Wikileaks Afghanistan War Logs

Politics International Politics
1

Wikileaks has released 90,000 pages of logs on the Afghan war.

The Guardian is making most of what it received available here.

[quote=“Guardian editorial”]The fog of war is unusually dense in Afghanistan. When it lifts, as it does today with the Guardian’s publication of selections from a leaked trove of secret US military logs, a very different landscape is revealed from the one with which we have become familiar. These war logs – written in the heat of engagement – show a conflict that is brutally messy, confused and immediate. It is in some contrast with the tidied-up and sanitised “public” war, as glimpsed through official communiques as well as the necessarily limited snapshots of embedded reporting.
[…]
The war logs – classified as secret – are encyclopedic but incomplete. We have removed any material which threatens the safety of troops, local informants and collaborators.

With these caveats, the collective picture that emerges is a very disturbing one. We today learn of nearly 150 incidents in which coalition forces, including British troops, have killed or injured civilians, most of which have never been reported; of hundreds of border clashes between Afghan and Pakistani troops, two armies which are supposed to be allies; of the existence of a special forces unit whose tasks include killing Taliban and al-Qaida leaders; of the slaughter of civilians caught by the Taliban’s improvised explosive devices; and of a catalogue of incidents where coalition troops have fired on and killed each other or fellow Afghans under arms.

Reading these logs, many may suspect there is sometimes a casual disregard for the lives of innocents. A bus that fails to slow for a foot patrol is raked with gunfire, killing four passengers and wounding 11 others. The documents tell how, in going after a foreign fighter, a special forces unit ended up with seven dead children. The infants were not their immediate priority. A report marked “Noforn” (not for foreign elements of the coalition) suggests their main concern was to conceal the mobile rocket system that had just been used.

In these documents, Iran’s and Pakistan’s intelligence agencies run riot. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is linked to some of the war’s most notorious commanders. The ISI is alleged to have sent 1,000 motorbikes to the warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani for suicide attacks in Khost and Logar provinces, and to have been implicated in a sensational range of plots, from attempting to assassinate President Hamid Karzai to poisoning the beer supply of western troops. These reports are unverifiable and could be part of a barrage of false information provided by Afghan intelligence. But yesterday’s White House response to the claims that elements of the Pakistan army had been so specifically linked to the militants made it plain that the status quo is unacceptable. It said that safe havens for militants within Pakistan continued to pose “an intolerable threat” to US forces. However you cut it, this is not an Afghanistan that either the US or Britain is about to hand over gift-wrapped with pink ribbons to a sovereign national government in Kabul. Quite the contrary. After nine years of warfare, the chaos threatens to overwhelm. A war fought ostensibly for the hearts and minds of Afghans cannot be won like this.[/quote]

[quote]A huge cache of secret US military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency.
[…]
Their publication comes amid mounting concern that Barack Obama’s “surge” strategy is failing and as coalition troops hunt for two US naval personnel captured by the Taliban south of Kabul on Friday.
[…]
Rachel Reid, who investigates civilian casualty incidents in Afghanistan for Human Rights Watch, said: "These files bring to light what’s been a consistent trend by US and Nato forces: the concealment of civilian casualties. Despite numerous tactical directives ordering transparent investigations when civilians are killed, there have been incidents I’ve investigated in recent months where this is still not happening.

Accountability is not just something you do when you are caught. It should be part of the way the US and Nato do business in Afghanistan every time they kill or harm civilians." The reports, many of which the Guardian is publishing in full online, present an unvarnished and often compelling account of the reality of modern war.

Most of the material, though classified “secret” at the time, is no longer militarily sensitive. A small amount of information has been withheld from publication because it might endanger local informants or give away genuine military secrets. Wikileaks, whose founder, Julian Assange, obtained the material in circumstances he will not discuss, said it would redact harmful material before posting the bulk of the data on its “uncensorable” servers.[/quote]

[quote]US authorities have known for weeks that they have suffered a haemorrhage of secret information on a scale which makes even the leaking of the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam war look limited by comparison.

The Afghan war logs, from which the Guardian reports today, consist of 92,201 internal records of actions by the US military in Afghanistan between January 2004 and December 2009 – threat reports from intelligence agencies, plans and accounts of coalition operations, descriptions of enemy attacks and roadside bombs, records of meetings with local politicians, most of them classified secret.

