Today on CNN Newsroom
Afghan war documents released
From CNN intern Emily Landrieu:
Late yesterday, the infamous whistle blower website Wikileaks.org released what it claims to be over 900,000 U.S. military and diplomatic reports about Afghanistan ranging from 2004 until January of 2010. According to Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, the reports contain first hand accounts of numbers killed, casualties and threat reports among other things. Neither CNN nor any other source has confirmed the authenticity of the documents and Assange will not reveal where the documents came from. According to the New York Times, who had access to the documents before the official release, “the documents suggest that Pakistan, an ostensible ally of the United States, allows representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organize networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders." Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, said in a statement Sunday that the documents, "raise serious questions about the reality of America's policy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan.”
The video has stirred up much controversy within the United States and over seas alike. Many believe that the posting of this information poses a threat to U.S. security and the security of our allies.
We want to know- Do you think this information could be a threat? Should it have been released?
Comment below and Kyra will read some during the 10am ET hour of the CNN Newsroom.
Read more about the leaked documents here.
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Start spending the amount of money we give to our military and foreign countries on Americans that are struggling. If they (government) actually wanted to keep the United States secure, they would start with "our" country. We still haven't rebuilt from 9/11 or Katrina...our government has failed us!
It seems to me that this will almost certainly affect the public conversation about the war. But vigorous national debate about a war and our mission in Afghanistan is not a threat to our national security; it is part of the way that a well-functioning democracy works. I think the real question is whether these documents reveal operational methods that our military uses, which could provide the enemy in Afghanistan with a military advantage and cost American lives and jeopardize our mission in Afghanistan.
Any information being leaked while the war is going on is dangerous this provides the enemy with information towards interigation of captured soldiers and there family's and the military's war habits it's no wonder this war has not ended yet we have fools in charge .
This leak highlights the growing need for personal responsibility in the digital age. WikiLeaks should be ashamed–these documents will certainly discourage future intelligence sources from stepping forward, potentially affecting the progress in Afghanistan.
This war is unwinnable. The only way it will "end" is for us to leave.
You brought the ADA to the forefront today, and for that I thank you. But what you failed to mention was that in 2000 75% of the disabled community nationwide were unemployed and only about 2% of that population did not want to work. (President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities) If those disabled people were put to work, think of what that would do for the economy.
I think its all messed up. and i think the leak was part of obama tryin to stop fishin. well he has suceded.
The documents cover some known aspects of the troubled nine-year conflict: U.S. special operations forces have targeted militants without trial, Afghans have been killed by accident, and U.S. officials have been infuriated by alleged Pakistani intelligence cooperation with the very insurgent groups bent on killing Americans.
ok lets look at this ...
1) It's a war not a conflict.
2) Did the militants give American and allied troops a trial before setting off IEDs or shooting them from behind the cover of children?
3) What war doesn't have collateral killing or damage.
4) Everyone has known Pakistan is as much an enemy in this war as the Taliban, except the governments of the countries involved.
In other words this is a none story blown out of proportion and tells us nothing we didn't already know.
The documents are not a threat. What is a threat is obama and the dems who continue to fund this worthless fiasco in afghanistan to keep a corrupt president and his drug dealing brother in power. The pentagon and obama are embarrased so they hide behing the label secret documents. What happend to transparancy. Soldeirs die and innocent civilans die everyday because obama and the dems choose to keep the war going by borrowing and spending billions every week. Taxpayers will be spending a trillion dollars on this fiasco so we should know exactly what we a paying for. Nothing.
The Russian special op's specifically targeted Afghanistan women and children when it was determined a wife or child missing a arm or leg would keep the male Occupation Resistance Fighter home to tend to his family rather than pick up his AK47 and blast some Russian troops.
The CIA and the depraved US Special Ops appear to have come to the same conclusion. Only so many children can be slaughtered or maimed by the CIA and US Special Ops teams under the 'guise' of wrong location for the raid that occurred to be used to 'excuse' a botched raid after botched raid.
