Apparently such assumptions are not borne out by results. Already sensitive information has been discovered in the released documents, so if those were the news organizations best people then that doesn't say much about their competence.

Now some folks might say that these oversights are acceptable but I would bet it's not their families who are put at risk.

Letting the war run on like in past years - in hiding and over illusive goals - puts even more families at risk, also causes more civilian deaths and thus directly raising hostility by the Afghan people. Their loyalty already is minor only, and aids given to Afghanistan to wide degree get used by local warloards to battle each other for their own power.

Losses in war are no just matter, but mathematics. that's not fair, that is not moral, but fairness and morals have nothign to do with it. Either you have low losses, or high ones. and if you accept high losses, then the issue really should be worth it. I think the sisue is not worth it, and thus we shoudl try to minimise losses now until we have gotten out there. And we should get there soon, since there is nothing we can improve anymore. We make things worse by being there.

Let's turn this into a porper coutner-terrorism operation: infiltrating the ISI and the Afghan and the Talebans, targetting Pakistani key personal and Iranian key personal. Counter terror operations is no big war business with flags and fanfares and the cavalry charging. It is good "police" work, investigation work, infiltration, intel gathering, special operations, counter espionage.

And since years I say that one needs to start fighting against the Pakistani, their intel service as well as the taliban sympthising part of their majors, colonels and generals. Get rid of that breed, and keep the size of the follow-up breed as small as possible.

and stop paying billions and billions to the Pakistani for their "assistance" in the war on terror. One could as well pay the Taliban directly, or launch terror bombs in Kashmir against the Indians oneself. with "friends" like the Pakistani you do not need "enemies" anymore.

Lets get outta there. It's just tapping around blindly inside the afghan maze. It leads nowhere.

If the documents are "old" or not, is irrelevant. What is relevant, is that PFC acted on his own, abused his position, abused his security clearance, and distributed classified documents without authorization. His actions were belligerent, go against the oath he took, and put Operational Security at risk. That's what's relevant, and hopefully he will answer for it to the fullest extent allowed by the UCMJ and civil law.

In in my opinion he's also guilty of a gross and dishonorable dereliction of duty. He may as well have walked over to any number of our enemies and personally handed them the documents himself.

The lives of all people, soldiers and civilians that get needlessly killed while continuing a war in hiding and over a casue that is alreaedy lost, weighs much heavier.

If operational security is breached, then I wonder why the US commander in West Afghanistan has said that they hve not changed strategies or procedures due to the breach. Maybe becasue info that is 6 months to 6 years old, is not that sensitive anymore at all? However, that all is not the point. The point is that this leak increases pressure to withdraw - and it does so by fueling critical questions being asked, revealing that the war runs much worse than what we are made to believe, and strengthening resistence to continuing the war. This war must end, because it only produces costs, but no gains, and cannot be "won" anymore. All loss in life, and all destruction - is in vein. Compared to that goal of trying to reduce these wasted, needless losses of the imminent future by getting out of Afghanistan, your complains are just bureaucratic formalities. yes, the guy leaking it, acted against rules and laws. Compared to the crime of the government to will the needless loss of money, time, life, health and material - just to hide that the war has been messed up -, his crime is so small that it means almost nothing. the much bigger treachery has been committed by the government(s), and that means not only the Us government but the german and British as well. german illusions are different than American illusions, but illusions is it what both governments are driven by.

Everything that makes western nations finally getting out there earlier than later, is acceptable to me. It is not acceptable in principle, and I would not will it in any given case - but in this situation of most urgent emergency and speciality and un-normality, un-normal irregular ways seem to be the only thing that could get governments moving their treacherous a#####. Becasue they are out of control by legal means. The mission is a disaster, and this disaster has to be stopped immediately, better yesterday, better six years ago. We are 6 years over time already. Thousands of troops and civilians payed with their lives in these six years - for nothing. We won no friends, we just increased the number of our enemies and turned once neutral civilians into hostiles. By dpoing so, we have formed a wonderful harbour for the Taliban to land in and to establish themnselves again once we are gone there. and do not deceive yourself - you will not defeat the Taliban there. Not as long as you have not blown Pakistan to the dark side of the moon first. For them, Afgjanistan is part of their war against India, it means what military planners and analysts call "strategic depth" to their setup. And they will not give it up.

