WikiLeaks Publishes Afghan War Secrets

A number of readers submitted word on the massive WikiLeaks release of Afghanistan war documents. "The data is provided in CSV and SQL formats, sorted by months, and also was rendered into KML mapping data." WikiLeaks provided the documents in advance to the New York Times, Der Spiegel, and the UK's Guardian — the latter also has up a video tutorial on how to read the logs. From the Times: "A six-year archive of classified military documents... offers an unvarnished, ground-level picture of the war in Afghanistan that is in many respects more grim than the official portrayal. The secret documents... are a daily diary of an American-led force often starved for resources and attention as it struggled against an insurgency that grew larger, better coordinated and more deadly each year. The New York Times, the British newspaper The Guardian, and the German magazine Der Spiegel were given access to the voluminous records several weeks ago on the condition that they not report on the material before Sunday. The documents — some 92,000 reports spanning parts of two administrations from January 2004 through December 2009 — illustrate in mosaic detail why, after the United States has spent almost $300 billion on the war in Afghanistan, the Taliban are stronger than at any time since 2001."

Comments

US abuse

[SquarePixel]

Wikileaks is doing great work for the world. It sickens me that the country that is supposedly so open and about democracy abuses rest of the world like this and tries to hide it. I remember that last year the German and French population support for the war started dropping, so US started a project where they tried to think how to manipulate them. They made specific, independent plans for both countries how to give the war better PR so the general population would support it again.

US is also the only country in the world that is constantly in war with other countries, bullies them and has a history of supporting enemies of its enemies. You know, the exact same thing that US considers as helping terrorists. Funny thing is that because of this, US put itself into this war.

What about ACTA and other laws US tries to push to the rest of the world? No one comes to US and tries to tell them what to do. So leave rest of the world alone too.

Re:US abuse

[Shakrai]

US is also the only country in the world that is constantly in war with other countries, bullies them and has a history of supporting enemies of its enemies

You realize that every country in the history of humanity has done the exact same things, right?

Re:US abuse

[ColdWetDog]

I pretty much agree with your point, but would like to point out that no other country is or has been involved in as many large scale, outright wars as we are, at the frequency we are.

Huh? Your view of history is pretty narrow. Perhaps in the 20th Century the US has been involved in more wars that others (often as a defensive position, ie, WWI, WW2, Korea) but the history of mankind has been that of war for thousands and thousands of years.

This is reality, not the Federation of Planets. Get used to it.

Re:US abuse

[sbates]

Scale is relative. The British and Roman empires were waging at least as many as we are, and were just as ruthless. Granted, that shows you where we're headed, but your statement is still wrong.

Re:US abuse

[Shakrai]

This is reality, not the Federation of Planets. Get used to it.

Even the Federation seemed to average a small war every decade or so......

Re:US abuse

[digitalunity]

Strangely enough, I'm pretty sure the US and Russian stockpiles of nuclear weapons made the world safer overall. I can't say the same regarding North Korea or Iran having nukes. They might actually use them without fear of retaliation.

Re:US abuse

[tacarat]

You realize that every country in the history of humanity has done the exact same things, right?

Not Tibet.

Tibet was a bunch of separate entities way back in the day. If and when it gets free of the Chinese government, do they get to redivide into those smaller countries? Obviously Songtsän Gampo, the guy who founded the Tibetan EMPIRE, wasn't a true Tibetan. He was just some random, outside oppressor engaged in acts of aggression against his neighbors. The earth was made and Tibet was there immediately with monks and quaint makers of handcrafted goodies for celebrity photo op types to pose with. Damn him for messing with that.

Re:US abuse

[hairyfeet]

The problem is we have this thing known as the military industrial complex that needs shit to kept stirred to give it a reason to exist and enjoy massive profits.

Old Ike warned us about it in the 50s saying "we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. " but nobody listened.

You look at our history pre WWII and we pretty much tried to stay out of everyone else's business for the most part. After all those corps got a taste of the government teat they sure as hell wasn't about to give it up, hence where we are now. Sadly the MIC has become a self perpetuating monster, with plants and projects across every district, and more than enough cash to buy anything they want passed. Short of a total economic collapse I just don't see anything changing with regards to the USA and the MIC.

Re:US abuse

[BLKMGK]

In order for that to actually work we'd all have to do it - all at once. By all means go ahead and try to convince the Chinese, the Russians, the Koreans, the Taliban etc. to all sing along and be friends with one another. Don't forget the Palestinians and Israelis too. Go over there and try to talk this sense to them, we'll be seeing you on TV shortly after I'm betting and not in the good way either. What exactly different is it that you propose?

