I thought that DeNiro always said: "You lookin' at me?" :-)

he did, he also said "He knew the risks, he didn't have to be there. It rains...you get wet."

After having poured billions of dollars in aid, US deserves to be treated with such contempt by Pakistani establishment (Pakistani Army, ISI and Government) since US has intentionally ignored Pakistani complicity in Afghan insurgency until now.

Files leaked by Wikileaks more or less confirms ‘The sun in the sky’ report published by Harvard Professor Matt Waldman from London School of Economics on 6/13/2010.

That report states that “support for the Afghan Taliban is ‘official Pakistani ISI policy’ and is backed at the highest levels of Pakistan’s civilian administration. Pakistan appears to be playing a double game of astonishing magnitude. There is thus a strong case that the ISI orchestrates, sustains and shapes the overall insurgent campaign in Afghanistan.”

According to Afghan Taliban commanders’ interviews with Matt Waldman, the Pakistani ISI orchestrates, sustains and strongly influences the Taliban insurgency movement. The Afghan Taliban commanders also say that ISI gives sanctuary to both Taliban and Haqqani groups, and provides huge support in terms of training, funding, munitions, and supplies. In the words of these Afghan Taliban commanders, this is ‘as clear as the sun in the sky’.

The ISI is said to compensate families of suicide bombers to the tune of 200,000 Pakistani rupees, claims the report. Thus US AID TO BANKRUPT PAKISTAN FINANCES THE DEATH OF US/NATO SOLDIERS in Afghanistan. So in a way, US is financing the death of its OWN troops in Afghanistan.

Pakistani government issued its usual denials just as it had denied umpteen times the existence of Mullah Mohammed Omar’s ‘Quetta Shura Taliban (QST)’ in the provincial capital Quetta of Baluchistan. But General Stanley McChrystal called QST as the biggest threat to US Afghan mission in his report to President Obama in August, 2009.

The most breath-taking part of this sordid saga is that US is NOT holding Pakistan responsible for sheltering, protecting and supporting Haqqani’s HQN network and Mullah Omar’s QST network all these years while those networks have been causing daily deaths of US/NATO soldiers ever since 2002 even though Pakistan was SUPPOSED to have joined US fight against same Taliban back in 2001!

Can American CIA not know what Matt Waldman knows? How come Obama administration is continuing Bush’s mollycoddling of Pakistan with such incriminating evidence against Pakistan’s double game? How can US mission in Afghanistan succeed if Obama administration continues to ignore such Pakistani duplicity like Bush had done it before Obama?

Mr. Ricks,

Your dismissal of the recent Wikileaks leak suggests either remarkable intellectual laziness on your part, an increasingly common fear of independent media amongst mainstream media reporters, or both.

Rather than pointing out the obvious, deep flaws in the two dismissive posts to which you linked, I'll ask you (and other readers) to read the thoughtful posts below, both of which reflect a far more serious analysis of the value of the leak. The first is from the New Yorker, and the second from NYU professor Jay Rosen.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2010/07/wikileaks-and-the-war.html

http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2010/07/26/wikileaks_afghan.html

A huge leak of U.S. reports and this is all they get? I know of more stuff leaked at one good dinner on background.

I agree. The comparison to the Pentagon Papers is laughable (and typical of Julian Assange).

I mean, really, this is supposed to be earth-shaking? What would have been like the Pentagon Papers would have been some certainty on something. Like a report describing that US troops had captured 3 ISI operatives and interrogated them. Or a list showing who was embezzling money in the Afghan government, including estimated amounts and names.

"Here’s what I said on Twitter Sunday: “We tend to think: big revelations mean big reactions. But if the story is too big and crashes too many illusions, the exact opposite occurs.” My fear is that this will happen with the Afghanistan logs. Reaction will be unbearably lighter than we have a right to expect— not because the story isn’t sensational or troubling enough, but because it’s too troubling, a mess we cannot fix and therefore prefer to forget."

