Wikileaks : Secret Afghanistan War logs

[muse]

However in case if Pakistan dosent complies then what choices Obama admin has :

1. Declare Pakistan a terrorist state and expand a conventional war into its borders with the help of Indians
2. Peacefully negotiate the minimum bargains they can get and pull out with honor and dignity which has been blown away.

I don't think this is a question of comply or not -- that dog just won't hunt - nor is it a question of expanding the war into Pakistan, though the western border of Afghanistan seems to offer new oppostunities for mischief by US policy makers - the larger question is why does the US policy continue on a course that has failed so spectacularly? What is it that these policy makers seem intent on "shaping"? Again we are back to US policy and policy makers, there is no escaping that.

 

[H2O3C4Nitrogen]

Afghanistan war logs: Recriminations fly over alleged support for Taliban

Leaked documents reveal hand of Pakistan's spy agency behind insurgency, say officials in Afghanistan and India

Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan deteriorated sharply today as officials from both countries traded angry accusations over the leaked US military documents suggesting Pakistan's spy service is entwined with the Taliban.

Waheed Omar, a spokesman for the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, was blunt in his finger-pointing. Referring to Pakistan, he said: "The war on terrorism will not succeed unless we address the root causes … the role forces behind the borders of Afghanistan play in destabilising activity here in Afghanistan."

He added: "We will not be able to defeat terrorism in the villages of Afghanistan unless we pay attention to the places where terrorism has been nurtured, where terrorists are kept, where they are given sanctuary, where they are given ideal motives to carry out their attacks in Afghanistan."

An official with Pakistan's spy agency, the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence), questioned the reliability of Afghan intelligence-gathering. "The majority of these [documents] are preliminary reports and they are mostly from Afghan intelligence, so you can imagine their credibility," the official said.

Adding to this toxic diplomatic, military and intelligence mix, Pakistan's traditional rival India joined Afghanistan in saying the leaks confirmed what Delhi had been saying for years about Islamabad's behaviour in Afghanistan.

The testy exchanges come after a short period in which relations between the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan had been improving.

The Obama administration, on first learning about the contents of the leaked documents, feared they would end up having this impact on Afghanistan-Pakistan relations.

At the White House briefing today, Barack Obama's spokesman, Robert Gibbs, described the leaks as "posing a very real and potential threat to those who are working hard to keep us safe".

Gibbs offered only qualified support for Pakistan, saying Obama had made it clear last year that Pakistan would not be receiving a blank cheque and had to make progress in taking on insurgents. There had been Pakistani military operations in the Swat valley and South Waziristan, but he added that more were expected.

Reflecting the outrage of many who voiced, in newspapers and websites in the US, concern about the risk posed by the leaks, Professor Ross Baker, a political science specialist at Rutgers University, said: "Giving aid and comfort to the enemy, which Wikileaks does in the release of this material, is treasonable by any definition. Revelation of these documents will likely result in US battle casualties as it gives our enemy, the Taliban, useful information about the manner in which Nato forces communicate and use tactics. The divulging of this information is more damaging than the Pentagon Papers ever were."

Mirroring similar criticism in the US about the alleged role of Pakistan, Lieutenant-Colonel Tony Shaffer, a former intelligence officer and now an analyst at the Centre for Advanced Defence Studies, drew an analogy with the second world war, saying the ISI/Taliban relationship was akin to the British working with the Nazis leaking information about Normandy.

The ISI has in the past worked with the Taliban, seeing it as a bulwark against any Indian attempts to increase its influence in Afghanistan.

Pakistan rejected the allegations in the US military documents as false, with the ISI official suggesting the leaked material was only preliminary reports. "Only once something is corroborated from multiple sources does it become a credible piece of information," the ISI official said.

Pakistan's foreign ministry spokesman, Abdul Basit, called the leaks "far-fetched and skewed".

Hamid Gul, a former ISI chief extensively cited in the documents as meeting and aiding the Taliban, described the material as "a pack of lies, a fairytale". He denied having any contact with the Taliban, though he was happy to voice his moral support for them.

Gul, who officially retired from the ISI in 1991 but is frequently accused of still playing an active role, dismissed the idea of a 74-year-old sitting in a small house in Rawalpindi masterminding operations against the US. "I'm just the whipping boy," he said.

Indian officials said the documents "confirmed what India has been telling for a long time".

Bahukutumbi Raman, former head of the counter-terrorism division of India's external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, said the real question would be whether America would now act "against Pakistan".