If you think that somehow leading by example and becoming pacifists is going to get it done be prepared to be crushed as every other country rolls over you. What you're looking for is a fantasy and it's the sort of fantasy that's dreamed up by folks who have a warm bed, enough food, plenty of water, education, and free time to have have such thoughts. Many places in this world have very little of any of that and you had better believe they aren't going to get it overnight.

Want to win in places like Afghanistan? Start by raising their standard of living to something akin to ours. School them, build roads, develop their industries and resources, maybe give them something worthwhile to lose! When they have the luxuries that the "developed" worlds do then and only then will we begin to see progress. The Taliban and other tyrants know that an educated populace is their worst enemy. If we give Iran enough time I bet we will see this happen, trying badly to strangle them with by withholding needed supplies will work as well for us as it's working in Palestine I fear...

Re:US abuse

[Zeinfeld]

You don't think that maybe the US and Russian nuclear stockpiles have encouraged the proliferation by other states? Now certainly from the US point of view, the US is safer if other countries do not have nuclear weapons. But is the same true of Iran? We can be pretty sure that the US would not have attacked Iraq if it genuinely believed that Saddam had acquired WMD for the simple reason that he would have been able to retaliate. Iran's nuclear program began in the days of the Shah and was a joint program between Israel, Iran and South Africa. Israeli nukes are made with uranium from Iran. The deal was that Israel would provide the technology (stolen from the US), Iran the uranium, South Africa the test facility. After the Iranian revolution, the Ayatollah Khomeni shuttered the nuclear program. The main reason that it is now believed Iran is building a nuclear bomb is that they would be utter fools not to after George W. Bush's 'Axis of evil' speech, a speech that was widely considered tantamount to a declaration of an intent to attack Iran. One of the predictable consequences of the invasion of Iraq was that it would almost certainly result in Iran restoring its nuclear program. It was also fairly predictable that Iran would emerge stronger with the elimination of its main Shi'ia rival in the region as an effective military force. The Bush administration took a similar line with North Korea. Clinton's approach was deemed to have been 'too soft'. So trash talk took the place of diplomacy and the carefully negotiated deal in which the US paid North Korea not to finish its bomb was reneged on. But only after the US had parted with most of the cash. As a means of preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons by unfriendly powers, the Bush administration could hardly have acted more disastrously.

Re:US abuse

[jd2112]

From the movie 'The Peacemaker'

"I'm not afraid of the man who wants ten nuclear weapons. I'm terrified of the man who only wants one."

Re:US abuse

[Conzar]

Pre WWII, what was the USA responsible for? Genocide on the Native Americans, taking land from the Mexicans, fighting the Canadians, invades Hawaii, kidnapping and enslaving people from another content, and the list goes on. I hardly think this qualifies as "staying out of everyone else's business". Please stop with the propaganda that the USA was once great bullshit.

Re:US abuse

[Kell Bengal]

You know, I agree with you. I suspect the most dangerous thing you can teach kids in an American classroom is the true history of their forefathers.

Re:US abuse

[Dravik]

Read up on the fall of Carthage. The US did not go from house to house raping every woman we could find. The US did not sell 50,000 Afghans into slavery. The Afghan cities were not razed to the ground so that no building was left standing.

Re:US abuse

[betterunixthanunix]

In fact, those nuclear weapons have made the world far less safe, for the simple reason that retaliation in the event of a nuclear strike is not only absolutely certain, but would also carry with it extremely destructive consequences for the entire planet. We have come right to the brink of destruction multiple times now, because of human or computer error, or poor diplomacy.

What have we gained from this precarious position? Only peace between a handful of countries who keep their fingers on the trigger. The rest of the world still has war, with all the brutality, violence, and war crimes that come with it, and in several cases those wars are with (or were with, in the case of wars that occurred in the past) the very countries that have nuclear stockpiles.

It is absurd to claim that humanity is safer now than we were before the arms race. We live on the brink of destruction, and while we all go about our lives feeling safe, there are people who spend their time ensuring that at any moment, any country in the world could be completely destroyed, and others whose jobs involve planning how the entire world could be destroyed if some other country decides to execute a nuclear strike.

None of that makes me feel very safe.

Re:US abuse

[X.25]

You need to do a little research on the British Empire, the Roman empire, The Mongols, etc. Pretty much ANY empire in recorded history. Most involved outright genocide of millions and ongoing conflicts on multiple fronts. We're a bunch of candy-ass pacifists by comparison.