Thanks for the link Whipsaw3

But the rest of us are not privy to those off the record conversations and learn about them only through off handed blog comments.
Wiki leaks bring the original material to us and we can sort through it as we wish, without a patronising filter telling us what to think
While intelligent analysis is good having access to original material lets us have the opportunity to verify the truth we get in the analysis.

My first reaction to the papers is "God they classify a lot of needless crap"

Jack

Don't draw any conclusions from raw intelligence documents unless you know a lot more about their context and where they came from. people might be less inclined to get excited about stuff like this if there was more genuine reporting from Afghanistan and less slavish copying of DOD press releases.

From a public knowledge standpoint, these documents may not reveal much. But from a public policy standpoint, they have the potential to be huge for two reasons:

1) It could change the way the public views Afghanistan. The anti-war group has not been good at making its case since at least 2001. Some (most?) of their fears may have turned out to be true, but they weren’t as capable at marshaling available information to advance their case as the pro-war crowd. Specifically, they focused more on their own particular moral reasoning (ie. force is bad) than any measured strategic or factual analysis. That just couldn’t compete with the right’s equally emotional appeals in the wake of 9/11.

I think we’ll look back to the lead up to the Iraq war and see that one of the great failings of modern progressivism is that they chose moral outrage over informed criticism of intelligence that simply wouldn’t have held up under closer scrutiny. These documents can change that by giving the anti-war crowd specific incidents over a long period of time to make their case that the war is failing.

2) It could change the way we view secret information. Of course most of the stuff is mundane; most secret information is mundane. But that only begs the question: Why, then, is it classified secret?

We should be outraged that some of the stuff wasn’t public. I get that sources, performance of enemy and friendly weapon systems, knowledge of enemy activity and the like should be classified secret. But we need someway to review the glut of information considered secret and put non-sensitive information back into the public domain where it belongs.

This is particularly true when our forces engage an enemy. Units fighting without the public’s knowledge may make a good Hollywood movie. But there is absolutely no good reason pragmatically or ethically that our forces should conduct missions without informing the public afterward — partly because enemy units already know they’ve been attacked, but mostly because the American public, through Congress, has the ultimate say over the use of force. Embarrassment over the results just isn’t a good enough reason in a democracy.

We need some law or, at the very least, an executive order requiring the military to release basic details after any use of force incident. Those details would include location, date and friendly, civilian and enemy KIA. The format could be extremely basic, like that used to announce U.S. KIAs, and the reports could be kept in a centralized database.

But they’d apply to uniformed combatants across the globe. Advisors in Indonesia get into a firefight? Publish a report. Counter-narcotics agents in Mexico engage drug cartels? Publish a report. Coast Guard boarding parties off the Horn of Africa sink a pirate skiff? Publish a report.

To do otherwise is to give our enemies more rights to American information than the American public itself has.

The real story here is how weak the U.S. classification system has become, and how members of that system can quickly turn over 90,000 documents to the press without a blink of an eye.

Lets remember that turning over information that is deemed classified is a crime, which is why the army's Bradley Manning is charged by the government as we speak. The information that was released yesterday may have been valuable and a confirmation of what many in the United States already believed about the war (ISI support for insurgents, killing of Afghan civilians, special forces raids, etc) doesn't make it right.

Which begs another question. Should the U.S. Military/intelligence/security establishment revamp what documents are considered classified? For instance, if the information is of no use to current military operations, then why keep in classified? You have to figure that this information is going to get out, someway, somehow, so why control it while you can?

Reviewing the whole system would not only improve the image of U.S. intelligence, but would also prevent something like this from happening again.

http://www.depetris.wordpress.com

"You got nothing on me" is from Scarface, after the Feds arrest him for money laundering.

I have read none of the documents, and I suspect that Mr. Ricks has read none, and those who have already written summaries have read but a few. However, Mr. Ricks feels the urge to demean any non-corporate news source. A bigger story is where it all came from. Did a 21-year old E-4 leak all that?