The Guardian’s source for these is Wikileaks, the website which specialises in publishing untraceable material from whistleblowers, which is simultaneously publishing raw material from the logs.
[/quote]

2

Just what everyone intelligent has been saying. Time to bring the troops home.

3

So, business as usual then. Has anyone ever successfully fought a humanitarian and ‘clean’ war? Seriously?

4

Wrong question.

The correct question is: has anyone tried to sell a war as clean and tidy, and ridden that perception to drive a policy that would otherwise enjoy only marginal public support? If a democratic society is to go to war (and they do so more frequently and thoroughly than others), it should do so for the correct reasons and with as much knowledge as possible.

5

I don’t think so. Anyone who thinks that any war can be clean and tidy is deluding themselves.

Certainly, this is what politicians typically do when it comes to wars. You don’t get anywhere by marketing them as brutal and savage slugfests which will result in the demolition of human rights.

I question that there are ‘correct reasons’ to go to war. Cicero did the West a grave disservice with that little conceit. War, as Von Clausewitz rightly said, is an act of violence by which we compel our adversary to submit to our will. That’s what it is. The reason for waging war is always the same, psychological and cultural imperialism. War as a means of conflict resolution is a contradiction in terms.

6

[quote=“Fortigurn”][quote=“Jaboney”]Wrong question.[/quote]I don’t think so. Anyone who thinks that any war can be clean and tidy is deluding themselves.[quote]The correct question is: has anyone tried to sell a war as clean and tidy, and ridden that perception to drive a policy that would otherwise enjoy only marginal public support?[/quote]Certainly, this is what politicians typically do when it comes to wars. You don’t get anywhere by marketing them as brutal and savage slugfests which will result in the demolition of human rights.[/quote]If “anyone who thinks that…is deluding themselves”, what matter that “this is what politicians typically do when it comes to wars”? Politicians do so because drumming up support is politically necessary. I realize that this is a tautology, but also that you don’t get it: Anyone swayed by those arguments is swayed by those arguments, ergo, not deluding themselves. Media campaigns matter. Accurate and timely information to counter propaganda matters.

[quote=“Fortigurn”][quote]If a democratic society is to go to war (and they do so more frequently and thoroughly than others), it should do so for the correct reasons and with as much knowledge as possible.[/quote]I question that there are ‘correct reasons’ to go to war. Cicero did the West a grave disservice with that little conceit. War, as Von Clausewitz rightly said, is an act of violence by which we compel our adversary to submit to our will. That’s what it is. The reason for waging war is always the same, psychological and cultural imperialism. War as a means of conflict resolution is a contradiction in terms.[/quote]Nonsense. But I can’t be bothered.

From my favourite grand strategist:

[quote=“Thomas Barnett: Wikileaks: the transparency standard we inevitably face in the Long War”]In “Great Powers,” I praised Wikileaks for serving as a “wormhole between the two communities–the secret and the unclassified,” describing it as “the Radio Free Europe of the surveillance age.” To me, the organization characterizes an emerging standard of transparency in what many call the “long war,” and what I refer to as the integration of frontiers as part of globalization’s continuing expansion. It’s this emerging transparency standard, sometimes generated by well-meaning friends, other times by insurgents simply looking to brag or recruit others by displaying their deeds, that pushed me to argue, as one of my “grand compromises” between America and the world, that we will eventually pursue an openness WRT to our security efforts around the planet that will mimic what Americans expect from their own police departments–as in, every round accounted for, like the NYPD has done for the last couple of decades.

Why reach for such an amazingly high standard? Because the ballooning transparency of this networked world will simply demand it–from the bottom up. Wikileaks is part of that bottom-up demand, and no matter what you think of its motivations, its impact will be viral–and lasting.

This is the inevitable–and painful–evolution we face: the Leviathan can stay in the secret shadows, but the SysAdmin is held to a supremely more difficult standard–behavior so clean that it can assuage shareholders’ values, because if it can’t, there’s no hope of connecting investments by multinational corporations–aka job creation, and jobs are the only exit strategy.

As usual, such arguments are considered by some in the warrior class as complete nonsense–the fantastic attempt to civilize that which is inherently uncivil. But stepping back from the challenge is simply to admit that we cannot play in this arena, which in my estimation is damn near the whole enchilada going forward. Yes, we can pull back, stock up on our preferred platforms, and dream of getting it on with China over some distant lithium mine. But that would be holding on to the past instead of moving toward the future. China will simply disappoint.

