World-News

CounterPunch
by Alexander Cockburn

08/01/10

The hope of the brave soldier who sent 92,000 secret U.S. documents to Wikileaks was that their disclosure would prompt public revulsion and increasing political pressure on Obama to seek with all speed a diplomatic conclusion to this war. … Wikileaks’ founder, Julian Assange, skillfully arranged simultaneous publication of the secret material in the New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel. The story broke on the eve of a war-funding vote in the U.S. Congress. Thirty-six hours after the stories hit the news stands, the U.S. House of Representatives last Tuesday evening voted Aye to a bill already passed by the Senate that funds a $33 billion, 30,000-troop escalation in Afghanistan. The vote was 308 to 114. To be sure, more US Reps voted against escalation than a year ago when the Noes totted up to only 35. That’s a crumb of comfort, but the cruel truth is that in 24 hours the White House and Pentagon, with the help of licensed members of the Commentariat and papers like the Washington Post, had finessed the salvoes from Wikileaks...

http://counterpunch.org/cockburn07302010.html



A brief refresher on the Taliban’s worst-kept secret

Mother Jones
by James Ridgeway

07/30/10

The ‘most damning collection of data’ in Wikileaks’ massive trove of secret documents from Afghanistan are 180 files that show the Pakistani intelligence service helping Taliban insurgents in their fight against US forces. The documents are dark reading indeed: They describe Pakistani agents meeting directly with the Taliban, supporting commanders of the insurgency, and even training suicide bombers. But for anyone versed in the contemporary history of Afghanistan, they are hardly news. The Wikileaks data dump is just the tip of the iceberg; ISI black ops and double-crosses date back at least three decades. Pakistan’s Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, is merely feeding a monster it helped create back in the 1990s — with the full knowledge of the United States. Indeed, in concert with the CIA, the Pakistani spy agency also helped create Al Qaeda, and continued to support it long after it had gone astray of US interests...

http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/07/wikileaks-taliban-afghanistan



Bonfire of the neocons

The American Spectator
by Jed Babbin

Part 1
08/02/10

By the end of August, over 100,000 U.S. troops will be engaged in the counterinsurgency campaign and in less than a year the final curtain will begin to fall on the greatest wartime mistake America has made since Lyndon Johnson put Robert McNamara in charge of the Vietnam War: the strategy of nation-building...

http://spectator.org/archives/2010/08/02/bonfire-of-the-neocons



Bonfire of the neocons

The American Spectator
by Jed Babbin

Part 2
08/03/10

Call it nation-building, call it counterinsurgency, the neocon way of war is based on the antihistorical idea that the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq are capable of resolution within those nations’ borders. It willfully ignores the conclusive influence that the intervention of foreign terror-sponsoring nations has. Many of us who supported military action in Afghanistan and Iraq weren’t neocons then, and by condemning nation-building now aren’t turning coat...

http://tinyurl.com/39bnevf


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

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Wikileaks posts 'insurance' against reprisal from 'authoritarian power'
http://www.ufppc.org/us-a-world-news-mainmenu-35/9854/

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Afghanistan: It's Even Worse Than You Thought

By Haroon Siddiqui

The buckets-full of leaked documents on the war in Afghanistan have elicited three responses, all misguided.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26061.htm



270 civilians killed in July in Afghanistan

Two hundred and seventy civilians were killed in different security incidents in July across the country which shows a 29 percent increase in comparison with the previous month,' Xinhua quoted a spokesman for the interior ministry as saying.

http://story.irishsun.com/index.php/ct/9/cid/2411cd3571b4f088/id/667055/cs/1/



Afghanistan shows signs of cracking

In fighting to "win" in Helmand or Kandahar provinces, we are fighting against the Pashtun people. This, in Galbraith's view, is hopeless, and he is probably right. The same goes for regions bordering Pakistan, such as Paktia and Nangahar.

http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20100731/OPINION01/707319979



Kiss This War Goodbye

We may look back at the war logs as a herald of the end of America's engagement in Afghanistan just as the Pentagon Papers are now a milestone in our slo-mo exit from Vietnam.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/opinion/01rich.html?_r=1&hp



Witness says WikiLeaks investigators sought to limit disclosure

The computer expert also said the Army offered him cash to, in his word, "infiltrate" WikiLeaks. "I turned them down," he said. "I don't want anything to do with this cloak-and-dagger stuff."

http://bit.ly/arBKca



Daniel Ellsberg's WikiLeaks wish list

Outlook asked Ellsberg for his wish list of documents to be leaked, declassified or otherwise made public, documents that could fundamentally alter public understanding of key national security issues and foreign policy debates. He outlines his selections and calls for congressional investigations.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/30/AR2010073002673_pf.html


From Information Clearing House



http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
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