According to USAF Col. Fletcher Prouty, a former Pentagon liaison to the CIA, the "Pentagon Papers" were selected documents chosen or written by the CIA to be leaked, which is why CIA agent Daniel Ellsberg was never jailed. The intent was to shift blame for the fouled up war from the CIA to the Pentagon. It was also to embarrass and upset Nixon, who was trying to pull out of the war and end "the fun and games". All this from Prouty's famous old book "The Secret Team".

To be expected, I guess, as government is just a collection of individuals. But still, what is it?

1.) Nothing to see here folks, as Mr. Gibbs snickers, we already knew this.

2.) OMG! Shocking leaks, war on terror imperiled, we are all going to die!

Based on summaries presented already, I believe one is factually correct, while 2 will be used by enemies of transparency, including President Obama, to clamp down further. Hope and Change= Hidden and Clandestine.

Seriously, there used to be much more informed commentary on this blog. Come on out guys, and explain this stuff better than I'm about to pathetically try.

Mr Ricks is correct in that there isn't anything new...to anyone who's been paying attention or doing their homework. It doesn't take off the record conversations with pentagon insiders to have known this stuff. If, like much of America, you've been at the mall past 9 years, these are revelations. The ISI is working against us? Taliban have access to MANPADs? We engage in kill/captrue missions? This is new information?

If he's dismissive of the content, I couldn't agree more. However, if he's ignoring impact of this on our civilian populace (and our NATO partners).then he's doing so without thinking. No one can tell how this is going to affect the majority of Americans and how they view the war. If, like I believe, they have been blissfully unaware of the reality on the ground in Afghanistan, then this could have a huge impact. Imagine how the German public will react to discovering that we conduct offensive ops out of their bases without the knowledge of the Bundeswehr. That could be massive. In that respect, this could be the Pentagon Papers. If the American people see all this to be evidence of failure (or conspiracy) this could be a real game changer. It doesn't matter if it's bunk. What matters is the how the people view it.

As far as declassifying more, I have to ask, why? Just because most of the FRAGOs and SIGACTS aren't revealing on their own or mean nothing to you, doesn't mean they can't be used against the military. Seriously, declassifying KLE reports without redacting names? You're asking to get the people who cooperate with us killed. And then there's the building the larger intelligence picture angle. I'm sure Taliban commanders would love to know where we're running our capture/kill missions from (and avoid them).

There's really not a conspiracy to cover up the content. How are you going to have a cover-up for content that's available to everyone already? They are all going to be read by reputable sources, and if there's a smoking gun I'll be the first to say "What the F!?" But so far, it seems to be mostly routine traffic. Its not a victory for transparency because, so far, it doesn't offer anything new or damning. In fact, this actually hurts whistle blowers because this will increase security protocols, and bore the public with 90000 freaking pages of data dump. Think anyone will care about dumps of secret documents again if they actually take the time to read this? And if there was ANYTHING new or of value, do you really think a site that's as self-promotional and partisan as wiki leaks would have buried it in thousands of pages of mind numbing garbage?

Again, how the American public will react to this (and how the media/politicians try to co-op it) is anyone's guess. But that's where this will matter.

I read some of the reports. I don't think you have to read all 92,201 to get a grip on what's there.

First reaction I had stemmed from my "Army side". Everything reads like another day at the office. Lots of explosions and people shooting at each other. Okay, sounds like combat, so we must be in Afghanistan. Not exactly earth-shattering stuff. Oh no! There's a "task force" out there running around shooting guys on a "black list"? Mercy me, who would ever have guessed we'd do such a thing? Next thing you know, we'll see reports that indicate we're flying drones out of Pakistan. Oh, the humanity of it all! Puh-leeze. Hey, I just got the new season of 'True Blood' in a care package, guess what we're doing after my TOC shift is over!

Second reaction was as a concerned citizen. Again, I'm not learning anything new in these reports. What this tells me is that the media has done a pretty good job at keeping me informed. My comment was "okay, who DIDN'T know the ISI was giving support to the taliban?" Of course, now that I see the comments on here, I'm not sure I want to know the answer to that question, because it sounds like it's "lots of people." Shame on all of you who ask where Ricks was. We know where you've been-- under a rock.

