World-News

MSNBC

08/02/10

Each time U.S. or NATO forces accidentally kill Afghan civilians, insurgents and their sympathizers typically retaliate with six additional assaults on foreign forces over the next six weeks, researchers using newly declassified NATO data conclude. A new study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research supports the prevailing view of counterinsurgency strategists who believe civilian casualties help Taliban recruiting drives...

http://tinyurl.com/28cy9bv


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=civilian+deaths
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=civilian+casualties
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Taliban
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=insurgen

Die Truppenerhöhung hat nichts bewirkt, also sollen nun gezielte Tötungen die Macht der Aufständischen brechen.

http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/33/33065/1.html



http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=target+killing
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=assassin

http://www.lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis198.html

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How the Wikileaks are changing Afghan hearts and minds

The New Republic
by Anand Gopal

08/02/10

For many Afghans, the release of thousands of secret military documents — which detail civilian casualties, corrupt officials, and meddlesome neighbors — amounts to a vindication of their view of the war. Many in the West argue the documents contain little new, and that may be true in general. But the devil resides in the details, and the details here paint a vivid and devastating picture of how Afghans view the American war...

http://tinyurl.com/32rqpup


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

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'Anger at Wikileaks in U.S. political circles continues to grow'
http://www.ufppc.org/us-a-world-news-mainmenu-35/9856/

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Pakistan No Obedient Ally

By Eric Margolis

WikiLeaks data shows how volatile nation is forced to act against own self interests.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26070.htm

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WikiLeaks vs. the Pentagon: The Internet Wars
http://groups.google.de/group/freepage-news/t/254c57c8d4504d42?hl=en

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Evidence of a Failed Mission
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/08/03-2

Thanks to WikiLeaker, Afghan War Will End Soon
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/08/03-6

Veterans & Military Families Say Pentagon Statements on Wikileaks Aim to Cloud Real Issues
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/08/03-0



http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Pakistan
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Pentagon
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=civilian+casualties
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=WikiLeaks
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=margolis
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Anand+Gopal
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Phyllis+Bennis

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
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Pakistan
http://sharenews.twoday.net/topics/Iraq+-+Irak+/
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Vietnam
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Pentagon
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=neocons
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Central+Intelligence+Agency
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=foreign+policy
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=nation-building
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=national+security
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=counterinsurgen
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=atrocities
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=WikiLeaks
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Julian+Assange
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Daniel+Ellsberg
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Taliban
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=al-Qaeda
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Alexander+Cockburn
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=James+Ridgeway
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Haroon+Siddiqui
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Jed+Babbin

Simon Moyle, Waging Nonviolence: "The last month has seen six Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan, bringing our country's total to seventeen. Yet even with a federal election looming and 61 percent of Australians wanting troops brought home, our involvement in the war has bipartisan support. In fact, far from raising questions over our mission there, these deaths seem to only strengthen the government's resolve to remain. The same seems to be true of the U.S. and many other NATO countries."

http://www.truth-out.org/afghanistan-and-sacrifice-trap61907



The War on Terror: Beyond the Military

Lt. Col. Barry Wingard, Truthout: "We certainly cannot expect to defeat terrorism when the War on Terror itself creates indifference and fosters misunderstanding among our own citizens. In America, we now accept secrecy in this War on Terror as common, acceptable and subject only to the amount of scrutiny that shadowy operatives in the government deem appropriate for disclosure. In America, the War on Terror has become a subjective 'us' versus 'them' battle that serves to advance stereotypes based upon who we believe we are as Americans and who, or what, we perceive them to be."

http://www.truth-out.org/the-war-terror-beyond-military62078

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Americans should be asked to sacrifice for the war on terrorism. But sacrifice what?

The New Republic
by Andrew J. Bacevich

08/04/10

Typically, this sort of question serves as a prelude to an appeal to restore the draft. Yet when it comes to sacrifice, there’s a more immediately available option. Hit Americans where it hurts: in their pocketbooks. If Iraq (Bush’s War) and Afghanistan (Obama’s War) are so all-fired important, then we ought to be funding those conflicts on a pay-as-you-go basis. After September 11, the Bush administration employed tax cuts to purchase popular acquiescence in its plan for open-ended war. Using borrowed money to underwrite the global war on terrorism has freed the present generation from any obligation to cover the financial costs incurred. It’s not our problem...

http://tinyurl.com/26wgqox


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Bush+legacy
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=9/11
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=global+war+on+terror
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Simon+Moyle
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Andrew+J.+Bacevich
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Barry+Wingard

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/30-10

What's Sadly Missing in Time's Afghan Cover
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/30-3

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WikiLeaks: Who's Hiding What and Why
http://www.lewrockwell.com/reed/reed183.html

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WikiLeaks Afghan War Diary Repercussions
http://groups.google.de/group/freepage-news/t/93c894e78c63fef1?hl=en

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Wikileaks: Our Weapon Shop of Isher

Center for a Stateless Society
by Kevin Carson

07/30/10

It’s too bad the Nobel Peace Prize went to a bloody-handed guy who’s waging two wars, instead of to people like Julian Assange and Bradley Manning who’ve weakened his ability to fight them. It’s impossible to overstate just how big this is. This is a giant leap forward for the kind of networked resistance I constantly advocate in this column: not lobbying or begging the state for permission, but bypassing it and treating it as irrelevant. This is a monumental contribution to the ability of free people to organize the kind of society they want here and now, below the state’s radar and beyond the reach of its enforcement apparatus...

http://c4ss.org/content/3332


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Pentagon
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=WikiLeaks
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Julian+Assange
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Bradley+Manning
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Dan+Froomkin
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Greg+Mitchell
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=com/reed
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Kevin+Carson