It appears US and NATO troops are guilty or very suspected of various war crimes against the Afghanistan people. Even the utterly corrupt Harmid Karzai repeatedly charged that CIA special op's had numerous midnight raids which directly resulted in the slaughter of large numbers of Afghanistan women and children.
When the Russian soldiers occupied Afghanistan, they also specifically targeted the Afghanistan children. It appears the CIA and some Special Op's units are doing the same thing. During the Russian occupation it was found if a Afghani child had their leg blown off or was severely injured, the adult men in that family would stay home to tend to their severely injured children rather than take up arms in the Taliban Occupation Resistance fighter movement.
The Russians poured out toy's that exploded upon contact and millions of plastic butterfly shaped land mines filled with a liquid explosive and fully capable of blowing a leg of anyone that stepped on them.
As in the war in Vietnam, the livestock across Afghanistan has undoubtedly been shot and slaughtered by depraved and callous US and NATO troops on the ground and from in the air. It is difficult if not impossible to learn how wide spread that is in Afghanistan. It is just as important however to understand that is occurring and not allow the US Military complex to stifle news of US and NATO war crimes against the Afghanistan people.
It seems the question that no one is asking is. . if these were top secret documents, how did Wikileaks get a hold of them????
In time of war this person should be treated as a traitor and charged with treason.
Ken, I agree with the Afghan war assessment but if you think the Dems are bad, try voting in the Republicans.
Sorry but I have no sympathy for Brad Manning. He knew exactly what he was doing & chose to martyr himself. I held a security clearance, was constantly warned what the legal consequences were for unauthorized disclosure and signed the non-disclosure agreement just like Manning. No matter how noble he thought his intentions were he made a conscious choice no different from drinking & driving or shooting someone because you feel they’re evil. There are legal pathways to protest, vote a bad government out or even whistle-blowing – he made his choice.
CNN Newsroom, some of the Wikileaks nay sayers have openly accused Wikileaks of placing US Soldiers at further risk by the large and wide scale exposure from US and Afghani Military classified document postings.
I strongly disagree, US and NATO soldiers have lost their lives because US Commanders did not tell the helicopter pilots and their flight crews that the Pakistani ISI had supplied the Taliban with shoulder fired heat seeking missiles. If they had, those pilots and flight crews would have changed their flight plans to minimize the risk which is much different than evading a RPG fired at their craft.
The largest public administrative 'official' critic of Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal's 'shake and bake' Afghanistan strategy (US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke) was betrayed by a high level leak and two distinct attempts by the Taliban were made on his life. One with a anti-aircraft missile and automatic weapons ambush which failed to bring down the Osprey carrying him, another in a Afghanistan store he planned to enter and survey. The THREE suicide bombers in that store triggered their vests prematurely blowing themselves up mere moments before Ambassador Richard Holbrooke entered!
Ambassador Holbrooke was investigating the failure or success of McChrystal's strategy in Marjah when those attacks targeting him specifically occurred.
In the very least, it appears that Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal attempted to have Ambassador Richard Holbrooke murdered. That 'appearance' right or wrong was entirely unacceptable by President Obama's advisers and I feel the decision to create a exit strategy for Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal began at that time. The eyeopening series of interviews with McChrystal's staff with The Rolling Stone reporter was simply part of that exit strategy being played out.
The Wikileaked documents reveal that a large number of US and NATO soldiers were likely killed directly as a result of the US Commanders not telling the troops that several CIA Special Ops had either by accident or on purpose resulted in a huge number of dead Afghanistan women and children in several botched midnight raids.
Those child massacres directly resulted in a great many villagers and surviving family members picking up arms, planting IED's and likely killing as many American and NATO soldiers as they could find. It appears US Commanders in Afghanistan didn't inform the troops nor warn the troops those hyper-angry villagers were waiting for them to extract revenge.
While the US Pentagon propeller head chair polishers didn't want to 'tarnish' America's image in the Middle East by not disclosing these civilian slaughters took place, IT directly placed American and NATO Soldiers lives at greater risk who walked into a hornet's nest of angry Afghanistan residents without being told and warned beforehand.
