[Newsbot]

Filibuster Cartoons
Title: Lackluster Leaks (click to view)
Date: July 27, 2010
Over 92,000 pages of classified US documents relating to the Afghanistan war were anonymously leaked onto the internet this weekend, via the infamous leaker website Wikileaks.org.

The leaked papers highlight all sorts of nasty facts about the war, including the military's routine cover-ups of civilian deaths, the massive corruption of the Afghan government, ongoing Pakistani aid to the Taliban, and the overall general failure of the allied forces to make much progress in an almost nine-year counter-insurgency battle.

A lot of analogies to the famous 1971 "Pentagon Papers" have been made in the immediate aftermath of the Wikileaks story. Those similarly depressing leaked documents, we remember, were credited with helping turn the tide of public opinion solidly against the war in Vietnam, and America's eventual pullout from Southeast Asia. The grim facts and analyses contained within marked the death of any lingering strain of pro-war optimism.

We live in much more cynical times today, however. Whether or not anyone will be that troubled by new facts about just how poorly the Afghan war is going remains to be seen, considering how much growing anti-war frustration and malaise we've already been experiencing for several years. Even the war's few remaining vocal supporters, including President Obama, seem fairly resigned to a fairly low standard of what "victory" should entail.

Can public opinion really get much more disillusioned than it already is, in other words.

What do you think?

Comment on Facebook.

[Calbeck]

I think a lot of people have the wrong idea of how victory is achieved in counterinsurgency matters.

Americans have a Jacksonian view of war, whereby we aim to finish the war as quickly and efficiently as possible so we can get back to enjoying the peace we had beforehand. Insurgencies, however, play against this ideal by simply hanging on and continuing to mount attacks. As long as they can do so, even intermittently, the war cannot be declared "over", and Americans get progressively more frustrated with it.

Compare this to, say, the English occupation of Wales. Rebellions were frequent, and the English rarely controlled the countryside. Yet, eventually, they "won".

How? By forming what amounted to a better insurgency against the Welsh resisters. They created large fortified castles and generally only sallied against the Welsh when they had overwhelming forces available. Pockets of resistance were annihalated, slowly burning out the insurgency, which itself could make no headway against the fortified castles.

Successive generations of Welsh children eventually got sick of listening to their parents and grandparents tell them their only mission in life was to kill English, and so resistance eventually petered away.

In the modern day, stoic perseverance coupled with a dedicated "Hearts and Minds" campaign is the only real route to victory --- as we saw with the turning of the Sunni "Awakening Committees" against the insurgency in Iraq. Even in Vietnam it was known to have been working, until the decision was made to switch to a tactically-sound but politically-ruinous attrition strategy.

[Psudo]

Calbeck, have you read Triumph Forsaken by Mark Moyar?

[Zipperfish]

From a non-partisan perspective it's interesting to see the parallels bewteen this release of Afghanistan War dsocumetns and the release of the so-called "Climategate" emials.

During the release of the "Climategate" emails, the left focussed on condemning the theft of the emails, while insisting that there wasn't that much damage anyway, and besides, most of the quotes were taken out of context. The right maintained that Climategate was the silver bullet that would kill the AGW fraud once and for all.

And now we see the same tack used by the right in the release of the Afghanistan War documents: find out who leaked the docuemnts and lock them up along wiht the radical who runs Wikileak. The left ignores the illegitimate nature of the documents and wants to focus on content.

JJ: Great job as usual!

[BartSimpson]

Calbeck wrote:

Successive generations of Welsh children eventually got sick of listening to their parents and grandparents tell them their only mission in life was to kill English, and so resistance eventually petered away.

Which is why Wales is now semi-autonomous with its own parliament and the potential for independence is becoming more and more real...just as in Scotland.

Oh, wait.

[Calbeck]

Psudo wrote:

Calbeck, have you read Triumph Forsaken by Mark Moyar?

Nope.

