The "Pentagon Papers" vs. the "Afghanistan Papers" at Wikileaks

Propublica does a terrific job of showing both the similarities and differences between the "Pentagon Papers" release by Daniel Ellsberg some 40 years ago and the Wikileaks release of 92,000 classified documents this week (see my earlier entry on this, from this weekend): http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/sheehan-interview. According to Wikeleaks' founder, Julian Assange, there are more documents to come out on this, too. Stay tuned, campers.

Daniel Ellsberg's "Pentagon Papers"?

Not only is the US, in my opinion--and a lot of other people's, too--in a quagmire ala' Vietnam, but we're in two, I think--Iraq and Afghanistan, obviously. But now, with the release on Wikileaks of the approximate 92,000 papers of classified documents on this Afghanistan debacle--I mean war--we get another, new comparison of this conflict with the loss for us that was Vietnam. This leak, I believe, will be compared at least loosely, if not directly, to Daniel Ellsberg's "Pentagon Papers" because they tell us more of what the actual situation is over in Afghanistan, instead of the glossed-over version we've gotten for the last decade from first one presidential administration and now this one. To wit: A six-year archive of classified military documents made public on Sunday offers an unvarnished, ground-level picture of the war in Afghanistan that is in many respects more grim than the official portrayal. The secret documents, released on the Internet by an organization called WikiLeaks, are a daily diary of an American-led force often starved for resources and attention as it struggled against an insurgency that grew larger, better coordinated and more deadly each year. The New York Times, the British newspaper The Guardian and the German magazine Der Spiegel were given access to the voluminous records several weeks ago on the condition that they not report on the material before Sunday. The documents — some 92,000 reports spanning parts of two administrations from January 2004 through December 2009 — illustrate in mosaic detail why, after the United States has spent almost $300 billion on the war in Afghanistan, the Taliban are stronger than at any time since 2001. This will, at minimum, make it much more difficult for this administration to do as it pleases in that country and likely make it more likely attacks on our progress and lack of it to come from both the Republicans and the President's own party, let alone the Libertarians and "Tea Party" members. In warning to President Obama, I think I'd quote Margo Channing from "All About Eve" to say "Fasten your seatbelts—it's gonna be a bumpy night!" Link to original story: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/world/asia/26warlogs.html?no_interstitial