Oh, another one. Right, I see. Thank God for your logical explanation, because I was on the edge of thinking that maybe what US was doing might not be right.

But now that you pointed out that other have done it before, then it MUST be right.

Right?

Re:US abuse

[betterunixthanunix]

Take a look at the collateral murder video before making statements like this:

Our weaponry and style of war is far more ruthless today than the Romans could've ever dreamed of.

Note that the helicopter pilots had to radio in for permission to kill the people on the ground (they did get that permission, of course) -- the Romans would not have had to radio in. A group of Roman soldiers would have slaughtered the people with weapons, and probably the "historians" (i.e. reporters) that were there with them, without first asking a higher level commander for permission. The "rules of engagement" in Roman times were not quite what they are today: the Romans won many battles by simply laying siege and letting people starve to death (can you find an instance of the United States Army laying siege and waiting for people to starve to death?).

Yes, the weapons are more deadly. The tactics and rules, however, are a lot less brutal. Yes, warfare is still brutal, but we really do hold back our armies. If you want to see what less restraint looks like, take a look at what is happening along the Congo-Rwanda border, and you will see the kind of restrain the US army is showing in Iraq.

Re:US abuse

[laddiebuck]

The British tried the pacifism by example thing after the First World War. The result was the Second World War, which could well have been avoided by keeping the balance of power as it stood in 1918. Instead they gutted their army and navy and only protested feebly at Germany building hers right up again.

Re:US abuse

[Runaway1956]

Uhhhh - no system is infallible. Sonar is remarkable. On sonar that would be around 40 years old today, one could actually listen to fish doing fishy things, miles away. You could hear a man sneeze underwater, again, miles away. Even the most stealthy of submarines make noise as it passes through the water - mostly from the propellor of course, but the steam plant makes noise, and the crew makes noise. Machinery inside the sub makes noise. You can hear all of it, if you have very good ears, proper training, and good equipment. A good sonar tech can hear a scuba diver long before the diver gets close enough to plant a limpet mine. But, NONE of it is infallible.

You can potentially take a noisy 1800's steam ship out to run a blockade, and succeed. Because nothing works like it's supposed to all the time.

If you think that S. Korean or any other sonar arrays are impenetrable, you have almost no understanding of sonar, or people, or of complex systems in general. NOTHING WORKS CORRECTLY ALL THE TIME! Repeat that a few thousand times - then go out and preach it to the people around you who fail to understand it.

Re:US abuse

[Runaway1956]

"Our weaponry and style of war is far more ruthless today "

Bullshit. Every combat action is subject to public scrutiny, and the commanders have to answer to a Congress that watches the news, right along with reading full reports from the front line.

We do not wage a "ruthless" war. We haven't done so since about 1950. We fight "humane" wars. We bend over backwards to avoid inflicting civilian casualties and civilian damage. We have very strict rules of engagement. If you think our troops are "ruthless", you have no concept of what ruthless really is.

A ruthless military would identify a village from which some combatants came, surround that village, destroy all the structures with air strikes and artillery, then they would roll through it with armor, and follow up with infantry. A sign would be erected, "This village destroyed as penalty for supplying 10 soldiers to fight against America." And, the bodies would be left lying in the road when everyone left. That is ruthlessness.

Re:US abuse

[Urkki]

Did the Romans plant devices that could chop off the limbs of a playing child years or even decades after the conflict has ended, devices specifically intended to maim and kill indiscriminately ? And did they in fact spread this disease all over the world by exporting the stuff to every two bit warlord with the cash to buy them ?

The Romans were ruthless enough to chop limbs off children personally (sort of a "hands off"-approach ;-). It takes quite a different level of ruthlessness to personally skewer a kid with a sword, than selling a mine to somebody who may use it in a way that results in kids getting maimed and killed. Any coward can quiet their conscience in the hopes of quick profits (for an arms merchant) or not think very far into the future when securing their position in a war (for a soldier in a war zone). Very very few individuals (today, in developed countries) are ruthless enough to personally off a kid.

uh oh

[u4ya]

Sure hope no one finds out that war is an ugly business that squanders trillions of taxpayer dollars and wastes countless human lives in order to reap huge rewards for a few special interests. That would be a shame (to the few special interests).

Re:Killing other people does not solve problems.

[Cassius Corodes]

It merely removes them...

