Binoy Kampmark: You’ve been Wikileaked

Wikileaks is proving to be a gem of surveillance and discovery. Having exposed an assortment of brutalities, censorship farces, and government duplicity since its inception, the organisation has managed several information coups over the last few years. The latest is notably one of its most significant ones, the compilation of some 92,000 reports from January 2004 to December 2009 detailing why the Taliban, despite the drawing of $300 billion from US coffers, remains active. So confident has Wikileaks become that it has managed to feed the material on conditions to such papers as The Guardian, Der Spiegel and the New York Times.

The enterprising founder of this whistle blowing concern, Julian Assange, argues that the release ‘will show the true nature of this war. And then the public from Afghanistan and other nations can see what is really going on and take steps to address the problems’ (Newshour, Jul 26).

A few nasties, the sort administrations would rather the public did not know, have come to light. The Taliban, for one, have been using various heat-seeking missiles against coalition aircraft. This is hardly a revelation, though it is an uncomfortable reality for the forces stationed in Afghanistan. Not all the weapons funnelled to the Mujahadeen by the CIA in its war against he Soviets were used. Enemies have a habit of changing.

US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and National Security Advisor General James Jones are furious, but have little reason to be. Wikileaks was obligated, according to these wise men, to contact the US government. On the one hand, they are convinced that US and Coalition security has been compromised. On the other, they claim that the documents do not reveal anything we did not already know, namely, that the situation is messy, the allies unreliable and the Taliban determined. The fury seems to lie less in the information than the act of telling it.

The reflex action is also familiar – once exposed, the orthodox priests of the intervention find comfort in the same line they have been parroting for almost a decade. In the words of Jones, ‘We know that serious challenges lie ahead, but if Afghanistan is permitted to slide backwards, we will again face a threat from violent extremist groups like al Qaeda who will have more space to plot and train…. The United States remains committed to a strong, stable, and prosperous Afghanistan.’ That none of these ingredients exists is surely problematic, but the security establishment priests mix in different circles. Even pundits of security such as Richard Haass of the Council of Foreign Relations are pessimistic. ‘It reinforces my sense of concern about how difficult this is going to be’ (USA Today, Jul 26).

The Pakistanis are furious, and the government is suspicious about the timing of the release. For a few on that aisle of politics, the idea of unleashing material without a ‘filter’ to the media is a dangerous thing. Dangerous, perhaps, but only for Pakistani credibility. Billions are being pumped into the Pakistani security complex, one that has fingers in every pie of the ‘terrorist’ establishment. The finger points squarely at the intelligence agency, the ISI, something the documents merely affirm.

Insurgencies and counter-insurgencies can prove remorseless, and the kill and capture program of the Obama administration has become more vigorous. It you can’t convert them, shoot them. The pretence of a ‘global war on terror’ might have been dropped from the operating lexicons, but we are left with an accelerating conflict of assassination and capture. Some 70 top insurgent commanders feature, targets of special units of Army and Navy special operatives. Needless to say, the kills might be coming, but civilians form part of the carnage.

The only comfort, and that is rather scant for those backing the operation, is that these reports show less deception on the part of Washington than it did in its previous, unwinnable war. Perhaps reality, having now assumed such proportions, will now affect the making of policy on this futile conflict.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

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