO push to bolster government,” Associated Press [July 29, 2010] http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100729/ap_on_re_as/as_afghan_fearful_govern... and Allisa J. Rubin, “Taliban Exploit Openings in Neglected Province,” New York Times [July 30, 2010] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/world/asia/30baghlan.html

Operation “Black Prince”
UK troops launch Operation Tor Shezada in Afghanistan

By Ian Pannell BBC News

Nad Ali---- Hundreds of British soldiers have launched an operation against Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan. Operation Tor Shezada began early on Friday morning in Helmand province in the south of the country. Operation Tor Shezada, which means black prince, is a mission to seize a Taliban-controlled town in central Helmand and try to restore government rule. Hundreds of British and Afghan forces are moving by land and air towards the town of Saidabad. It is one of the areas that UK forces were unable to clear during Operation Moshtarak earlier this year. Until a few years ago, Nad Ali was a relatively peaceful district in the central Helmand river valley. But the combination of a corrupt and brutal police force and an abusive local government, together with an aggressive poppy eradication programme, turned it into a virulent insurgent stronghold. Local farmers, with encouragement and support from the Taliban, took up arms, creating additional strain on Britain's already overstretched troops. …The men told me that the Taliban are people motivated by religion, anger at corrupt police and local officials and affront at the presence of foreign, non-Muslim soldiers in their midst. Yet the military insists Nad Ali is a model of progress. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10807606

CIVILIAN CASUALTIES
270 Afghan civilians killed in July

---- Civilian casualty has been soaring in Afghanistan as 270 Afghan civilians had been killed in July, spokesman for Interior Ministry Zamarai Bashari said on Sunday. "Two hundred seventy civilians were killed in different security incidents in July across the country but unfortunately it shows 29 percent increase in comparison with the previous month." He said that 588 other civilians including women and children were injured during the period in 765 terrorist and violent attacks elsewhere in the militancy-hit country. He further stated that 125 police officers and soldiers had also been killed while 291 other police personnel sustained injuries last month. Taliban-led militancy and conflicts have claimed the lives of over 1,100 civilians and injured over 1300 others since beginning this year in Afghanistan. http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90851/7088456.html

Afghans march in Kabul to denounce NATO strikes that killed civilians

By Joshua Partlow, Washington Post [August 2, 2010]

---- Afghan protesters marched through downtown Kabul on Sunday morning chanting anti-American slogans and denouncing NATO bombardments that have killed civilians. Led by a police escort, the couple of hundred demonstrators carried banners calling the United States the "guardian and master of [the] ruling Mafia in Afghanistan" as well as images of burned and bandaged children. The protesters said they were angry not only about the civilian toll from ongoing NATO military operations in Helmand province but also a traffic accident Friday involving an SUV driven by DynCorp International contractors that killed four Afghans. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/01/AR201008...

PAKISTAN/INDIA AND THE AFGHANISTAN WAR

Pakistanis 'less wary' of Taliban

By AljazeeraEnglish

---- Fewer Pakistanis are concerned about armed groups like the Taliban and al-Qaeda, according to a new survey from the US-based Pew research centre. Such groups remain deeply unpopular in Pakistan, and a majority of the Pakistani public views them as a threat, but they are viewed slightly more favourably than last year, Pew's results indicated. The survey also found that US drone strikes remain deeply unpopular; that most Pakistanis want the US to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan; and that few expect their country's struggling economy to improve over the next 12 months. The widespread anger about domestic affairs translated into strong support for opposition leader Nawaz Sharif [71 percent] and his Pakistan Muslim League-N. The harshest reviews were reserved for Asif Ali Zardari, the unpopular Pakistani president. Just 20 per cent of respondents said they approved of the man nicknamed "Mr 10 per cent" because of his alleged corruption. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/07/201072914411955261.html

In Pakistan, Echoes of American Betrayal

By Mohammed Hanif, New York Times [July 31, 2010]

---- Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, has been accused of many bad things in its own country. It has been held responsible for rigging elections, sponsoring violent sectarian groups and running torture chambers for political dissidents. More recently, it has been accused of abducting Pakistanis and handing them over to the United States for cash. But last week — after thousands of classified United States Army documents were released by WikiLeaks, and American and British officials and pundits accused the ISI of double-dealing in Afghanistan — the Pakistani news media were very vocal in their defense of their spies. On talk show after talk show, the ISI’s accusers in the West were criticized for short-sightedness and shifting the blame to Pakistan for their doomed campaign in Afghanistan. Suddenly, the distinction between the state and the state within the state was blurred. It is our ISI that is being accused, we felt. How, we wondered, can the Americans have fallen for raw intelligence provided by paid informants and, in many cases, Afghan intelligence? And why shouldn’t Pakistan, asked the pundits, keep its options open for a post-American Afghanistan? http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/opinion/01hanif.html?ref=opinion

Separatist Uprising in Kashmir
Kashmir Protests: Chief Minister Summoned to Capital After 'Bloody Sunday'

By Ben Arnoldy, The Christian Science Monitor [August 2, 2010]

---- In what the Indian media are calling Bloody Sunday, 10 people died yesterday in protests across Indian-controlled Kashmir. Police forces shot and killed at least five during street protests. Another succumbed to wounds after being hit Saturday with a tear gas shell. The remainder died when protesters lit a police camp on fire, triggering a blast from explosive material kept inside. All who died were civilians, taking the total to 33 civilians and zero police killed in the current cycle of protest and deadly crackdown that began June 11. The protests are part of a popular uprising against Indian rule and heavy-handed police tactics in Kashmir. Both India and Pakistan claim the Himalayan region in its entirety. In the 1990s, Pakistan supported a violent insurgency that was eventually put down by India. But the massive security apparatus – estimated to be as high as 700,000 security forces – remained. http://www.truth-out.org/kashmir-protests-chief-minister-summoned-capita...

See also: Altaf Hussain, “Kashmir civilians killed in clashes with Indian forces,” BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-10828633?print=true; and, ”Protesters die in Kashmir violence,” Aljazeera [August 1, 2010] http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/08/201081164059981725.html

NATO COUNTRIES AND THE AFGHANISTAN WAR

Dutch troops end Afghanistan deployment

From the BBC

---- Nato had wanted the Netherlands to extend its mission, but the request triggered a political row which brought down the country's coalition government in February. This sent shock waves through other European countries, particularly Germany, where public opposition to the war is growing. Having supplied just a small percentage of Nato forces, the Dutch pull-out will not make a significant military difference, but it will have a symbolic impact far beyond the troop numbers themselves. …Officials in Brussels insist the rest of the military alliance remains solid and note that the decision of the Dutch to go ahead with the withdrawal did not produce a chain reaction of other announcements about pullouts. But Canada [151 killed] is still expected to withdraw its forces next year, Poland [19 killed] in 2012, and the UK [325 killed] in 2014 or 2015. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-10829837?print=true

WIKILEAKS: WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, AND WHY?

Introduction

The WikiLeaks story is essentially a secret-document data dump plus analysis and spin. If you want primary documents to learn about the war, there’s tons of stuff here, but you have to consider that you’re working with material produced by US military personnel who may have wanted to help understand how to fight the Taliban better, or perhaps they may have wanted to cover their ass. A story pasted in below by Wired’s Noah Schactman, in which he compares the WikiLeaks document about a battle to his own recollections of the same battle, illustrates the problem well.

So far the material has added evidence to ongoing stories about civil casualties, questions about Pakistan as an ally, and the deficiencies of US combat operations, as well as providing new information about relatively uncovered stories, such as US Task Force 373 and the question of Taliban surface-to-air capabilities. While many pundits are saying that this news is old and/or well known, the fact is that the information is unknown to (or forgotten by) most people, that political support for the build up of US forces in Afghanistan was based on such “old news,” and that the vast collection of documents underscores the length and seriousness/devastation of this war, usually ignored by the mainstream media.

