Although the breach of security and subsequent un-authorized release of classified material might be seen as unprecedented, the content does not constitute the intelligence coup some might have feared and others hoped for. The summarization of the content is reported to boil down to the fact that Pakistani forces and intelligence assets have been assisting forces opposed to US military operations in Afghanistan. This is not quite a revelation for folks who have watched closely, as reports such as this have already made sporadic and brief appearances in mainstream media sources. What this release has done however, is to draw the spotlight onto the already established horrors and complexity of war, and the fact that US forces in Afghanistan are being undermined in a war that is un-winnable.
Here is a link to the Wikileaks page where the documents are now available...
Afghan War Diary, 2004-2009
Also if I'm correct Wikileaks had stated they received about 250,000 'cables' from a whistleblower a while ago. This is not the last you'll hear about it.
ReplyDeleteThere are reportedly hundreds of thousands of documents from multiple sources which have yet to be released, and "more coming in everyday" so to speak. Wikileaks is having some difficulty processing all of the information they receive. Also, Wikileaks uses what they call a "harm minimsation procedure," which has reportedly delayed the release of some documents that we are told to expect in the future as time saturation makes the material less sensitive.
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