It had been reported for months that the folks behind Wikileaks were in possession of a large number of documents relating to the Afghan war, and this past week they posted a large portion of them. I haven’t been able to review the documents as of yet, but I have heard some reporting on the content, and it sounds as if it confirms some suspicions once thought of as borderline treasonable when given voice by anti-war activists and the like. (Note to activists: don’t wait to be thanked.)
Thus far the most consistent criticism of the release of these documents has been the familiar claim that they reveal “sources and methods” – that Afghans who cooperate with the U.S. are named and that they 
will pay a heavy price. Admiral Mullens went so far as to say that Wikileaks may already have blood on their hands. Mullens and his colleagues would know something about that, of course, as the documents apparently demonstrate. I suspect, in cases such as these, that most if not all of what is secret is merely a secret from us (i.e. the American people); that military operations of the kind deployed in Afghanistan are very porous in the sense of who is working for whom. Sure, it would be better not to put people needlessly in harm’s way. But that’s what the Afghan war is all about, from what I can see.
The protestations about this are similar to the grilling those Arlington National Cemetery officials received from Senators this past week. Yes, they fucked up big time and lost track of remains. Very frustrating for the families, no doubt. But the outrage in these hearings is coming from the very body that keeps reauthorizing this endless war. For chrissake, these Senators are helping to produce the remains, and they are angry with people who merely misplaced them? If they had done what was right from the beginning instead of what they considered politically expedient, these Arlington managers might not have been overwhelmed with remains from two bloody wars – more military dead than they have seen, I’m sure, since the early 1970s.
Like Iraq, the Afghan war is a very mean conflict. People are dying there every day, including yet another 3 American servicemembers just yesterday, making this the deadliest month of the war for the U.S. If Gates, Mullen, and Obama are determined to avoid needless deaths, they might want to think seriously about ending this fiasco sooner rather than later.
luv u,
jp