Conflicted

[cappp]

I'm finding myself more and more conflicted in my thoughts regarding wiki-leaks. On the one hand a democracy can only thrive when an informed populace can make choices grounded in reliable facts. The increase in secrecy and the rush to classify and obscure data therefore undermines the functioning of democracy. This isn’t good, we can all agree on that but I’m just not sure if wikileaks is going about things in the right way. Worse, I don’t know what better way there is. Over at Gawker there’s a quick reminder of the media-savvy that underpins the way wiki-leaks works – as they point out,

Assange has a long history of making vague conspiratorial claims of harassment that don't stand up to scrutiny

Similarly a New Yorker piece commented on the leaked video and noted that

These pieces of missing information are not just inherent limitations in video. The producers themselves have chosen not to provide them. There appears to be a purpose to the omissions, which is underlined by the Orwell quote at the start, the prefatory explanation, the quotes and dedication at the end, even the way the helicopter crew’s cruel remarks are edited in a few places for effect. Although the producers identify the camera of the Reuters journalist who, along with his assistant, will be killed by Apache cannon fire, they don’t point to the AK-47 or the RPG launcher carried by other men with whom the journalists are walking in a group. Stripped of much context and weighted with commentary, this video is both an important document of the war, courageously leaked after the military had steadily refused to release it, and, in its way, a propaganda film

Another article

Last year, for example, WikiLeaks published the “secret ritual” of a college women’s sorority called Alpha Sigma Tau. Now Alpha Sigma Tau (like several other sororities “exposed” by WikiLeaks) is not known to have engaged in any form of misconduct, and WikiLeaks does not allege that it has. Rather, WikiLeaks chose to publish the group’s confidential ritual just because it could. This is not whistleblowing and it is not journalism. It is a kind of information vandalism. In fact, WikiLeaks routinely tramples on the privacy of non-governmental, non-corporate groups for no valid public policy reason. It has published private rites of Masons, Mormons and other groups that cultivate confidential relations among their members. Most or all of these groups are defenseless against WikiLeaks’ intrusions. The only weapon they have is public contempt for WikiLeaks’ ruthless violation of their freedom of association, and even that has mostly been swept away in a wave of uncritical and even adulatory reporting about the brave “open government,” “whistleblower” site. On occasion, WikiLeaks has engaged in overtly unethical behavior. Last year, without permission, it published the full text of the highly regarded 2009 book about corruption in Kenya called “It’s Our Turn to Eat” by investigative reporter Michela Wrong (as first reported by Chris McGreal in The Guardian on April 9). By posting a pirated version of the book and making it freely available, WikiLeaks almost certainly disrupted sales of the book and made it harder for Ms. Wrong and other anti-corruption reporters to perform their important work and to get it published. Repeated protests and pleas from the author were required before WikiLeaks (to its credit) finally took the book offline. “Soon enough,” observed Raffi Khatchadourian in a long profile of WikiLeaks

Re:Conflicted

[QuantumG]

Yes, because without secrets the populous might have to face up to the mayhem their elected officials cause.

One wonders...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Y'know what really puts the 300 billion figure in perspective? That the GDP of Afghanistan is ~13 billion. If you can't crush an adversary like a bug for almost a quarter-century's worth of its GDP(and that is comparing your military expenditures vs. their entire economy) there is some part of you technique that you really need to take a hard look at...

Worse, even if we were having it all our way in military terms, our best case scenario seems to be installing our ridiculously corrupt and dubiously competent puppet leader sufficiently securely that we can leave before he gets overthrown. Given what happened in Iran when our ridiculously corrupt and dubiously competent puppet leader fell, this strategy seems to have a strong structural weakness.

Re:One wonders...

[0123456]

Y'know what really puts the 300 billion figure in perspective? That the GDP of Afghanistan is ~13 billion. If you can't crush an adversary like a bug for almost a quarter-century's worth of its GDP(and that is comparing your military expenditures vs. their entire economy) there is some part of you technique that you really need to take a hard look at..

To be fair, the US military could trivially crush Afghanistan by pattern-bombing it with nukes. The trouble is that 'destroying the country in order to save it' would be a little difficult to justify to American voters and Afghanistan's neighbours.

The real issue is that Americans really don't care about Afghanistan, but no politico is yet willing to say 'this was a stupid idea and we're leaving'. If 'crushing' the country really mattered they'd have done it long ago, but it doesn't.

Re:One wonders...

[Matt Perry]

I spent 21 years in the US military. It's the best military in the world, bar none.

How do you know that? What other militaries have you served in to which you can compare your experience and declare one to be the best?

Re:Killing other people does not solve problems.

