As someone who writes a lot about Afghanistan, I probably should have something to say about the 90000 pages of previously secret military documents let loose on the world today.
I can't get properly excited about them. If you were paying attention, you knew the Pakistani spooks were helping the bad guys, you knew NATO and US forces were killing more civilians than they admitted and naturally pissing off the Afghans, you knew that "Classified" often means simply embarrassing to a military, and you knew the Karzai "government" was a kleptocratic farce.
And you felt bad for the Afghans and the foreign troops who are getting maimed and dying in this mess.
But here's hoping the big leak adds to the growing skepticism of Congresspeople when they are asked to vote more money for the war this week.
Since Congress hasn't shown much wisdom in their votes all I can do is hope for the best, but expect the worst.
ReplyDeleteThere are certain lies that can't be told with quite such a straight face anymore in the mainstream media, which may be a good thing, but you're right to be a bit cynical. There's not a single atrocity in those papers that you haven't written about repeatedly here for years.
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