"There has been plenty of evidence for years but it has never resulted in any concrete action," he said. "There'll probably be a debate but that'll be all."

Iran, which the documents also accused of interfering in Afghanistan, did not comment today. The official news agency IRNA reported the leaks without mentioning the alleged role of Iran.

The German government said it planned to investigate the documents amid concern that the information disclosed might put its troops in danger.

Foreign minister Guido Westerwelle called for the information to be closely scrutinised. "All of it must of course be carefully examined, to see what possible new revelations there might be," he said.

The German government has shown little alarm over the release of the documents, although commentators said the files did much to highlight the "naivety" with which German troops had entered the conflict in Afghanistan and would do further damage to the already very jaded public view of the mission.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

The one common thread here amongst Western and Indian commentators is the sheer desperation with which they seek 'evidence' showing the ISI is supporting the Taliban. There was a whole bunch of hoo ha when the Waldman report came out, about it being 'finally credible evidence' before realizing that it was just a bunch of unverified hearsay compiled by Waldman.

And now too many are jumping on the same bandwagon of 'aha, finally evidence linking the ISI to Taliban' yet the problem, despite the fancy titles of 'secret intelligence reports', remains the same, that these 'intelligence reports' are unverified and likely distorted and manipulated for the sake of maligning Pakistan and informants spicing them up to get paid (as admitted by some Western analysts themselves).

 

[H2O3C4Nitrogen]

I don't think this is a question of comply or not -- that dog just won't hunt - nor is it a question of expanding the war into Pakistan, though the western border of Afghanistan seems to offer new oppostunities for mischief by US policy makers - the larger question is why does the US policy continue on a course that has failed so spectacularly? What is it that these policy makers seem intent on "shaping"? Again we are back to US policy and policy makers, there is no escaping that.

Already the public sentiment is hugely against this war and people in west are asking that why the hell we are giving Pakistan the Aid as it has duplicate role, i fear that due to this leak the whole rubble might not fall onto Pakistan in the light of an event which is unimaginable...!

They are seriously giving it everything to push us into North Waziristan

 

[SMC]

And what according to u sir is solid proof ?? No i am not here to troll please understand. In various threads time and again by almost everybody here

If the news is from Indian Newspapers like TOI and (even the hindu) its a Bull.... news. Agreed. Everybody asks for a neutral source.

If the news is in anyway connected to India the news is Bull..... u ask for a neutral source.

Now in this matter the US govt has admitted the leakage however USA is a zionist, selfish govt all it wants to do is malign Pakistan and get its work done, i will agree to this argument also. However in parts there are bits and pieces of other intelligence services too like polish, now u say this is also Bull......

So can u please tell me what is an authentic source for everybody here?? Mr.Sparklingway is painstakingly along with posting the leaks has been advocating in various posts to people not to see this as an effort directed only against Pakistan. He is speaking about the larger picture. The reason why i am questioning only about Pakistani part is that all those allegations have been called accusations by each and every member here.

The most funniest thing is that some are saying that because Junior Officers collected, this information is not authentic. I am an Accountant without even basic knowledge other than reading material public and Movie experience about spying. Even in my filed when entries are to be accounted for only the Junior guys do this work not the Finance Manager or the CFO. Well if this doesn't apply in the spying world i am sorry.

Just think about it, why would US give us $1.5B/year aid, sell F-16s to us, give us other weapons in aid, etc, if they knew we were supporting Taliban.

Then furthermore, US being a superpower with huge amounts of influence and diplomatic leverage in Pakistan and across the world is not doing anything about this and in fact is helping us more.

If put this together with what I say below, it starts to sound like a big conspiracy theory (i.e. ISI supporting Taliban being a conspiracy theory).

If you can answer that, I am willing to go further in this debate.

Why is polish intelligence mentioned? It can be mentioned so as to not make the look leaks directly wholly at ISI AND to not make the leak look deliberate. You need to look at where most of the attention is being directed after this leak to see whom the leaks were meant to be directed at.

Now here's the important part. There's no concrete evidence provided of ISI involvement. And let me make it clear, leaks like this are not evidence. Something like Kasab is evidence, something like an ISI agent getting caught are evidence. It should be clear what solid, smoking gun evidence is. In this case, it's the words of Afghan and American intelligence agencies.

Now as for denial and conspiracy theories goes, let me make that clear as well. The denial argument won't work as long as there's no proof. And the conspiracy theorists are YOU guys - Americans and Indians - because this ISI supporting Taliban is a conspiracy theory until there is solid proof.