[jav1231]

Other people are often the problem. Therefore, it in fact does solve the problem.

PR

[Anonymous Coward]

Is Wikileaks now part of the PR machine? The feeling you're obviously supposed to take away with you from this is: Americans are fighting an uphill battle and are lost against the steadily increasing forces of terrorism it tried to root out.

an American-led force often starved for resources and attention as it struggled against an insurgency that grew larger, better coordinated and more deadly each year.

When in reality Americans rolled in there ridiculously outnumbering and, more importantly, ridiculously out-being-equipped the mostly half-civilian rabble that dared stand up against them. There is no Afghan War. A war implies two sides fighting, not one waltzing in with vastly superior technomagic, while the other one is hiding, showing their heads, getting beat to a pulp, running for cover and getting shot in the back, until the next round of civilians gets fed up with sights like that and picks up their weapons to meet a similar fate.

Much more importantly, this isn't the right question at all. It shouldn't be "Why is this so difficult?" but "Why are we over there, taking their stuff and murdering everyone who so much as raises his voice against us? And shouldn't we be stopping that?" We demanded it. We were promised it. Success. We did our thing and now we don't care anymore. So it doesn't happen. Yay us, yay humanity. We make me sick.

Fuck me and fuck every single one of you. If I had three wishes I'd wish for a plague on all our houses, then a deluge, and a rinse-repeat.

Look away, citizens!

[MindlessAutomata]

Citizens and proud patriots of America, look away! Such things are not for your eyes. It is not for you to know how our war (done on your behalf, my steadfast Americans!) is going. Such things will only hurt the morale of our troops--and recruitment numbers! We beseech you, our countrypeople, you have no right to any of this information, for we do not belong to you--you belong to us.

Re:300 billion dollars is chump change...

[rudy_wayne]

those "newly" discovered mineral resources could be worth trillions to the right corporation to exploit them. What, you thought our presence there was to fight the Taliban and spread "democracy"?

Nobody with half a brain ever believed that the war in Afghanistan was "to fight the Taliban and spread democracy". But that's beside the point.

Nobody is going to be getting any of that trillion dollars worth of minerals any time soon. Maybe never. Afghanistan has absolutely no infrastructure and even the most optimistic estimates say it would take decades. Of course, before you can even start doing that you have the problem of the inane lunatics who couldn't care less about about minerals, peace, prosperity, democracy or anything else, and only care about killing anyone who doesn't share their insane lunatic ideology. After 9 years and $300 Billion the U.S. has made no progress in changing this. In other words, if you're hoping to open a big Lithium mine, don't hold your breath.

Personally I don't like them

[Sycraft-fu]

Secrets are sometimes necessary, and yes that includes to the government. As a simple example: Would you want a criminal getting a hold of information relating to an active investigation against them? How about the locations and identities of people in witness protection?

If you think any of that should be kept secret, then you agree that secrets can be necessary, including for the government. In that case the question is when should they be allowed to keep a secret. Then you have to start exercising discretion about what you release. You need to weigh the public's need to know versus the damage it could do.

Wikileaks just wants to release any and everything. They don't seem to give any consideration as to public good or need, they just want to leak everything. That I cannot agree with, be it for public or private entities. Anyone who says "There should be no secrets," is just the other side of the "If you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide," coin.

Also, as noted, they seem to have a political agenda. The helicopter video is a great example. It is possible that you could feel the public needed to know about it. Fine, but then the unaltered, uncommented video would be what to release. If you really believe the public needs to see what happened then that is what to show them. The unedited truth. When you edit and comment on it, you are trying to use it as a tool to present a point of view. You aren't interested in telling the truth, you are interested in pushing an agenda.

Using facts to do that doesn't make it any better. Bill Orielly is nearly always factual in his presentation. He rarely fabricates stuff. However it isn't true. What he does is pick and choose the facts he likes, and choose how to frame them to push a point of view. So while it isn't lying per se, it is still misleading. Wikileaks seems to be willing to do the same.

So between those two things, I really can't support them. They try to pretend to be the good guys but to me their actions do not show them in that light.

Re:15,000 reports held back but will be release la

[Luckyo]

Actually, if you watch the video on guardian, Assange specifically addresses the problem of "safety" that is being lauded here, noting how wikileaks take great care not to endanger people, other then politicians and military making the decisions leading to these occurrences of course. He points out why "this endangers the safety" argument is beating on a dead horse - the data here is so old, that the real meat that could in fact endanger lives of NATO soldiers, namely positional info is long beyond any reasonable secrecy requirements, while names are being redacted.

