What's new

Wikileaks : Secret Afghanistan War logs

By the way, Indians make the argument that if Pakistan had proof of India supporting TTP, Pakistan would left no stone unturned to diplomatically attack India. Why nothing similar in this case?

The double standards and hypocrisy is very clear. Attacking us of making conspiracy theories, while making conspiracy theories themselves here. :rolleyes::rolleyes: And no attempt from them to ask for any proof for Pakistani involvement while asking for clear-cut proof of RAW involvement.
 
Last edited:
.
The trend is evident; USA snubbed India on disclosing Headley's revelation for spoiling it efforts to engage Pakistan. Therefore arguments that USA has condemned these reports and is still aiding Pakistan are totally bias to prove Pakistan's Innocence. USA has no other option but to purchase its rights to raise war on terror for logistical and tactical assistance form Pakistan.
Therefore raising doubt on the truth by saying that since USA is not firing all its shots against Pakistan is again weak opinion.

Keeping Pakistan of the hook by saying leaks do not correspond to present situation and is outdated is a sheer hypocrisy cause once friend has to be always friend.

Pakistan's Strategic depth in AF and WOT are contradictory to each other and is only reason for Pakistan's double play.

However the only nation in jeopardy after this is USA, who has risked rest of his alley for the security of America.
Even if we do not mention ISI in this whole exposure, the abuse of power is going to hunt USA and sister concerns for many years to come. There is exceptional tranquility between western nations those who are helping USA for post 9/11 WOT (we all know the reason). Also they have the resources to compensate its bad effects in future by many means. Also I don't think they will ever cross question each other after packing their tents; back home. But where Pakistan will stand while condemning these abuses being a Muslim nation and alley of WOT at the same time. Will Pakistan share its responsibility or will just debunk accusations by people and nation involved, as usual.

Now this is interesting.

When I mention that Pakistan is not going all-out against India (as regards to Indian support for TTP/BLA) due to US pressure, it's called a grand conspiracy theory by Indians.

Now you're saying that US is not going against Pakistan so as to engage Pakistan. Is this a conspiracy theory too, then, by the same standards? Or perhaps Indians want double standards in terms of allegations, proof, theories, etc?
 
.
there has to be a bigger hand in this biggest leak in U.S. history. 90,000 pages more likely they had to be in multiple databases could not have been done with just 1 person. To bypass all the security protocal by U.S. to download these documents means a bigger hand. But who ever leaked these documents will be caught. just like the person who leaked the helicopter incident in iraq.
 
.
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.

Hypothetically, this aid could be a way to strengthen the civilian govt so that it is able to rein in the rogue elements of Pakistani military who are allegedly supporting the Terrorists..

I am not saying whether these leaks are reliable or not.. However there just seems to be too much smoke for the fire to not be there.. i mean, if you look at most of the Think Tank reports coming out of US and Europe, they end up pointing a finger at Pakistan for being in the bed with the terrorists. Either there is something to it or Pakistan has a serious image problem in the West
 
.
US documents leaked
Tuesday, July 27, 2010

ISI accused of secretly helping Taliban; Papers show ‘war crimes’; Iran accused of funding Taliban; US denounces leak, assures of continuing partnership; Islamabad rejects reports as skewed; UK condemns, Kabul welcomes


KABUL/WASHINGTON: Pakistan was actively collaborating with the Taliban in Afghanistan while accepting US aid, new US military reports showed, a disclosure likely to increase the pressure on Pakistan.

The revelations by the organisation Wikileaks emerged as Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned of greater Nato casualties in Afghanistan as violence mounts over the summer.

Contained in more than 90,000 classified documents, the Wikileaks revelations could fuel growing doubts in Congress about US President Barack Obama’s war strategy at a time when the US death toll is soaring. The White House condemned the leak, saying it could threaten national security and endanger the lives of Americans. Pakistan said leaking unprocessed reports from the battlefield was irresponsible.

The documents said representatives from the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) met directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organise militant networks fighting US soldiers. They also spoke about civilian casualties caused by foreign forces while hunting down militants and efforts on some occasions to cover them up.

The Afghan government refused to react specifically to the report but said Kabul had spoken in private and public meetings with its Western allies about the deaths and the “role of ISI in destabilising Afghanistan”. It welcomed the leaks, saying the documents on Pakistan’s activities in Afghanistan could help “raise awareness on the sanctuaries” Islamabad provides for militant groups.

“Over the years, we have raised the issue of civilian casualties and how harmful civilian casualties or collateral damage could be to achieving our joint objective of defeating terrorism in Afghanistan,” government spokesman Waheed Omer said.

He said there have been reductions in civilian deaths over the past one-and-a-half years and that there was a common understanding about the negative impact such incidents have caused and the role of the ISI in supporting the militants.

In April 2007, for instance, the Guardian said the ISI allegedly sent 1,000 motorbikes to Jalaluddin Haqqani, head of the Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked Haqqani network based in Pakistan, to carry out suicide attacks in Afghanistan.