 

[muse]

Agno

If that floats their boat - then so be it - I referred to the policy makers as "fanatics" and now you can see why - what's important for them is not reality but the way they want reality to be, so that they can be masked because sooner or later, and my guess is sooner, American citizens will be, ought to be, asking questions.

Already the public sentiment is hugely against this war and people in west are asking that why the hell we are giving Pakistan the Aid as it has duplicate role, i fear that due to this leak the whole rubble might not fall onto Pakistan in the light of an event which is unimaginable...!

Aid to Pakistan will not make it and withdrawl of aid will not break it -- If today people in the West question what is going on in Afghanistan, it is a good thing -- as SMC has mentioned policy makers will have ot answer how is it that they knew od ISI and Talib and made a effort to deliver billions in aid.

See all of this stuff is so contrdictory that even the slowest of observers will question this line.

In Pakistan and in other countries questions are already being raised about security cooperation with the US, about the kind of freefall US policy is in, about the criminal endangerment of US govt assurances and undertakings - no amount of finger pointing will serve to misdirect.


They are seriously giving it everything to push us into North Waziristan

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

the larger question is why does the US policy continue on a course that has failed so spectacularly? What is it that these policy makers seem intent on "shaping"? Again we are back to US policy and policy makers, there is no escaping that.

Inertia and the fact that while the individuals at the White House may change, the bureaucrats in defence and intelligence, that lay the foundations of US policy through analysis and feedback, remain largely the same?

And what drives the underlying bias in US policy? The only things I can think of is:

1. A private subscription to the idea of 'clash of civilizations between the West and Islam', and in that civilizational clash the existence of a powerful, large and nuclear Pakistan is not acceptable

2. A continued subscription to the defunct 'cold war anti-communist' ideology, which is present in droves amongst conservatives in the US, and voiced publicly. This would now be directed at China, and the driving force would continue to be religion and almost religion like fervor over 'capitalism and democracy', as voiced by bigots like Limbaugh.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Agno

If that floats their boat - then so be it - I referred to the policy makers as "fanatics" and now you can see why - what's important for them is not reality but the way they want reality to be, so that they can be masked because sooner or later, and my guess is sooner, American citizens will be, ought to be, asking questions.

Will American citizens ask questions though if their media continues to be pliant (towards the establishment line on foreign policy) and nonobjective?

Look at the difference between the NYT and Guardian reports for example, when it comes to discussing the actual veracity of the intelligence reports as they relate to accusations against Pakistan. The Guardian goes far beyond the NYT in asking former officials and actually analyzing the nature of the reports alleging Pakistani involvement.

The US talking heads in the mainstream media have similarly clutched at the headline NYT style, focusing on the allegations made in the 'intelligence reports' instead of the nature of the reports and their speculative and unverified nature. The US administration, with its duplicitous stance of 'neither confirm nor deny' has also chosen to fuel the distorted narrative.

Aid to Pakistan will not make it and withdrawl of aid will not break it -- If today people in the West question what is going on in Afghanistan, it is a good thing -- as SMC has mentioned policy makers will have ot answer how is it that they knew od ISI and Talib and made a effort to deliver billions in aid.

See all of this stuff is so contrdictory that even the slowest of observers will question this line.

In Pakistan and in other countries questions are already being raised about security cooperation with the US, about the kind of freefall US policy is in, about the criminal endangerment of US govt assurances and undertakings - no amount of finger pointing will serve to misdirect.


They are seriously giving it everything to push us into North Waziristan

Valid points - the subtext of the allegations against Pakistan, even if not contested or analyzed objectively, is that the war is going horribly and the US has no clue on what to do about it in that it is aiding an entity allegedly supporting the very insurgents the US is supposed to be defeating.

In the long run this would lay the subtext of a very dismal picture about the US effort in Afghanistan, and I suppose lead to a popular revolt against the war, amongst all but the conservatives, who I think would still support the US going back and winning the Vietnam war!

 

[SMC]

One more interesting thing to notice.

The Indians and Westerners are talking about how Pakistan is taking aid but is also supporting Taliban.

They are not talking about the the following (which is the same thing above worded differently): Why would US give Pakistan $10B aid, with 7.5B more to come, if they knew Pakistan was supporting Taliban?

This question is really not a question that doesn't come to one's mind and it's not that hard a question either. It's just that some don't want to look at it.

 

[Devil Soul]

26 July 2010 Last updated at 15:07 GMT Share this
Wikileaks row is the last thing Nato needs

By Frank Gardner
BBC security correspondent

In what has been called Nato's crucial year in Afghanistan, the sudden, unauthorised publication of thousands of revealing military and intelligence documents is just about the last thing the alliance needs.