So the US military either moves to that impossible standard over time, or it will forced out of the global policing business, only to see all manner of other entities fill that space sub-optimally. We can either lead or follow.

Because if done well, displaying sufficient progress over time, we will set a profound example that will revolutionize global security. [/quote]

7

You mean ‘What matter that politicians try to get people to believe in a lie’? I think that matters quite a lot.

Being persuaded by an argument is not in the least incompatible with self-delusion. On the contrary, it’s what confirmation bias is all about.

That was convincing. The fact is you and I both know that war is the prolonged perpetuation of what we recognize as immoral conduct, and is permitted as a triumph of the hindbrain over moral reasoning. Frenzied handwringing about murdered civilians by those who sent the soldiers who killed them, is morally bankrupt. Those who sent the soldiers in knew full well what would happen, and condoned it because those whose lives they were endangering were considered irrelevant to the material gains for which they have been sacrificed.

8

Fortigurn, I’m sorry. Really, I am. But you’re either deliberately misreading my statements, or chronically misunderstanding. I’m sure that somewhere, Wittgenstein is either laughing or rolling in his grave. But I can’t continuously correct you; it’s like conversing with Humpty Dumpty. Please, enjoy your scrambled interpretations and don’t mind if I don’t respond or my arguments don’t quite seem to add up on your ledgers.

9

[quote=“Fortigurn”]
That was convincing. The fact is you and I both know that war is the prolonged perpetuation of what we recognize as immoral conduct, and is permitted as a triumph of the hindbrain over moral reasoning. Frenzied handwringing about murdered civilians by those who sent the soldiers who killed them, is morally bankrupt. Those who sent the soldiers in knew full well what would happen, and condoned it because those whose lives they were endangering were considered irrelevant to the material gains for which they have been sacrificed.[/quote]
That’s a pretty simplified reading of things, to send soldiers to do killing is not the same as sending soldiers to do killing of non-combatants, even if you know some will be killed as a “side effect”; and it’s hardly morally bankrupt to be unhappy with how things have played out despite one’s best intentions - though some of the war leaders surely did know what would happen and decided they didn’t care (moreso in the W regime: and hand-wringing by those people is simply a charade, nothing to do with morality, more to do with publicity).

To make a blanket statement that war is a perpetuation of immoral conduct is just plain silly, I can see why Jaboney wouldn’t waste time arguing that one. You don’t actually believe that about all wars do you? Sure it can be immoral, but hardly always. And though I agree with you that we ought to be pulling out, it’s not as simple as 1-2-3, if the Obama administration really does it in 2011, that’d seem to be a pretty reasonable timeframe to me, though I’m not (nor are any of us) privy to the backdoor machinations.

I’m drinking a beer to Wikileaks when I get back, just outstanding work, however they pulled it off.

10

Not even in self defense? Or in self defense against Nazism?

11

It might be different if we sent politicians and priests to do the killing.

Less effective, but different.

War is always messy, and even callous, especially to those not numbed by the constant threat of ambush and, in part, the blanket behavioural modification that the modern war machine instills in its troops, but it is not possible to issue a blanket statement that they are all immoral.

And notice the civilian numbers killed by the Taliban? many thousands, and almost all by indiscriminate roadside bombs. If it weren’t true that (A) prolonging war on that front risks even greater radicalisation among the tribes of Afghanistan and Pakistan, (B) the Taliban hide very effectively in the populace that they coerce into accepting their presence and their system of ‘law’ and © most people in Afghanistan just want to get on with their lives and put food in the mouths of their many children, then I might urge an even greater use of force. But that won’t work, and the great loss of life that would result would be immoral. So we’re left with the drawdown situation and the eventual withdrawal of most military capacity from Afghanistan (and Pakistan border areas too), and a transfer of military options to the nascent Afghani military, an imperfect solution at best that will be touted by the Taliban as a victory. Though they are reasonably resilient and well enough resources, and certainly very determined as infantry, it would not at all be a military victory. It would however, fail to be a decisive condemnation of their hollow nihilistic chauvinist and mediaeval philosophy. They won’t listen to reason, they won’t listen to words, but killing them all is beyond the moral and political capacity of the West, and so they will continue to fester like the malignant metastasis they are.

12

I’m not misreading you, I’m simply disagreeing. The fact that you and I disagree shows we understand each other pretty well.