Zipperfish wrote:

And now we see the same tack used by the right in the release of the Afghanistan War documents: find out who leaked the docuemnts and lock them up along wiht the radical who runs Wikileak. The left ignores the illegitimate nature of the documents and wants to focus on content.

Um, the "Afghan docs not surprising" bit also came from the White House...not a part of the right wing. So that parallel doesn't really work. And while there certainly were accusations of criminal wrongdoing regarding the "Climategate" emails, there was little actual legal basis to back that up.

In contrast, the Wikileaks Afghan papers revealed the names of hundreds of Afghan informants working with the US against the insurgents. No one died over "Climategate", but "Wikigate" might end up killing a lot of folks.

[Zipperfish]

Calbeck wrote:

Um, the "Afghan docs not surprising" bit also came from the White House...not a part of the right wing. So that parallel doesn't really work. And while there certainly were accusations of criminal wrongdoing regarding the "Climategate" emails, there was little actual legal basis to back that up.

In contrast, the Wikileaks Afghan papers revealed the names of hundreds of Afghan informants working with the US against the insurgents. No one died over "Climategate", but "Wikigate" might end up killing a lot of folks.

Just a general observation from this thread and various blogs. Look at the various right-wing types here crying "treason" for example. Compared to those leaning left, focused on the information in the released documents. You reinforce the point, as a right-leaning poster, by choosing to dwell on the theft as opposed to the content.

Obama is executing two overseas wars now, an it's American information that's been lifted, so he's hardly representative of your average anti-war lefty.

Wikileaks may be somewhat culpable in some deaths. Who knows? I'm sure the folks involved would claim some greater good. Just like those prosecuting the war are somewhat culpable in civilian deaths. I'm sure they would claim some greater good. Sticky moral calculus.

[Proculation]

Zipperfish wrote:

From a non-partisan perspective it's interesting to see the parallels bewteen this release of Afghanistan War dsocumetns and the release of the so-called "Climategate" emials.

During the release of the "Climategate" emails, the left focussed on condemning the theft of the emails, while insisting that there wasn't that much damage anyway, and besides, most of the quotes were taken out of context. The right maintained that Climategate was the silver bullet that would kill the AGW fraud once and for all.

And now we see the same tack used by the right in the release of the Afghanistan War documents: find out who leaked the docuemnts and lock them up along wiht the radical who runs Wikileak. The left ignores the illegitimate nature of the documents and wants to focus on content.

JJ: Great job as usual!

Even as a "right-leaning" person, I think you are 99% right ! That proves hypocrisy and ideology are on the two sides of the spectrum.

I try to be the less ideological in my comments and my vision of a situation. I'm not perfect but I think that sticking to an political ideology just because it's yours is not good for a debate/discussion.

That's why I left active politics.

[Calbeck]

Zipperfish wrote:

Look at the various right-wing types here crying "treason" for example.

Setting aside for the moment the fact that you're the first person I've seen use that phrase in relation to this issue (I'm sure someone else has, I just haven't seen it), I'd have to ask the obvious: does releasing the names of hundreds of pro-US informants in a war zone amount to "providing aid and comfort to an enemy"? That being, of course, one of the standard definitions in the US of "treason".

Quote:

You reinforce the point, as a right-leaning poster, by choosing to dwell on the theft as opposed to the content.

As a centrist, I consider both and avoid neither.

Quote:

Obama is executing two overseas wars now, an it's American information that's been lifted, so he's hardly representative of your average anti-war lefty.

I'm not sure the left is anti-war anymore, on average. Nor were they particularly so beforehand; to my experience, many in the anti-war movement had wanted Bush out of office almost from the day he was elected and needed no excuse to come out and protest any given one of his policies. Many simply piled on a variety of largely-unrelated grievances, as it was, in an effort to be noticed by the media covering the anti-war issue.

Naturally, the proof of the pudding is that anti-war sentiment has almost wholly censored itself now that Bush is gone. The same wars are ongoing, on the same schedules and under almost identical policies, but now it's a Democrat on the hotseat.