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/07/30-2



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

By John Cook

Buried among the 92,000 classified documents released Sunday by WikiLeaks is some intriguing evidence that the U.S. military in Afghanistan has adopted a PR strategy that got it into trouble in Iraq: paying local media outlets to run friendly stories.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26036.htm



A Civilian Casualty, Up Close

By Kevin Sites

I try to imagine the incongruity of it all. You are riding in your car with your family and in one instant, by being in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time, your wife is now dead.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26062.htm

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US Hunts Afghan War Files Leaker
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/07/28-1

'Leaked Afghan Files Hid a Losing War, Not Military Secrets'
http://www.commondreams.org/video/2010/07/28-0

WikiLeaks’ Afghan War Diary
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/28-4

How US Ignorance Helped Doom the Afghan War
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/29-12

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The main effect of the Wikileaks documents is political

Independent Institute
by Ivan Eland

07/28/10

[T]he only thing the WikiLeaks documents reveal is how persistent the post-9/11 war and nation-building fever continues to be among the foreign policy elite — even in the face of the dismal results on the ground for almost a decade and a majority opinion in America that the war is not worth fighting...

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2834



Afghanistan’s census of the dead

Slate
by Chris Wilson and Jeremy Singer-Vine

Nearly 77,000 of the 92,000 military documents unveiled by WikiLeaks this week are individual incident reports from the war in Afghanistan. Each report tallies the number of soldiers, civilians, and enemy targets both wounded and killed. While no one was hurt in the majority of the incidents, these reports, read in aggregate, offer a sterile but hyper-detailed picture of the dead and wounded on all sides of the nearly decadelong war. The following visualization focuses on enemy and civilian casualties over the past five years...

http://www.slate.com/id/2261911/



Are we in Afghanistan because we’re in Afghanistan?

AntiWar.Com
by Charles V. Pena

07/30/10

[I]sn’t this war? Yes. And it’s not like we’re intentionally targeting or trying to kill innocent civilians, right? Right (it’s not the moral equivalent of terrorists attacking a civilian target like the World Trade Center or insurgents using villagers as human shields). Plus aren’t civilian casualties an inevitable tragic consequence of war? Yes. If the survival of the United States was at stake, we might not like but nonetheless have to accept those answers. But the conflict in Afghanistan is not a war of U.S. national survival...

http://tinyurl.com/392eugw


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

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Rights Groups File Lawsuit To Allow Challenge To Targeted Killing Without Due Process

http://www.aclu.org/national-security/rights-groups-file-lawsuit-allow-challenge-targeted-killing-without-due-process



http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=9/11
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=nation-building
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=policy+elite
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=WikiLeaks
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=ACLU
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=target+killing
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=assassin
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=insurgent
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=civilian+casualties
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=civilian+deaths
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Amy+Goodman
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Ivan+Eland
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Chris+Wilson
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Jeremy+Singer-Vine
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Charles+V.+Pena

http://www.ufppc.org/us-a-world-news-mainmenu-35/9845/

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Leaked Reports Make Afghan War Policy More Vulnerable
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/07/27-4

Daniel Ellsberg Describes Afghan War Logs as On a Par with 'Pentagon Papers'
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/07/27

State of Denial: After the Big Leak, Spinning for War
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/27-9

Peace Action: Largest Peace Group-House Vote First Step to Remove Troops from Afghanistan
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/03/10-22

A Brutal, Chaotic and Bloody Look at US Combat in Afghanistan (Warning: Contains Graphic Images)
http://www.commondreams.org/video/2010/07/29-1

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Afghan "War" reality check
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/903.html

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"Warning shots" to van, kill one, injure one
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/afghanistan/warlogs/8742D506-5CDE-4EDE-995F-0550175BC906


Informant: Bob Banner

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Endgame in Afghanistan: 'It's Taken a Year to Move 20km'

Video

As the war in Afghanistan enters its final chapter, Sean Smith's brutal, uncompromising film from the Helmand frontline shows the horrific chaos of a stalemate that is taking its toll in blood.

-WARNING -

Video depicts the reality and horror of War and should only be watched by a mature audience.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26045.htm



A Plea for Common Sense: Why NATO Should Withdraw from Afghanistan

By Christoph Schwennicke

It is difficult for politicians to admit they were wrong. But when it comes to Afghanistan, the consequences of not doing so could be high. It is time for the West to cut its losses and withdraw.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26042.htm



http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Ron+Paul
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Wikileaks
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Pentagon+Papers
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Daniel+Ellsberg
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Gareth+Porter
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Richard+Norton-Taylor
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Norman+Solomon
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Christoph+Schwennicke

Report

By David Leigh

Locals told Reuters that up to 300 civilians - as well as a number of Taliban - were killed in the air strike after they had been rounded up to watch a Taliban-organised public hanging of two suspected spies.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26026.htm



Down To The Last Trillion in Red Ink

US Treasury Running on Fumes

By Paul Craig Roberts

The White House is screaming like a stuck pig. WikiLeaks' release of the Afghan War Documents "puts the lives of our soldiers and our coalition partners at risk".

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26032.htm



WikiLeaks report cites previously unknown "friendly fire" incident involving Canadians

The dramatic WikiLeaks report contains details of what appears to be a previously unknown "friendly fire" incident in Afghanistan in which it says four Canadians were killed and seven were injured.

http://bit.ly/alqeM8


From Information Clearing House



http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Taliban
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=airstrike
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Wikileaks
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=friendly+fire
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=civilian+deaths
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Treasury
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=David+Leigh
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Paul+Craig+Roberts