Afghan War Diary

I downloaded and unpacked the entire 90,000-plus reports recently released from WikiLeaks and will attempt to touch on some of them as I sift through the debris.

Here is a snippet from the introductory text of the recently released documents, followed by a table, which I created showing the type of reports released and the number of each type of report. The documents are the most extensive release of its kind while the related war is still taking place. The following text and table should be quite revealing. More to come.

The Afghan War Diary is the most significant archive about the reality of war to have ever been released during the course of a war. The deaths of tens of thousands is normally only a statistic but the archive reveals the locations and the key events behind each most of these deaths. We hope its release will lead to a comprehensive understanding of the war in Afghanistan and provide the raw ingredients necessary to change its course.
…

The material shows that cover-ups start on the ground. When reporting their own activities US Units are inclined to classify civilian kills as insurgent kills, downplay the number of people killed or otherwise make excuses for themselves. The reports, when made about other US Military units are more likely to be truthful, but still down play criticism. Conversely, when reporting on the actions of non-US ISAF forces the reports tend to be frank or critical and when reporting on the Taliban or other rebel groups, bad behavior is described in comprehensive detail. The behavior of the Afghan Army and Afghan authorities are also frequently described.

The reports come from US Army with the exception most Special Forces activities. The reports do not generally cover top-secret operations or European and other ISAF Forces operations. However when a combined operation involving regular Army units occurs, details of Army partners are often revealed. For example a number of bloody operations carried out by Task Force 373, a secret US Special Forces assassination unit, are exposed in the Diary — including a raid that lead to the death of seven children.

Here is the table showing how the reports break down by report type:

Afghan War Diary

Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange; Credit: Axel Martens

Here is a detailed look by The New York Times of documents released Sunday by WikiLeaks, that seemingly show the war in Afghanistan isn’t necessarily panning out as well as we were led to believe.

And here the entire set of documents, dubbed the Afghan War Diary, spanning the years 2004-2010.

I’ll probably write more on the actual content once I review it, but if you didn’t catch the owner of Wikileaks’ recent interview with Der Spiegel, it’s a must read. Here’s the link.

During the interview, Julian Assange had this to say when asked why he founded WikiLeaks, rather than pursuing other endeavors:

We all only live once. So we are obligated to make good use of the time that we have and to do something that is meaningful and satisfying. This is something that I find meaningful and satisfying. That is my temperament. I enjoy creating systems on a grand scale, and I enjoy helping people who are vulnerable. And I enjoy crushing bastards. So it is enjoyable work.

He enjoys “helping people” and “crushing bastards,” huh? How can one not love some journalistic Männlichkeitswahn such as that?