Because if he were to change strategies, or say he will change the strategies, it would clue-in the people reading the documents which ones were accurate and which were not. What the military/government is engaged in now is called "spill control", which means above all else, don't make the information spill worse by confirming or refuting any of the claims made by people unauthorized to handle the material.

Please keep in mind that what a general says to the public and what the general really thinks and does may be very different. This is a case where the professionals need to handle this situation.

I wonder how many informants, plus their friends and family, are going to wind up dead because of this.

Sometimes I think freedom of the press has gone too far.

This could also be a giant disinformation campaign designed to sow distrust and suspicion among and between AQ the Taliban and the Pak intelligence service. Think about it, 92k documents largely about what is already publicly known but with a few names and events ad"ded.

Now maybe some of these were redacted by Spiegels and the NYT's "Intelligence Analysts" but we all know that the complete versions of the notes will become public soon enough.

There is nothing wrong with freedom of the press as long as there is a concomitant responsibility of the press.

I am afraid that the press, now being in the entertainment business, has forgone any "responsibility of the press".

Everyone cries for freedom, but fewer recognize that for every freedom there is an associated responsibility.

Freedom without responsibility is anarchy.

So the claims of how hurtful some infos leaked are - could also be "spill control" in an effort to discredit wikileaks? So we have contradicting efforts of spill control - some claiming that the data released is dangerous enoiugh to put poperations and lives at risk, others claiming that it is not dangerous enough to change operations or protecting lives. I assume this confusion raised also is part of the smoke screen.

What is clear now, at least, are two things: what is flying around in attacks and critcism now, should not all taken literally. And that the real thing people now bang their heads over, is not so much the documents themselves, but the question they have brutally pushed into the focus of public attention again: should the war fought on, or should one end it. And obviosuly regarding the latter question two camps collide that could not be more apart.

I can only quote one distant friend of mine, who served two terms in Afghanistan as officer in the staff of the Bundeswehr there, and who said in resignation already in late 2007 to me: "Was wir in Afghanistan gefunden haben, ist ein Haufen Scheiße. Und unser Ministerium (defence ministry, he meant) exportiert noch mehr Scheiße nach Afghanistan." With the latter he meant the German naivety and illusions and the lacking plltiical support grounded on a sense of realism. Many german officers and the official political opinion in germany, are lightyears apart. Last time I telephoned with him, was Spring this year. He only said "Es stinkt."

The impact wasn't as great over here as you're imagining it was.

Nor would it make an inch of difference to soldiers that were killed because the American people were blindfolded.

So anything less than 100% perfection = "piss poor job" while screwing up most of them (are they even trying to solve the questions?) by the other side = "OK"?

There is a case to be made, to be fair, for the relative severity of screwing up, but when the error rate difference is looking to be orders of magnitude, to the point the picture being painted actually warps, things are different.

Besides, if you must think that way, the US military and government must take some of the blame. It is actually their job to intelligently decide the minimum set of data that must be held secret, and then release the rest.

In failing to do so and taking the lazy (or butt-covering?) path of classifying as many things as they think they can get away with, they have not only failed one of their duties, but they ensure that if it ever leaks, something like this is going to happen.

But here and in Britain, it seems. The headlines in the national mpapers give me the impression that every nation seems to focus on a different slice of the pie, if that wordgame is allowed. In the US the pakistani connection seems to be the major theme, in Germany it is the US commandos in the German sector, and the German reports about inadequate mission handling, lacking equipment and political naivety.

Right now it is not certain anymore that the government will get through another extension of the mission for one year. and the left opposition is especially pissed by US commandos not capturing but assassinating key personell of the enemy in the German sector. Don't forget that Germans still fight over the question whether or not this is a war at all. We both probably can agree that this complaint is naive and pathetic, but it has the potential to fundamentally change the political support for the mission in Germany, even more since doubts also have caught conservatives, and the Dutch are in full pull-out currently - which serves as a precedent example for some.

But Mr. Obama said Afghanistan was a just war, the correct war. It was Iraq which was the unjust and evil imperialism.

Should I believe the US CinC or Julian Assange ?

Relative severity is debatable but totally irrelevant to the point that myself and some others here are trying to make. Regardless of your favorit side in the issue it is obvious that all Assange has done is double the number of screw up sources.

Taliban Says It Will Target Names Exposed by WikiLeaks
Militants were alerted to the leaked documents, which reveal details of informants, by news reports.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/30/t...html?GT1=43002