Third reaction was big-picture. Gee, look at how Wikileaks categorized this stuff. Over 8,000 reports of IEDs. 16,000 firefights. 48 assassinations. And this is just the stuff that got leaked. Why am I not sitting here screaming "holy crap!" Well, probably because the media has done a good job on keeping me informed on a daily basis. I'm kind of numb to this now. We all are. I'm not sure this is a good thing. The numbers should mean more to us.

Westmoreland said after Vietnam that he was aware of the potency of public opinion and that it terrified him. Governments should be afraid of their people, freedom of press and to bear arms and all that jazz. With Wikileaks, the public now has a kind of access to information like never before. It's the raw stuff. There's no filter of journalists and reporters between us and the news. Initially, you get the warm fuzzy that the public has more power than ever before. But as an intel guy, I'm immediately suspect of the benefit of this. Every intel guy worth his salt knows that data is meaningless without context. 92,201 reports tell you NOTHING. In fact, I'd say that the more information you have, the less you actually know. "Don't confuse me with facts", a commander once told me. I think that's why public reaction has been so muted. When faced with a ream of info that large, no one bothers to read it. The public actually becomes LESS interested. Westmoreland lamented that Vietnam was fought without censorship of the media. Perhaps instead of trying to shut off valve feeding info to the public, he should have given them the fire hose.

Regardless, it looks like we're stuck with this type of situation. Will this free society up to make huge leaps forward, or will it cause us to seize up with greater distrust and discord? Time will tell.

Certainly, that's got to be dealt with. "Disloyal SOB" absolutely applies to the people involved. I don't remember if it was Benedict Arnold or someone who flipped to the Soviets, but the story goes that the guy asked the enemy he'd helped for some kind of position in their Army. "What are you, stupid?" The enemy general responded. "I don't care if you helped me or not, I'd never let a traitor in my ranks."

"Ephialtes, may you live forever." I'm not sure if that was actually said, either-- but it should have.

You've heard about double-edged swords. Loyalty is a triple-edged butterfly knife hanging off the end of a pair of nunchuks. That's what makes the plight of the whistle-blower so treacherous. You can do the right thing the wrong way and still come out the goat. Hell, you can do the right thing the right way and your reward will be a silver platter for your head. Don't hold it up to look at the inscription, there's a bull's eye painted on the bottom.

Deep throat. Dreyfus. Iran-Contra. Name a time where the good deed went unpunished-- or that it did more good than harm. There are reasons why we're not sure how we feel about the Bradley Manning's of the world.

"Loyalty is demanded in all ways from military officers. He must be loyal to his men, his brother officers, his organization, his commander, the Army, and to the nation he has sworn to protect." -- 20th edition of the Army Officer's Guide

"An officer's commanding loyalty at all times is to his country and not to his service or his superior." -- SLA Marshall

"You're damned if you do, damned if you don't." -- Private Murphy

"Now we're all sons of bitches." -- Kenneth Bainbridge

I invoke Bainbridge because the Wikileaks and Manhattan projects accomplish the same thing-- dropping really big bombs and leaving everyone else to sort through the wreckage.

So shut up about how the data is worthless, please.

"The material shows that cover-ups start on the ground. When reporting their own activities US Units are inclined to classify civilian kills as insurgent kills, downplay the number of people killed or otherwise make excuses for themselves. The reports, when made about other US Military units are more likely to be truthful, but still down play criticism. Conversely, when reporting on the actions of non-US ISAF forces the reports tend to be frank or critical and when reporting on the Taliban or other rebel groups, bad behavior is described in comprehensive detail. The behavior of the Afghan Army and Afghan authorities are also frequently described.

...This archive shows the vast range of small tragedies that are almost never reported by the press but which account for the overwhelming majority of deaths and injuries."