Anyone parroting the "endangers lives of out troops" is doing nothing but repeating drivel meant to discredit wikileaks at this point. Sensitive negotiations on the other hand usually imply "crimes behind them", which brings us to judicial responsibility - i.e. how many children are you willing to have raped, mutilated and killed in the name of Aghanistan, before it gets to be too many? Perhaps it's time to note that NATO has quite a few sociopaths installed in positions of power, and they need to be replaced rather then be taking part in "sensitive negotioations"?
On the other hand, the people dead because of what NATO is doing in Afghanistan are actually dying, in droves. And as these documents show, NATO sweeps many of them under the rug, and who are the people responsible for that accountable for, and who are people covering them accountable for?

And mind you, he's not American. He's Australian, and he claims to speak for no one least of all Americans. He simply offers facts, and allows everyone to formulate their opinion on their own. This is quite different from most modern mass media, that tends to be opinionated to no end nowadays rather then offer facts and let people think for themselves.

US revolutionary war, anyone?

[SuperBanana]

They refused to abide by the laws of war and we responded in kind.

I find that statement pretty funny given that I grew up about 15 minutes away from where a bunch of colonial farmers basically engaged in guerrilla warfare and pretty well obliterated almost a thousand British troops. What did those wild heathens do? Why, they didn't respect the proper rules of war by moving around in proper tidy columns and shooting in volleys (the procedure is truly hilarious to watch.) The bastards...they fired from spread out positions! And from behind rock walls! Cowards! And then, as the British retreated, they were picked off militia hiding in the woods all along the road back to Boston.

So. The standards of war are rewritten by whoever wins...and it's not like we went into Iraq and Afghanistan not knowing what we were getting ourselves into. The Soviets did a pretty good job of discovering that a decade or two prior.

Re:US revolutionary war, anyone?

[shutdown -p now]

I just find it absurd that we force our military to fight with one hand behind it's back. Our enemies aren't doing the same.

It all depends on what you're trying to achieve. If it's suppressing all resistance, then, yes, "shoot on sight" is the way to do that - though there are more efficient ways still, such as carpet bombing.

But if you want to take over an area and maintain control, not by keeping population at the barrel of your guns (and showing that it's loaded by shooting one or another periodically), but more or less willingly, then you have to do PR. Be better than the other guys.

And PR has its costs, including soldiers' lives.

But then Soviet Union tried to go without back in 80s, and you might recall how well that went.

Re:Ethics of leaks

[Bruce Perens]

If you can't trust our elected officials to do the right thing when it comes to the essential job of the government, then it's Game Over.

Well, it's game over then, by your rules.

I have considered running for office, and may consider it again. However, I'm not terribly electable. Not Christian, for one thing. If you look at who is in office, it's clear that this is a Christian nation.

Re:So what *is* there?

[Sabriel]

Since it is clear that he let his original source in US military down (essentially letting him be a fall guy who will probably be charged with various offenses),

Please correct me if I've lost track of this whole snafu, but if your source blabs to someone else that he's leaking military secrets, and that someone else turns your source over to the military, how are you the guy who let him down?

Re:special interests

[cpt kangarooski]

I don't know. I don't think that Afghanistan is capable of invading and conquering the United States. They pose no great threat to us. Given that, I'd really rather have the $300 billion.

Re:15,000 reports held back but will be release la

[dbIII]

OK, so you got Kennedy, but wasn't Reagan shot in Washington?

Re:Criminal

[TubeSteak]

Regardless of the politics involved, this information was classified and it was marked as such. It was disclosed illegally and the newspapers (at least NYT) have a legal obligation to not print it.

You don't know what you're talking about.
Newspapers have, in the past, published classified documents which were "disclosed illegally".
FFS, the NY Times went front page with the Pentagon Papers in 1971.
The Government tried to silence them and it went all the way to the Supreme Court
Since I'm telling you that you don't know what you're talking about, it should be obvious how the case was decided..

The only reason the NYT is "interpreting the content and publishing summaries" is due to the enormous volume of information.

There are guidelines for classifying data that determine the classification level based upon how much damage (often in terms of lives lost) that the disclosure would cause.

What we've seen time and time again (the Pentagon Papers are only one of the more famous examples) is that the US Government will break the law and/or lie to its citizens, then classify the evidence and punish any attempts at whistleblowing.

Or have you forgotten about things like the retroactive legalization of otherwise unconstitutional warrantless wiretapping?
Legalization which only came about after the whistle was blown and the public was outraged.