I have divided up what seem to me to be useful/interesting stories about the WikiLeaks saga into what the papers show generally, treatment by the media, actual/potential political impacts of the Leak, and some information about WikiLeaks as an innovative operation.

What the Papers Show

Kiss This War Goodbye

By Frank Rich, New York Times [July 31, 2010]

---- What was often forgotten last week is that the Pentagon Papers had no game-changing news about that war either and also described events predating the then-current president. By June 1971, the Tet offensive and Walter Cronkite’s famous on-air editorial were more than three years in the past. …Most Americans had long been telling pollsters the war was a mistake. By the time the Pentagon Papers surfaced, a plurality also disapproved of how Vietnam was handled by Nixon, who had arrived in office promising to end the war. Yet the national yawn that largely greeted the war logs is most of all an indicator of the country’s verdict on the Afghan war itself, now that it’s nine years on and has reached its highest monthly casualty rate for American troops. Many Americans at home have lost faith and checked out. The war places way down the list of pressing issues in every poll. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/opinion/01rich.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

The Afghan War Springs a Leak

By Gareth Porter, Counterpunch

---- The 92,000 reports on the war in Afghanistan made public by the whistleblower organisation WikiLeaks, and reported Monday by the Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel, offer no major revelations that are entirely new, as did the Pentagon Papers to which they are inevitably being compared. But they increase the political pressure on a war policy that has already suffered a precipitous loss of credibility this year by highlighting contradictions between the official assumptions of the strategy and the realities shown in the documents - especially in regard to Pakistan's role in the war. http://counterpunch.org/porter07272010.html

(Video) The New Pentagon Papers

From Democracy Now! [July 27, 2010] – 50 minutes, w/3 stories

---- It’s one of the biggest leaks in US military history. More than 90,000 internal records of US military actions in Afghanistan over the past six years have been published by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. …We host a roundtable discussion with independent British journalist Stephen Grey; Pentagon Papers whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg; former State Department official in Afghanistan, Matthew Hoh; independent journalist Rick Rowley; and investigative historian Gareth Porter. http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/26/the_new_pentagon_papers_wikileaks_...

See also: Patrick Cockburn, “The battle to justify this as a war worth fighting just got a lot harder,” The Independent [UK] http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/patrick-cockburn-the-b... and Maximillian Forte, “The WikiLeaks Afghan War Diary,” Counterpunch [August 2, 2010] http://counterpunch.org/forte08022010.html

Some specific histories/revelations
My War, WikiLeaked: Why the Public (and the Military) Can’t Count on Those Battle Logs

By Noah Shachtman, Wired [July 28, 2010]

---- Echo Company got into a gunfight in August 2009 in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. You’ll learn that by reading the report found in WikiLeaks’ database. You’ll learn that, after a chase, the marines killed one insurgent. You’ll learn that the insurgents supposedly fled and that the troops — part of the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines — decided to stay the night in the area, in case the militants returned…. I happen to know this because I was there with Echo Company, reporting for Wired magazine. And the wide difference between what actually happened at the Moba Khan compound and what the report says happened there should give caution to those who think they can discover the capital-T truth about the Afghanistan conflict solely through the WikiLeaks war logs. http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/07/my-war-wikileaked-why-the-public...

Strategic Plans Spawned Bitter End for a Lonely Outpost

By C. J. Chivers, New York Times [July 25, 2010]

---- Nothing in the documents made public on Sunday offers as vivid a miniature of the Afghan war so far — from hope to heartbreak — as the field reports from one lonely base: Combat Outpost Keating.

