13 September 2010

Wikileaks Iraq: Bigger, Longer and Uncut

According to Newsweek, Wikileaks is at it again, reportedly collaborating with a London-based news organization to release another trove of classified documents, this time from the Iraq War. Sources claim that this collection is three times larger than the infamous "Afghan War Diary".

Detestable? Themistocles' Shade certainly thinks so, and I'm inclined to agree with him.

Yet, what's surprising about the Afghan War Diary wasn't so much what it revealed—little contained within the 70,000 documents came as a shock—but what they didn't reveal. For all of Bradley Manning's talk of uncovering "horrible war crimes", there were none to be found in Afghanistan. I suspect much will be the same with the Iraq War documents. Sure, some sources have claimed that the documents depict a "bloodbath" in Iraq, but that should be no surprise to those who paid attention to the war between 2004 and 2007.

There is, of course, the issue of revealing the identities of those who have worked with US forces during the course of the war. This was a very real concern in Afghanistan, though I doubt it would be as great an issue in Iraq. Insurgent groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) are broken, likely never to return in force. They have zero chance of usurping control of Iraq's government and instigating reprisals, as the Taliban could.

Which brings me to my question for the gallery: How badly have the Taliban been striking back at those who have worked with NATO in Afghanistan?

Update: The Pentagon scrambles to mitigate the damage from Wikileaks' latest salvo.

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