So at this point it's not really about the war itself, and maybe it never really was.

Quote:

Wikileaks may be somewhat culpable in some deaths. Who knows? I'm sure the folks involved would claim some greater good. Just like those prosecuting the war are somewhat culpable in civilian deaths. I'm sure they would claim some greater good. Sticky moral calculus.

Not at all; collateral-damage deaths are a key component in current anti-war philosophy. An anti-war activist who insists that "collateral deaths" are okay, when his or her own aims are being accomplished, is merely being hypocritical.

There is also the rather obvious fact that Hussein racked up over one million Iraqi deaths via purges, gassings, political executions, funneling Food-for-Oil funds into rebuilding his armies instead, and so forth, for an average of 40,000 dead per each of his 25 years in power. Had he remained in power and maintained that average, that's March 2003 - July 2010 --- over 280,000 more dead.

According to anti-war organizations such as IraqBodyCount.org, a maximum estimate of 106,000 Iraqis have been confirmed as killed by violence of all types since the Coalition invasion. The overwhelming majority of these have been killed by deliberate insurgent attacks on civilian targets. Coalition intervention, therefore, has saved some 175,000 Iraqi lives to date.

Yes, I would say that were a "greater good". How, in contrast, would the greater good be served by leaking military documents which include hundreds of names of informants?

[Psudo]

I think a distinction needs to be made between armchair commentators debating casually and the political class who actually run things, whether those things be the government or the press or whatnot. Zipperfish's comparison of Climategate and the Wikileaks leak fits very well among the armchair commentators (like all of us), but the people with political jobs are biased by the jobs they have to do more than by ideology. The Obama Administration is upset about the leaks because it's their job to run the war being criticized and to preserve confidentiality of such documents. Their duty strips them of a little of their ideology.

Without any practical obligations to bias us, we armchair commentators are free to consider things in the abstract and embrace our partisanship in a more pure, idealized way. We're allowed to be a little stupider than people who actually do things are. I appreciate Zipperfish's demonstration that we don't have to be.

Calbeck wrote:

Psudo wrote:

Calbeck, have you read Triumph Forsaken by Mark Moyar?

Nope.

It sounds right up your alley.

[Quantum_Wizard]

Calbeck wrote:

And while there certainly were accusations of criminal wrongdoing regarding the "Climategate" emails, there was little actual legal basis to back that up.

I just want to comment that gaining illegitimate entry to a server by hacking is generally a crime, though not as serious as one leading deaths, of course.

Sorry for an off-topic post.

[Calbeck]

Quantum_Wizard wrote:

Calbeck wrote:

And while there certainly were accusations of criminal wrongdoing regarding the "Climategate" emails, there was little actual legal basis to back that up.

I just want to comment that gaining illegitimate entry to a server by hacking is generally a crime, though not as serious as one leading deaths, of course.

Sorry for an off-topic post.

Not at all. However, it should be noted that the hacking of data from the East Anglia system was merely alleged; the data could just as readily have been leaked by someone with legitimate access. It was also found that the CRU did not adhere to Freedom of Information requests, and may have specifically deleted emails in order to avoid having to turn them over. So it seems both sides were behaving badly, but neither is known to have actually broken any laws.

[mentalfloss]

The one true parallel between this and climategate is that it is a good thing that the information was leaked. On the climategate scandal, you had some great revelations between skeptics and AGW promoters. On this end we will have some great deliberations about refining war protocol and whether it was worth being in Afghanistan in the first place.

[Proculation]

mentalfloss wrote:

The one true parallel between this and climategate is that it is a good thing that the information was leaked. On the climategate scandal, you had some great revelations between skeptics and AGW promoters. On this end we will have some great deliberations about refining war protocol and whether it was worth being in Afghanistan in the first place.

Actually, we have not learn much new things. I think the purpose was more to bring back the reality of the Afghan war in the media.