I believe that whomever delivered these docucments should be commended as a hero. I am still reading these and plan to read them all. I have not read anything so far that gave up any information that could be identified as a breech in security. On the other hand, they have depicted the actions of our leaders and the actions of Afgan leaders as being dispicable. Too much money flying around and everyone is there for the taking. It is and always has been a war started by greed. On the way, our Bill of Rights are being eroded by the same people that started this "war" by the institution of Homeland Security. Give me my guns and I can protect my family and myself as I have for years without the need for some Government agency that probably won't be there when I need them anyway. I wish someone would open the documents that Bush and Chenney had to have buried for 25 years after they left office and publish them. I'll bet that would be a good read!
The media is so stupid! Seriously! They have no idea what they are talking about. Just because its classified SECRET does not mean its significant. Secret is like the default classification for new reports. Every raw peice of information is submitted as reports like the ones leaked, no matter how rediculous it may be. This is why we have analysts to filter through and cross-reference these reports. The Pakistan Ambassador is the only person with common sense I've seen on CNN since the leak. The news is either completely ignorant or they are seriously trying to hurt our war efforts as much as possible.
Shame on the leakers for alerting the American Public and India that Pakistan has been funneling Billions of American taxpayer dollars from Bush-Cheney to the Pakistani ISI who used those free funds as outlined in reams of ISI and Afghanistan military documents to recruit, train and release suicide bombers against American and NATO troops.
Shame on the leakers for showing reams of documents detailing that American taxpayers were funding both sides of the War in Afghanistan. Place the leakers in prison, how dare America be shown those military intelligence reports. How dare pilots learn about heat seeking missiles fired at them, throw the leakers into prison. How dare American taxpayers learn their money is being used in the most depraved possible way to fund Taliban suicide bombers against American and NATO troops, throw the leaker in prison.
Oh Shame on the leakers for telling American troops that the Pakistani ISI had supplied the Taliban with Heat Seeking shoulder fired missiles so American and NATO pilots and their flight crews can update their flight plans to help protect them from that unknown threat that had been killing their fellow pilots because US Commanders didn't tell them.
Yes, reams of US, NATO, Afghanistan and Pakistani ISI documents reveal Billions of American taxpayer dollars given to Pakistan by Bush-Cheney were funneled to the Pakistani ISI and there to the Taliban fighters killing American and NATO troops. That is a big problem for future American taxpayer support alright.
Reams of military documents indicate the numbers of Taliban suicide bombers trained, equipped and released to murder American and NATO troops by the Pakistani ISI is the most depraved use of American taxpayer dollars in America's entire history period, without exception.
Any Nation Aiding and Supporting State Terrorism, that was the utterly corrupt Republican administration of Bush-Cheney's mantra for attacking any nation on earth. Wikileaks reveals Bush-Cheney was funneling Billions of America's taxpayer dollars into Pakistan who was aiding and supporting State Terrorism making Bush jr. the largest hypocrite on the face of the earth, bar none.
Smith in Oregon, unless you have a military intelligence job in the area and time of the reports you do not know the credibility of the reports. Everything gets reported, even the the obvious lies that some Afghan village elder says to a patrol.
I highly doubt the Afghans still have stingers, especially ones that would still work.
The number of fighters and suicide bombers are frequently reported as 100s or 1000s of times more than they actually are.
Yes, SOME of the Pakistan government is corrupt, but what govenment isn't? As a whole the Pakistan government has been fighting the Taliban, removing safe havens that Insurgens use.
I'd like to break this down further, Barney style for you but there's a character limit. Plus, I think you've been to too many conspiracy theory websites for me to convince you of anything. I mean... why would you want listen to someone who has actually had real experience?
again, just like in the abu graibe fiasco... a lowly grunt is being made the scapegoat for something that, if it was considered so sensitive, should surely have been secured at a higher level...
where are the officers and policy makers who were the custodians of and who held the ultimate responsibility for the security of this information hiding...
just a thought...
–Mike
Wikileaks must be prosecuted for disseminating classified documents.
"It' the Law stupid!"