WikiSleeps

WikiLeaks is a website that allows whistleblowers in the government, military and corporate world to anonymously leak sensitive documents. On Monday July 26th the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange announced that it had received some 95,000 US military action logs from the war in Afghanistan.

Obviously I haven't read all 95,000 documents so there may be some interesting details hid amongst the avalanche of data. Most of them though are painfully dull, reporting banal details of the war such as one report that simply states; A local has reported to a patrol that the Taliban are operating checkpoints in (GPS co-ordinate). This is consistent with IED activity. Advise other units to exercise caution.

This hasn't stopped the worlds media having a field day with the story. Much has already being made of the special Task Force 373 which has been set up to kill or capture high value Taliban and Al Qaida targets. Although learning this taksforce's designation in this type of document is interesting news of its existence is not. After all the main, specified reason for America invading Afghanistan was to kill or capture high value Taliban and Al Qaida targets.

Alot has also been made of the fact that US forces have been over-reporting the number of Taliban killed or wounded while under-reporting the number of Afghan civilians killed or wounded. While it's always nice to have actual proof over specific incidents this revelation is hardly that surprising. After all I don't think anyone's seriously believed a US military bodycount since the days of the Vietnam war

Another revelation from the logs which has been widely reported in the British media, especially during Cameron's tade visit to India is that Pakistan seem to be playing a so-called "double game" where they support both NATO and the Taliban. Although this may be news it's hardly new because it's long been known that Pakistan have been playing at least a triple game whilst having the fag-end of the Bush administration trying to mount a full on coup in the country for at least the last three years. Likewise the news that the Taliban have shoulder launched surface to air missiles is hardly surprising. After all it was the US who sold them the stinger missiles back in the 1980's.

That's not to say that the whole leak is a non-story. There is plenty of information that journalists working on Afghan war stories will find useful. I'm particularly interested in the psychological operations (psyops) report that explains how NATO forces are paying Afghan news agencies to run, often fictitious, news stories that portray Afghan national forces in a good light while portraying Taliban fighters in a bad light. However there is nothing in these reports that the Taliban don't know already or could easily find out from their own intelligence networks. So all the claims about this information undermining the war effort or threatening American national security are nonsense.

Elsewhere in that part of the world a new wave of protests have sprung up against Iran. The protests are calling for Iran not to execute a woman called Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani by stoning. The problem is that Iran's parliament is currently debating a law which will make stoning to death illegal, something I think is a good thing. Unfortunately all these protests are in serious danger of screwing it all up as Iran gets caught in the diplomatic backswing.

Also early reports suggest that the Ian Tomlinson demonstration attracted some 200 people which is a lot more then I expected considering the shortness of notice.