The outpost was opened in 2006 in the Kamdesh district of Nuristan Province, an area of mountain escarpments, thick forests and deep canyons with a population suspicious of outsiders. The outpost’s troops were charged with finding allies among local residents and connecting them to the central government in Kabul, stopping illegal cross-border movement and deterring the insurgency. But 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. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/world/asia/26keating.html?_r=1&hp

Task Force 373:US Elite Unit Could Create Political Fallout for Berlin

From Der Spiegel

---- One element of the war logs that is likely to spark considerable debate is the information they provide about the United States' Task Force 373, whose work the Pentagon has sought to keep under tight wraps throughout the war in Afghanistan. The unit of elite soldiers, which includes members of the Navy Seals and the Delta Force, get their orders directly from the Pentagon in Washington and operate outside of the chain of command of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). .. After seven German soldiers had died within a short period of time in the spring, a senior US officer at headquarters in Kabul promised the highest-ranking German ISAF officer, General Bruno Kasdorf, that the Americans would hunt down and kill the people behind the attacks on the Germans. And indeed, several Taliban fighters were eliminated in the ensuing weeks. So far, the government in Berlin has not commented on the expansion of the combat zone in the German sector. As recently as the fall of 2009, members of Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet were still telling the German parliament that the "core mission" of Task Force 373 was merely to "conduct reconnaissance and identify individuals who are part of al-Qaida or the Taliban leadership. http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,708407,00.html

For an earlier report on the US assassination program, See also: Jeremy Scahill, “The Secret US War in Pakistan,” The Nation [November 23, 2009]. http://www.thenation.com/article/secret-us-war-pakistan

(Video) Pakistan ex-intelligence chief denies aiding Talban

From AlJazeeraEnglish [July 26, 2010] - 8 minutes

---- US officials believe that the intelligence agency of ally Pakistan has been secretly supporting the Taliban in their conflict with US-led Nato troops in Afghanistan, leaked records say. Wikileaks, the online whistleblower organisation, published more than 90,000 secret US military documents on Sunday, revealing alleged support for the Taliban. The unverified files say that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, the country's spy service, has been holding strategy sessions with Taliban leaders to aid them. Al Jazeera interviewed one of the men specifically mentioned in the reports - retired Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, who has been accused of being actively involved in supporting the Afghan Taliban. He denied the allegations and said the sources of the "flawed" leaks had ulterior political motives. http://www.youtube.com/aljazeeraenglish#p/u/67/CqkQKk9S_8E

The Media Debate and Media Bias

State of Denial: After the Big Leak, Spinning for War

By Norman Solomon, Antiwar.com [July 27, 2010]

---- Washington’s spin machine is in overdrive to counter the massive leak of documents on Afghanistan. Much of the counterattack revolves around the theme that the documents aren’t particularly relevant to this year’s new-and-improved war effort. The White House seized on the time frame of the documents released by WikiLeaks. “The period of time covered in these documents (January 2004-December 2009) is before the president announced his new strategy,” a White House email told reporters on Sunday evening. Unfortunately, the “change in strategy” has remained on the same basic track as the old strategy – except for escalation. http://original.antiwar.com/solomon/2010/07/27/state-of-denial/

Analysis of Civilian Casualties in WikiLeaks Afghan File Reveals Media Bias

By Eric Michael Johnson, Huffington Post [July 27, 2010]

---- The release of 91,000 classified military documents relating to Afghanistan by the organization known as WikiLeaks offers the opportunity for a controlled experiment in an analysis of media bias. Three mainstream media organizations (The New York Times, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel) were given the same amount of time to analyze these documents prior to their public release on July 25th and all three published their accounts on the same day. … [and] reveals dramatically different approaches that each took in reporting on these leaked documents. What the WikiLeaks material reveals most clearly is the devastating toll this war has had on Afghan civilians. That The New York Times chose not to emphasize this fact suggests a political motive to avoid discussing the human impact of the war.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-michael-johnson/analysis-of-civilian-...

See also: FAIR [Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting], “WikiLeaks and the U.S. Press” [7/30/10]

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4128; and C. W. Anderson, “Five big questions the Wikileaks story raises about the future of journalism,” The Nieman Lab [July 26, 2010]

http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/07/data-diffusion-impact-five-big-question...