Other reports claimed the ISI and insurgents planned to buy alcohol to mix with poison and use against Nato and Afghan security forces; and accused the ISI of deploying children as suicide bombers.

Another inflammatory report said the spy agency offered 15,000 to 30,000 dollars for the assassination of road workers from India. US national security adviser Jim Jones said the leak would not affect “our ongoing commitment to deepen our partnerships with Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

Jones said such classified information “could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security.” Under the heading “Afghan War Diary”, the 91,000 documents collected from across the US military in Afghanistan cover the war from 2004 to 2010, Wikileaks said in a summary.

One of them discusses a meeting of insurgents attended by a former senior Pakistani intelligence official, who appears to be working against US forces in Afghanistan. Pakistan denounced leaked US intelligence reports as “skewed” and inconsistent with realities on the ground.

Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani denounced the leak of secret files and insisted his nation was fully committed to fighting insurgents. Reports by the UK daily The Guardian, the New York Times and the German weekly Der Spiegel say the leaked papers reveal Nato concerns that neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are helping Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.

They carry allegations that Iran is providing money and arms to Taliban and detail how widespread corruption is hampering a war now in its ninth year. “These are far-fetched and skewed reports, evidently inconsistent with ground realities,” Pakistan’s foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Basit said. “If anything these betray the lack of understanding of the complexities involved,” he said.

The leaks reportedly link the ISI to an assassination plot on Afghan President Hamid Karzai — which never came off — attacks on Nato warplanes, a plot to poison the beer supply of Western troops and the 2008 Indian embassy bombing.

The reports also suggest the Taliban have had access to portable heat-seeking missiles to shoot at aircraft. A secret US unit of army and navy special forces has been engaged on missions to “capture or kill” top insurgents. Many civilian casualties have gone unreported, both as a result of Taliban roadside bombs and Nato missions that went wrong.

The head of the Foreign Relations Committee in the US Senate said that “however illegally these documents came to light, they raise serious questions about the reality of America’s policy towards Pakistan and Afghanistan.”

“Those policies are at a critical stage and these documents may very well underscore the stakes and make the calibrations needed to get the policy right more urgent,” said Democrat Senator John Kerry.

Britain said it regretted the leaking of tens of thousands of secret military files about the Afghanistan war which have thrown the spotlight on civilian deaths there.

“We would lament all unauthorised releases of classified material,” a Downing Street spokeswoman said. “The White House has made a statement. We will not comment on leaked documents,” she said.

Germany demanded close scrutiny of claims about Iranian and Pakistani aid to the Taliban, as Britain expressed hopes that leaked documents would not “poison” the Afghan war effort.

“We have to examine what new information there could be” within thousands of secret files released, German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle said on the sidelines of talks with his EU counterparts.

German General Egon Ramms, responsible for Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Afghanistan, called for greater vigilance after the leak of secret US military documents.

“At the moment we always actually have to wait until papers or documents are pushed out into the open via leaks, but that obliges even more to work with the greatest care,” he said.

“We are not waging our own war in Afghanistan but acting on political orders,” Ramms told the online edition of Germany’s economic daily Handelsblatt. Meanwhile, the Wikileaks founder said they showed that the “course of the war needs to change”.

Julian Assange of Wikileaks also used a press conference in London to state that “thousands” of war crimes may have been committed in Afghanistan. “It is up to a court to decide clearly whether something is in the end a crime. That said, prima facie there does appear to be evidence of war crimes in this material,” he said.

He cited an example of a missile strike on a house which killed seven children. When asked whether the leaks would have any bearing on planned international troop withdrawals in the next few years, he said: “I think it’s too early to say yet.”

“It’s clear that it will shape understanding of what the past six years of war have been like and that the course of the war needs to change,” he said. Asked what he hoped would come from the leaks, he added: “Hopefully a deep understanding and scrutiny of the war in Afghanistan and hopefully a change in policy about prosecution of the war and a deep consideration given... into how they want it to continue.”

US documents leaked
 
.
Hypothetically, this aid could be a way to strengthen the civilian govt so that it is able to rein in the rogue elements of Pakistani military who are allegedly supporting the Terrorists..

I am not saying whether these leaks are reliable or not.. However there just seems to be too much smoke for the fire to not be there.. i mean, if you look at most of the Think Tank reports coming out of US and Europe, they end up pointing a finger at Pakistan for being in the bed with the terrorists. Either there is something to it or Pakistan has a serious image problem in the West

Sure, it's a possibility.

But I don't see how the aid would strengthen the government as the aid would be used for projects under US over-watch. Besides, the US government is also providing aid to the military.

Here's the interesting part, however. There was $10B aid provided to Musharraf government - not civilian government involved. That was particularly the period where ISI is alleged to have supported Taliban. They were ready to sell us 76 F-16s as well as that time. So it doesn't add up that they would give us 10B aid, sell us latest weapons, etc, if they knew we were supporting Taliban. Remember, no civilian government involved in this case. And you're talking about republicans, who are more ruthless than democrats when it comes to wars.
 