Sending soldiers to do killing is not the same as sending soldiers specifically to kill non-combatants, I agree. Sending soldiers to war, knowing full well that civilians will die as a result of you doing so, then having a big cry when the soldiers do exactly what they knew you they would do, is hypocritical. It’s not a matter of being unhappy with how things have played out despite one’s best intentions, it’s a matter of things working out the way you knew they would in the first place, and pretending this is some shocking thing you never expected, when you could have avoided it and deliberately chose not to.

This is interesting. You actually believe war can be moral. On what basis is it moral to kill people?

I don’t believe killing people is moral, even in self defense. Countries have survived wars without waging them, even when they were invaded. Goodwin already?

[quote=“urodacus”]It might be different if we sent politicians and priests to do the killing.

Less effective, but different.[/quote]

The Taliban were already doing that. We could have left them to it if piles of dead Afghanis is what we wanted.

Why not? Leaving aside the idea that Jefferson received the Declaration of the Rights of Man from the Supreme Deity on Mount Rushmore, what is your objective moral basis for saying so?

Yes, I noticed. And to that number we want to add thousands of other dead people? Peace through war? Didn’t horrific wars of the 20th century teach us anything? What moral justification can there be for perpetuating this cycle of violence?

The idea here seems to be that killing people is ok if you believe you are acting in the cause of moral justice and you believe your enemies’ philosophy is wrong. That seems to be the historic argument.

13

I’m not misreading you, I’m simply disagreeing. The fact that you and I disagree shows we understand each other pretty well.[/quote]I do not like them, Sam I Am. :loco:

14

You believe war is justifiable, I don’t. We both understand that. You told me previously that you think my idea is nonsense, but you can’t be bothered explaining why you think that. We both understand that. It’s that simple.

15

It’s interesting to read the backlash against wikileaks now:

  1. The US administration, or perhaps officials, have opined that the leak may be against federal law and put in harm’s way the soldiers still there. I haven’t looked at the materials, so I don’t know.

2.now there’s innuendo from a former wikileaks co-founder no less, that wikileaks was able to raise incredible amounts of money in a short period of time only made possible through donations from a “corrupt government source” as he puts it. Others have put it more bluntly - wikileaks has been given money by the CIA to be its mouthpiece to influence opinion about the war.

16

Your understanding. Not my argument.

Wikileaks claims to have held back 15,000 pages of text that may pose security risks. So far, it just seems to embarrass the administration.

Fred Kaplan’s not impressed:

[quote=“Slate”]Just because some documents are classified doesn’t mean that they’re news or even necessarily interesting. A case in point is the cache of 92,000 secret documents about the Afghanistan war that someone leaked to WikiLeaks, which passed them on to the New York Times, Britain’s Guardian, and Der Spiegel in Germany. All three published several of these documents—presumably the highlights—in today’s editions.

Some of the conclusions to be drawn from these files: Afghan civilians are sometimes killed. Many Afghan officials and police chiefs are corrupt and incompetent. Certain portions of Pakistan’s military and intelligence service have nefarious ties to the Taliban.

If any of this startles you, then welcome to the world of reading newspapers. Today’s must be the first one you’ve read.

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has likened these documents to the Pentagon Papers, the top-secret history of the Vietnam War that Daniel Ellsberg leaked in 1972. The comparison is preposterous.
[…]
Journalism, the old saw has it, is the first draft of history. The WikiLeaks documents amount to the first notes of a journalistic story, and incomplete notes at that. The war in Afghanistan may or may not be a tragedy, a failure, and a mistake. In any case, you’re more likely to learn that from reports and reporters, not from these random, raw files.[/quote]

17

a bit off-topic, but Wikileaks has some very kooky stuff on its site, like

  1. a Special Forces Manual on how to prop up a friendly government not popularly supported (basically using psyops and training paramilitaries a la Salvador, etc. which is ironic and cruel (tho realpolitik) that a nation founded on certain ideals can, outside its borders, use any and all means to destroy those ideals when in context of non-Americans.

  2. a Mormon woman’s manual on how to find and keep a catch of a Morman man.

18

So you’re frustrated with Fortigurn, that slow, confused, inattentive, and finally irredeemably rebellious pupil. He can’t be straightened out, he’s not susceptible of being cured of his wrong-thinking ways, he’s simply untrainable.

[quote=“Jaboney”]Wrong question.