[Zipperfish]

Calbeck wrote:

Setting aside for the moment the fact that you're the first person I've seen use that phrase in relation to this issue (I'm sure someone else has, I just haven't seen it), I'd have to ask the obvious: does releasing the names of hundreds of pro-US informants in a war zone amount to "providing aid and comfort to an enemy"? That being, of course, one of the standard definitions in the US of "treason".

As a centrist, I consider both and avoid neither.

The term treason has been used often on this site in reference to the leak. I don't disagree that it may well be treason. It was certainly theft. But, again, the fact that you focus on the criminal element here reinforces my theory: the right (in this instance) focusses on the criminal element, the left on the content.

With Climategate, the left focussed on the criminal element and the right focussed on the damage done by the content.

It's not a slag on the right; it's just an observation of human nature--the rationalizations we naturally take to belittle or aggrandize a given event.

A similar example is if an underling gets caught dooing something nasty--take Abu Ghraib for example. The reaction of the right was to contain the crisis as low down the food chain as possible, whereas the left sought to spread the rot to the upper levels of the administration.

While you may be a centrist by American standards, that would put you solidly right of centre in Canada!

Quote:

I'm not sure the left is anti-war anymore, on average. Nor were they particularly so beforehand; to my experience, many in the anti-war movement had wanted Bush out of office almost from the day he was elected and needed no excuse to come out and protest any given one of his policies. Many simply piled on a variety of largely-unrelated grievances, as it was, in an effort to be noticed by the media covering the anti-war issue.

Naturally, the proof of the pudding is that anti-war sentiment has almost wholly censored itself now that Bush is gone. The same wars are ongoing, on the same schedules and under almost identical policies, but now it's a Democrat on the hotseat.

So at this point it's not really about the war itself, and maybe it never really was.

Point taken. I'm left and I'm not really anti-war in principle.

Quote:

Not at all; collateral-damage deaths are a key component in current anti-war philosophy. An anti-war activist who insists that "collateral deaths" are okay, when his or her own aims are being accomplished, is merely being hypocritical.

There is also the rather obvious fact that Hussein racked up over one million Iraqi deaths via purges, gassings, political executions, funneling Food-for-Oil funds into rebuilding his armies instead, and so forth, for an average of 40,000 dead per each of his 25 years in power. Had he remained in power and maintained that average, that's March 2003 - July 2010 --- over 280,000 more dead.

Well the US may get pretty close to a million yet. They are already at 600,000, according to a peer-reviewed study by the Lancet, and recent news reports are that the infant mortality, cancer and leukemia in Fajullah are worse than in Hiroshima after WWII.

But that's an aside. Again, you reinforce my point by pointing to the "greater good" (collateral damage OK because Saddam was nasty).

Quote:

According to anti-war organizations such as IraqBodyCount.org, a maximum estimate of 106,000 Iraqis have been confirmed as killed by violence of all types since the Coalition invasion. The overwhelming majority of these have been killed by deliberate insurgent attacks on civilian targets. Coalition intervention, therefore, has saved some 175,000 Iraqi lives to date.

Iraq Body Count, an American orgainzation, based its estimate on newspaper clippings. It was not a scientifically valid, notr a peer-reviewed estimate.

Quote:

Yes, I would say that were a "greater good". How, in contrast, would the greater good be served by leaking military documents which include hundreds of names of informants?

It should be noted that the expressed purpose of leaking the documents was not to name Afghan informants. It bears pointing out that a similar leak, alleged to be from the same source, showed a video of American soldiers gunning down a crowd of civilians, including at least one journalist, while laughing.

The greater good would be served by perhaps showing that the war is going badly, thus bringing political weight to bear against those prosecuting the war and causing them to withdraw, resulting in less war thus less death. Or perhaps the greater good is that more truth, in the form of access to secret documents, is available to the people in order for them to make an informed decision. I could go on. Nothing is easier than coming up with "greater good" examples to justify questionable actions.

Probably hindsight will offer a better perspective to judge.