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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."

10 of 966 comments (clear)

  1. 300 billion dollars is chump change... by macraig · · Score: 0, Troll

    ... when 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"? You must be new here.

  2. Re:PR by clarkkent09 · · Score: 0, Troll

    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.

    I only wish that that was the case because the side you are talking about (taliban, al-qaeda and other jihadist forces) are representing a savage medieval ideology that, if not challenged with force, presents the greatest single threat to the survival of human civilization. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be going as well as you say.

    --
    Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
  3. Re:Pretty pathetic by sycodon · · Score: 0, Troll

    Wikileaks, whose founder, Julian Assange, obtained the material in circumstances he will not discuss, said it would redact harmful material

    How can this asshat know what is harmful and what is not? Who elected him everyone's "conscience"?

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
  4. Re:Conflicted by sycodon · · Score: 0, Troll

    If you are so gung ho on publishing secrets, why are you such a pussy that you are post as an AC?

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
  5. Huge Red Flag by SuperKendall · · Score: 1, Troll

    Assange also explained the decision not to include commentary on the RPG, which was that in their opinion, the supposed RPG may have been a camera tripod.

    Right - the opinion of people who are not trained AT ALL to analyze and identify weapons from poor quality video.

    That goes to the heart of the problem, is that these untrained people are the ones who are deciding what is sensitive and what is not. Apart from the glaringly obvious they have no idea.

    Wikileaks is going to get a lot of people killed if they have not done so already.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  6. Re:US abuse by kaoshin · · Score: 0, Troll

    The USA once was great and still is. Like pretty much every other country, there are moments in history where mistakes were made and atrocities were committed. You weren't alive then, so it isn't that you haven't moved on. The issue is you are such a hypocrite, you would blame others for spreading propaganda, when you spread your own with similar posts like this one. Some of this was said before to which you didn't have an answer, but I'll feed the troll again.

    About Hawaii you are completely spreading misinformation. "During the Hawaiian Revolution, a few American troops landed to protect American life and property. They did not engage in fighting and did not occupy any government buildings. However, this action has lead many historical revisionists to falsely claim that the United States invaded Hawaii and deposed the Queen." -http://www.conservapedia.com/Hawaii

    Regarding Native Americans... "It is a firmly established fact that a mere 250,000 native Americans were still alive in the territory of the United States at the end of the 19th century." -http://hnn.us/articles/7302.html White people definitely killed a number of them but disease was a huge factor. Even if there was enough evidence to prove the occurrence of genocide, which there is not, it does not serve the interests of anyone to make such accusations.

    Enslaving people on another content? I suppose you meant continent. You can discredit the USA based on their past for ever owning slaves, but the American Civil War was fought mainly on issue of slavery. Many of our forefathers lost their lives fighting for the freedom of slaves. Slavery was abolished as a result of their sacrifice and today our country is led by an African American. There is not much to dispute the greatness in that.

    Fighting Canadians? You realize that was to attack a British colony like over 200 years ago right? That was a little before WWII... in the the beginning of the revolutionary war.

    So in summary, please stop with the propaganda that the USA was not once great bull crap. It was a great country and still is.

  7. Re:Pretty pathetic by PatrickThomson · · Score: 0, Troll

    For the last few years, the Guardian has had the journalistic integrity of a Michael Moore film. It makes me ashamed to vote liberal democrat that the champion newspaper is so blatantly biased and full of loaded phrases and poor practices.

    --
    I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
  8. Re:US abuse by OeLeWaPpErKe · · Score: 0, Troll

    So why do you support stoning women, killing gays, lesbians and anyone even slightly different ?

    Because that's what your choice means, in the real world.

    And yes, if the choice between the choice of warring over oil, and the total racist abomination that is islam(ic law), warring over oil is without any doubt the moral choice.

  9. Re:US abuse by OeLeWaPpErKe · · Score: 0, Troll

    The US (and everyone else just has the US do it for them (for free)) has to secure the seas around the middle eastern nations.

    (and yes that means that all regimes with a coastline there are either friendly or at least what you might call "contained")

    Read up on your history to see extensive documentation on what happens with those seas unsecured (and don't forget the mediterranean is one of those seas). Really. It's even plain in American history : google barbary wars.

    Example, from America's own congressional record for the answer to Thomas Jefferson's question on why it cannot work peacefully to mutual benefit :

    In 1786 Thomas Jefferson, then US ambassador to France, and John Adams, then US Ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the Dey’s ambassador to Britain, in an attempt to negotiate a peace treaty based on Congress’ vote of funding. To the US Congress these two future Presidents later reported the reasons for the Muslims’ hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts.

    “that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise.”

    This was 1786, and nothing has changed.