.
Another inflammatory report said the spy agency offered 15,000 to 30,000 dollars for the assassination of road workers from India. US national security adviser Jim Jones said the leak would not affect “our ongoing commitment to deepen our partnerships with Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

1. ISI simply does not have that big of a budget.
2. I am not sure what others think but I'd think a lot more Indian road workers would be killed if this were true.
3. It serves absolutely no interest to kill road workers. Additionally, it would be a grand waste of money. Sure, attacking Indian consulates, RAW agents (at least people whom ISI believes to be RAW agents), would make sense. But not this.
 
.
Has any US spokesperson come right out and pointed to the fact that these reports against the ISI are raw and unverifiable data?

That they have chosen to be ambiguous about the issue and neither confirm nor deny to me suggests either culpability in the leak (there is really little that is significantly damaging to the US war effort in the leaks, when you look at them further), or at the least duplicitous behavior in taking advantage of the leak to pressure Pakistan by implying through the lack of a categorical denial that the unverified reports have a degree of credibility.

Wikileaks does what it does - but the US, as the source (deliberate or inadvertent), through its approach in handling the content of the leaks related to Pakistan has certainly shown ill will and duplicity.

Various US spokespeople gave interviews and held press conferences today - none pointed out the obvious, that this was unprocessed and unverified intel.

Yes, very true statement, but it really relies on the Stupid American public to change the current ruling organization to make it into False statement!!! Won't you agree? and the possibility of the changing the house into Republicans in November, based on these reports...
 
.
You can post more information, provided it is new. Highlighting the same claims again and again, just because they are repeated by a different source, is not 'new information' though.
But same information reported from different sources does provide a variable perspective on the same issue. Why should that be a problem??


IF you do find credible evidence that is verifiable and not false, do share it with us. As of now most, if not all, is unverifiable and false.

Unverifiable.. Yes...

False.. umm... you dont know that yet....

Just like this information is not proven to be true, its also not proven to be false. Thats the deal with journalism. They dont carry the burden of proof. They simply report it. Now its up to the govts to prove it true or false, or to just ignore it.
 
.
^ The innocent until proven guilty rule should apply then.
 
.
Sure, it's a possibility.

But I don't see how the aid would strengthen the government as the aid would be used for projects under US over-watch. Besides, the US government is also providing aid to the military.

Here's the interesting part, however. There was $10B aid provided to Musharraf government - not civilian government involved. That was particularly the period where ISI is alleged to have supported Taliban. They were ready to sell us 76 F-16s as well as that time. So it doesn't add up that they would give us 10B aid, sell us latest weapons, etc, if they knew we were supporting Taliban. Remember, no civilian government involved in this case. And you're talking about republicans, who are more ruthless than democrats when it comes to wars.

Thats a good point.. However, the Republican govt was actually using more strong arm tactics with Pakistan including setting India up in Afghanistan to extract their pound of flesh. I think the Obama adminstration is trying a little more finesse in pressurizing Pakistan and also keeping an eye on the 2012 elections. Do remember that 98% of the papers are more damaging to the US govt and only a small number of those leaks point a finger at Pakistan. It would be interesting to see if the other stuff is used to discredit the Republican adminsitration now that elections are approaching in next 2 years..
 
.
^ The innocent until proven guilty rule should apply then.

True.. These reports are similar to a news story which can not be used in a court of law.. But that does not make them false, simply unproven (either way). Lets see if the stakeholders bite and try to prove these true or false..

Unfortunately, in the field of world opinion, innocent till proven guilty does not apply. The more sensational the news, higher the credibility... Unfortunate but true.. However not looking at this incident in isolation, there is just too much of Blame Pakistan happening over last few months.. Some time blatanly by such reports (there have been a couple others in recent past) and sometimes little more diplomatically like what Clinton and Mullen did..
 
. .
Pakistan is in bigger trouble. From the latest developments looks to me Pakistan is next in line for WOT.

Similar things happened before Iraq attack. India needs to be very careful and need to secure border and intelligence agency should be in high alert.

-Agni.
 
.
Unverifiable.. Yes...
False.. umm... you dont know that yet....
Just like this information is not proven to be true, its also not proven to be false. Thats the deal with journalism. They dont carry the burden of proof. They simply report it. Now its up to the govts to prove it true or false, or to just ignore it.

Karan, these leaks were very vulnerable to be leaked since the war is still on. These are (most) daily notes and non edited version of whole war. It will be almost impossible for any one to prove it as someone involve would like to, because the revelation are against someone who is extremely strong to counter.

USA may risk its relation with Pakistan (vise a verse) but this will have its implications on USA's reputation as torch bearer of human rights el al and typical Hollywood image of anti Russian propaganda during their invasion of same Afghanistan.

Unfortunately all party involve will come clean out of this cause all involved have symbiosis and immunity of dependency against each other. Also the nation who is taking the whole toll is a century backwards and is dependent on them. There is no body here to act as devil's advocate for them.
 
.

Pakistan Affairs Latest Posts

Country Latest Posts

Back
Top Bottom