The correct question is. . . .[/quote][quote]. . . you don’t get it. . . .[/quote][quote]Nonsense. But I can’t be bothered.[/quote][quote]. . . your scrambled interpretations. . . .[/quote][quote] :loco: [/quote][quote]Your understanding.[/quote] Kind of reminds me of my dad (now deceased), especially that last one, only he used to refer to “your thinking” in a sarcastic tone whenever I didn’t go along with something he’d said (both in my childhood and after I’d reached adulthood).

I love my dad in spite of that (in fact sometimes it seems in part almost because of it–I mean, it was part of his identity), but he was, you know, my dad.

From the little I’ve read about WikiLeaks, they don’t have a reputation of being Boy Scouts, but they certainly have revealed substantial information from time to time. As for the co-founder, unless he brings forth some solid proof, maybe they can claim he’s embittered or disgruntled or something (unless the information about CIA feeding the info to WikiLeaks is quite true and WikiLeaks or the CIA panics and 'fesses up).

But if the co-founder or anyone else can bring forth some decent proof of CIA involvement, it’s gonna make for some extremely interesting reading in the future. (Me, I’ve never trusted those guys, me.) Be interesting if WikiLeaks got WikiLeaked, and the CIA along with them. :laughing:

I read the Guardian piece, or part of it, in the Taipei Times, I guess this morning. What I find interesting (it’s not too surprising that there were unreported incidents resulting in the deaths of non-combatants) is the part about Pakistani intelligence–not their involvement with the Taliban (that’s been strongly suspected for a long time), but the extensive and detailed character of the U.S. Government’s knowledge of their involvement. I mean, they knew details about Pakistani intelligence shenanigans, and all we got were these vague hints.

19

There’s nothing wrong with not understanding. Might get frustrating over the long term, but it’s honest. And if you’re making an effort, it’s all good.

But actually, I don’t think that’s the case here. I suspect he’s deliberately misrepresenting arguments, but I would prefer to believe that he just doesn’t get it. Because if he does, then it’s disingenuous trolling; and trolls are jerks.

Likely nothing that can’t be sorted over brewskis, but the way things are rolling at the moment, I just can’t be bothered online. My bad. Mea culpa.

20

I suspect, like how the Iraq collateral murder video indirectly prompted the former Army Ranger who pulled the children victims out of the shot-up van to now share his story, these leaked ‘war logs’ will eventually add to the haunting of other soldiers to share and speak out against the war as well.

[quote=“WikiLeaks: Group vows to put more documents online”]“It is our experience that courage is contagious,” Assange said Monday, telling reporters at London’s Frontline Club that his greatest fear was “that we won’t be able to do justice to the material that we’re getting in.” … the torrent of leaked information being uploaded to his website is enormous, … What’s in the backlog? The 39-year-old former computer hacker refuses to say. … “We have files that concern every country in the world with a population of over 1 million,” he said. “Thousands of databases and files about all sorts of countries.”[/quote]If anyone hasn’t seen the ex-Ranger’s story: Innocence Lost: Ethan McCord recounts aftermath of Collateral Murder event (probably not suitable for work or children)

[quote=“Jaboney”]If a democratic society is to go to war… it should do so for the correct reasons and with as much knowledge as possible.[/quote]I agree war may not always be avoidable. I also agree justification needs to be amply understandable.

Most people I know find honor saluting the graves of our fallen relatives and thank them in our hearts when reminded of them for their sacrifice. We pass on as best we can to our children the understanding of what values our veteran relatives placed on service to our country. Normally the question “why?” deserves an answer, especially when driving away from a cemetery and a child in the backseat is asking.

This Afghanistan invasion/occupation justification relies on peculiarly vague justification, which has since portrayed more than questionable motives (prewar, evidence, aftermath).

SEC. 2. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES. (a)… That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons HE (bush2, now obama) DETERMINES planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons. (source)

Policy provided that no matter who “HE” determines guilty, regardless of evidence, is open game for military retribution. Taking even the simplified litmus test of an acceptable war: Democratic society? …questionable (Florida recount). Correct reasons? …questionable, especially since video confession evidence was found fake, ‘signed’ confessions torture induced without video. As much knowledge as possible? … most certainly questionable since Afghanistan’s two requests (prior to exodus) for evidence about OBL’s guilt were both ignored.

So Jaboney, are people correct in believing that the US (and subsequently all coalition armies) accurately determined Afghanistan was the appropriate target to avenge 9/11?