To those of us in the media who have been following the twists and turns of the Afghan conflict, there are few great surprises contained in the 91,000 documents.

Even some of the material classified as "Secret" (the second highest classification after "Top Secret") is not, in reality, particularly sensitive, and of course all of it is at least seven months old.

Some of the documents, while authentic as official intelligence reports, can be dismissed as clearly wrong or unfounded.

But that is not the point. Taken together, the Wikileaks documents give the general public a remarkable insight into a war that - at least up until December 2009 - now appears to have been going worse than we were told.

The issue of civilian casualties has been one of the biggest bones of contention between Nato and the Afghan government.

When US General Stanley McChrystal took over command of coalition forces in Afghanistan last year he put "protecting the civilian population" right at the top of his priorities.

This was in recognition of the fact that killing civilians is not only morally unacceptable but is also a sure-fire way to boost Taliban propaganda and recruiting.

On the ground it has translated into a policy known as "courageous restraint", meaning holding off ordering airstrikes on buildings or locations where Taliban gunfire is coming from unless commanders on the ground - who can be as junior as a corporal - can be absolutely certain no civilians would be harmed.

Inevitably this has given rise to grumbles among soldiers that they are taking more casualties of their own.

But the Wikileaks documents give disturbing and authentic details of previously unpublished events where Nato actions have inadvertently resulted in Afghan civilian casualties.

These include an RAF Harrier airstrike, separate incidents involving French and US troops, and a mortar attack by Polish forces that hit a wedding party.

According to human rights groups the number of civilians killed by Nato is vastly outnumbered by the number killed by the Taliban but as one senior Nato general put it to me this year "even one civilian casualty is unacceptable, it can never be justified".

The details regarding Pakistan's alleged support for the Taliban are harder to substantiate.

Again, the reports are authentic but their content is shaky to say the least. Afghanistan and Pakistan's respective intelligence agencies have a deep mutual distrust.

So those reports that paint the ISI, the Pakistani agency, in a damning light and which are based on information provided by the NDS, their Afghan counterparts, need to be treated with a degree of scepticism.

Still, they do provide further fodder for those convinced the ISI never really cut its links with the Afghan Taliban, an organisation it openly nurtured from 1994-2001.

Among the Pakistani military and intelligence community, the perceived long-term strategic threat comes not from the jihadists but from India.

There are therefore many who are keen to keep open links to a proxy militia in Afghanistan for the day when Nato eventually leaves that country.

'Unglossed' war

The revelations about Taskforce 373 are more embarrassing.

This covert operations unit is something both its operatives and senior commanders would far rather not see publicised.

Their mission, put simply, is to "remove" key insurgent commanders from the battlefield. This means acting on human intelligence, or tip-offs, and intercepted communications to locate them and try to capture them alive.

In practice many are not prepared to surrender so a gun battle ensues in which the insurgents often come off worse, their commander is killed but sometimes so too are a number of civilians sheltering nearby.

So what difference will the release of these documents make, if any, to Nato operations in Afghanistan?

"None", said William Hague, the UK Foreign Secretary, on Monday when asked about the possible effect on British troops.

But that may prove optimistic.

The public - if it cares to read the documents - is now offered a far more revealing and unglossed version of the ugly nature of war in Afghanistan and it is unlikely to welcome what it sees.

The patience of electorates on both sides of the Atlantic with this increasingly unpopular conflict has just been shortened by another notch.

 

[ramu]

The one common thread here amongst Western and Indian commentators is the sheer desperation with which they seek 'evidence' showing the ISI is supporting the Taliban. There was a whole bunch of hoo ha when the Waldman report came out, about it being 'finally credible evidence' before realizing that it was just a bunch of unverified hearsay compiled by Waldman.

And now too many are jumping on the same bandwagon of 'aha, finally evidence linking the ISI to Taliban' yet the problem, despite the fancy titles of 'secret intelligence reports', remains the same, that these 'intelligence reports' are unverified and likely distorted and manipulated for the sake of maligning Pakistan and informants spicing them up to get paid (as admitted by some Western analysts themselves).

The one common problem is that all evidence against Pakistan is not credible. It is always planted to defame Pakistan or in the minds of Pakistanis, the activities of ISI is for the greater good of Pakistan. The western media always defames Pakistan but the truth is what Pakistanis believe in. No desperation here .. this is my first post on this thread after reading through a lot of pages.