Political Impact of the Papers
US braces for blowback over Afghan war disclosures

By Kimberly Dozier, Associated Press [July 27, 2010]
---- Another casualty of the disclosures may be American efforts to forge cooperation with Pakistan's secretive intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence. Multiple U.S. military cables posted by WikiLeaks complain about ISI complicity with the Taliban. And they also tell the Pakistanis "how much we know about them," said Robert Riegle, a former senior intelligence officer who now runs Mission Concepts Inc., a private intelligence firm. "You're not going to see any cooperation," he said. "People are going to freeze." http://ap.stripes.com/dynamic/stories/U/US_AFGHANISTAN_WIKILEAKS?SITE=DC...

War Logs Illustrate Lack of Progress in Bundeswehr Deployment

From Der Spiegel

---- The war logs obtained by WikiLeaks depict a situation in northern Afghanistan that is far worse than it is depicted in the reports German Chancellor Angela Merkel gives to parliament. They also show even though the German armed forces, the Bundeswehr, have been present since 2002, they have made little progress in Afghanistan. The close to 92,000 log reports obtained by WikiLeaks do not include any new instances of excessive violence against civilians or illegal clandestine operations on the part of the Bundeswehr in Afghanistan, but they do show how poorly prepared Germany and its military were when they entered the Afghanistan war -- and why their mission will likely remain unfulfilled in the end.

The German army was clueless and naïve when it stumbled into the conflict. http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,708393,00.html

(Video) WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange: "Transparent Government Tends to Produce Just Government"

From Democracy Now! [July 28, 2010] – 50 minutes

---- We spend the hour with Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, talking about the biggest leak in US history: the release of more than 91,000 classified military records on the war in Afghanistan. As the Pentagon announces it is launching a criminal probe into who leaked the documents, Assange asks what about investigating the "war crimes" revealed in the leaked military records? He also talks about the media, why he isn’t coming to the US anytime soon, and what gives him hope. http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/28/wikileaks_founder_julian_assange_t...

The Story Behind the Publication of WikiLeaks’s Afghanistan Logs

By Clint Hendler, Columbia Journalism Review [July 28, 2010]

---- You wouldn’t be reading the coverage of the so-called Afghanistan logs—in The New York Times, Der Spiegel, and The Guardian—if Nick Davies, a senior contributor to the British paper, hadn’t tracked down WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in Brussels one month ago. Davies’s interest had been piqued in mid-June when Bradley Manning, a junior army intelligence analyst and the alleged source of several high-profile WikiLeaks disclosures, was quoted in chat transcripts claiming to have leaked a voluminous amount of yet-to-be disclosed diplomatic cables. Whatever Assange had, and whomever its source, Davies knew that WikiLeaks would publish again—and hoped to convince him to let The Guardian look at any future release before WikiLeaks splashed it on its own site. http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/the_story_behind_the_publicati.php

WikiLeaks Posts Mysterious ‘Insurance’ File

By Kim Zetter, Wired [July 30, 2010]

---- In the wake of strong U.S. government statements condemning WikiLeaks’ recent publishing of 77,000 Afghan War documents, the secret-spilling site has posted a mysterious encrypted file labeled “insurance.” The huge file, posted on the Afghan War page at the WikiLeaks site, is 1.4 GB and is encrypted with AES256 [a state-of-the-art encryption program]. The file’s size dwarfs the size of all the other files on the page combined. The file has also been posted on a torrent download site as well. WikiLeaks, on Sunday, posted several files containing the 77,000 Afghan war documents in a single “dump” file and in several other files containing versions of the documents in various searchable formats. Cryptome, a separate secret-spilling site, has speculated that the file may have been posted as insurance in case something happens to the WikiLeaks website or to the organization’s founder, Julian Assange. In either scenario, WikiLeaks volunteers, under a prearranged agreement with Assange, could send out a password or passphrase to allow anyone who has downloaded the file to open it. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/wikileaks-insurance-file/#ixzz0...