Well done AM, you can convince/over power everyone with well chosen words and obtuse logic but deep within you know something somewhere is wrong in the way Pakistan intelligence agency is run.

 

[muse]

Agno


This is at an early stage and talking heads are not expected to delve deeper - It will be interesting to see what develops in the US congress -- I for one will not miss the enhanced relationship between US and Pakistan, it has the wrong foundation and ought never have been pursued. -- See, the problem is not with any outside country, the problem is within the US itself -- Why does the US not have any meaningful relations with even a single Muslim majority country? This question goes to the heart of US policy - within it's intelligencia, within it's media, within it's universities, and most importantly within it's government, a shameful bigotry has taken hold -- only they can rid themselves of this blight, no one else can do it for them - Pakistanis know this, didn't Pakistan have to do it themselves?

This question of why the US continues to have such terrible relations with Muslim majority countries will continue to be evaded until, of course, it cannot be -- see, if it had bad relations with some, we could look into particulars, but when it has not a single meaningful relationship, we have to ask whether all muslim majority countires are drinking form a poisoned well or a single US is drinking from a poisoned well?

I want you to note that US populations were not generally hostile towards Muslim majority countries, they were brought to this primarily by their government, the media just rode that bandwagon - this why I say that "fanatics" are running the roost, no outside force or power or opinion can alter this, only engaged, informed, concerned US citizenry can further this internal discussion.

For Pakistan and really any Muslim majority country, for the time being the US is a net loss, and they are better served at working on correct relations with the US - and to be fair, we have to ask whether the US ought to be a power to look towards - here I am pointing to the fact that no one else can do for Muslim majority countries what they will not do for themselves.

Recall in our earlier conversations we said that the manner in which some had conducted their affairs, such as the the Jammat of this and lashkar of that, acted to constricted, not expand their universe - the US is now pretty much the same boat -- 10 years on, it cannot tell friend nor foe and in it's stupor, constricts it's universe. We all pray God will help it out and finds it's way back, an awakened citizenry will speed that revival of sense.

 

[SMC]

The one common problem is that all evidence against Pakistan is not credible. It is always planted to defame Pakistan or in the minds of Pakistanis, the activities of ISI is for the greater good of Pakistan. The western media always defames Pakistan but the truth is what Pakistanis believe in. No desperation here .. this is my first post on this thread after reading through a lot of pages.

Well done AM, you can convince/over power everyone with well chosen words and obtuse logic but deep within you know something somewhere is wrong in the way Pakistan intelligence agency is run.

Sarcasm won't help you here. It remains a fact that there is no clear evidence of ISI involvement and that Afghan Intelligence words are far from credible. Sarcasm can only help you divert from that.

 

[Ras]

At the end of the day the greatest impact on Pakistan will be from the position other nations/governments take with respect to Pakistan, not how the media deals with Pakistan (though changing that narrative in the long run is important as well).

And from the excerpts in my last few posts, it is clear that the governments that matter already acknowledge the fact that most of these reports accusing the ISI are rubbish and distorted. This is also supported by the fact that the US continues to provide military and civilian aid to Pakistan and cooperate extensively with it.

So the ISI does not 'have to become a good guy' since it already is, and nothing in these leaks is evidence to the contrary, as admitted in the excerpts posted earlier by me.

No..that is your take on the issue. All the officials/papers have said is that this is raw intelligence so most of it is probably crap but it may not be crap too.So no way to know if all of the ISI info is crap.

Back on topic...the wikileaks guy should probably be charged with treason if it really was a leak. But all the Pakistan bashing in the reports suggests to me that someone is after Adm Mullen's head and it was either a calculated release or someone has decided to use this opportunity. A lot of the top administration officials think that he has gone "native" and should be replaced.

We will have hearings on this soon so more of the story will come out there.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

The one common problem is that all evidence against Pakistan is not credible. It is always planted to defame Pakistan or in the minds of Pakistanis, the activities of ISI is for the greater good of Pakistan. The western media always defames Pakistan but the truth is what Pakistanis believe in. No desperation here .. this is my first post on this thread after reading through a lot of pages.

Well done AM, you can convince/over power everyone with well chosen words and obtuse logic but deep within you know something somewhere is wrong in the way Pakistan intelligence agency is run.

'Unverified' and 'unsubstantiated' - remember those two words ramu, because so long as these allegations against the ISI are best described by those two words, there is nothing wrong with my logic. And in fact it is those so desperately seeking to scapegoat Pakistan and the ISI that need to 'look deep within' to realize the frailty of their claims and positions.