Afghanistan wave 4
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***AT: Wikileaks reportsNo Impact to WikileaksNo effect of the wikileaks--- they don’t tell us anything we didn’t already know Dhume, 10 (7/29/10, Sadanand, The Austrailian, “Pakistan plays a double game,” lexis,) PERHAPS the most surprising thing about the so-called Afghanistan war logs released by WikiLeaks is our continued capacity to be shocked. That the war isn't going as well as advertised is already painfully evident. Allegations of Pakistani double-dealing -- of accepting a torrent of American dollars with one hand, while arming and sheltering the Taliban with the other -- are hardly new. Nor are revelations that the country's Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence has apparently perfected its own version of don't ask, don't tell. Don't ask your clandestine operatives too many questions about their ties with Islamist militants, and don't tell the Americans more than the minimum required to keep the aid faucet open. But the detail gives the leaked documents their punch. Even if some of their gaudier revelations -- say a plot to sell American troops poisoned alcohol -- need to be taken with a grain of salt, they nonetheless create a bleak picture of life on the ground for US troops. Wikileaks won’t have any effect on changing US policy in Afghanistan Markey, 10- Senior Fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia (7/26/10, Daniel, “Wikileaks: The revelations that aren’t,” Council of Foreign Relations, http://www.cfr.org/publication/22696/wikileaks.html) The online release of a mountain of U.S. intelligence documents is tantalizing for being stamped "secret," sensational because of WikiLeaks' impressive media strategy, and politically relevant because it arrives in an atmosphere of increasing disillusionment over prospects for victory in Afghanistan. But very little in these documents is fundamentally new or different from what we've been hearing for years. Above all, anyone shocked to learn that the Taliban have supporters in Pakistan, including elements within the Pakistan intelligence services, has not been paying attention. Some of the juicy rumors contained in the documents--of secret meetings between Taliban leaders and Pakistan's former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief, or the ISI training of suicide bombers--have circulated widely for some time. But after sifting through this small mountain of text, the New York Times and other media outlets still failed to find what would qualify as new "smoking gun" evidence of Pakistani ISI connections with terrorists operating in Afghanistan. The reality is that they don't need any new information. On numerous occasions the U.S. government has publicly implicated the ISI in terrorist activities, notably in the attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul perpetrated by the Haqqani network of Afghan Taliban with ISI support. On August 1, 2008, two of the New York Times reporters who helped write today's WikiLeaks story had a lead story headlined: "Pakistanis Aided Attack in Kabul, U.S. Officials Say." The United States and Pakistan do not have a normal alliance. The relationship is infused with deep contradictions, including the fact that Pakistan behaves in ways simultaneously helpful and harmful to U.S. interests. Americans must come to understand that Pakistan is internally divided in a national debate over what direction the country should take regarding militancy and extremism and their role in the region. For decades--in many ways, since Pakistan's very founding--Islamabad has supported militant groups to pressure Afghanistan and India. That practice persists. The real question is what the United States ought to do about it. The Obama administration is trying to build a stronger relationship with Pakistan's civilian and military leaders, hoping to coax them in a more positive direction. At the same time, armed U.S. drones patrol Pakistani airspace and launch missiles against al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders. U.S. diplomats, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, publicly praise Pakistan's military operations along the Afghan border and then--more often privately than in public--express concerns that Pakistan must do far more.
If the Department of Defense's leadership is to be believed -- and I for one, believe them -- Pakistan has put a lid on ISI. No doubt the Pakistani experience with its own Taliban gave the military and intelligence community something to think about. Equally, the Karzai government has gone out of its way to work with Islamabad, often to the chagrin of New Delhi. And no one denies that civilian loss of life, a by-product of every war ever fought, has diminished since General McChrystal issued new rules of engagement that themselves have frustrated many in the military (proving yet again that one cannot satisfy everyone -- would WikiLeaks have leaked disgruntlement with the new ROE's? I doubt it.) The people behind WikiLeaks make no secret of their opposition to the Afghan war. Some would like to see American troops prosecuted as war criminals. WikiLeaks sees itself as providing the world with the Pentagon Papers Redux, though no one in his or her right mind could compare the Gulf of Tonkin incident that prompted the Vietnam War buildup with the destruction of the World Trade Center. That says more about the WikiLeaks crowd than about the sins their papers purport to reveal. At the end of the day, the WikiLeaks papers will change few opinions. Those who want us out of Afghanistan will cite them ad nauseum; those who recognize the stakes for what they are -- the need to preclude that country from once again serving as a breeding ground for al Qaeda and their copycats -- will give them short shrift. What matters more is whether General Petraeus can affect the turnaround that made him a war hero in Iraq. If he does, the WikiLeaks papers will make good grist for historians' footnotes, and nothing more. Directory: files files -> Answer True False 2 points Question 2 files -> Integer programming and game theory files -> 4 Integer Programming files -> Bpa vehicle Window Repair Scenario #1 task: Procure vehicle window relacement. Objective files -> Pop Warner History files -> North Carolina Inclusion Initiative Mapping Where Children with ieps are Being Served Purpose files -> Fall 2013 Spring 2014 Program Data: Standard 1 Exhibit 4d files -> Hanban – asia society confucius classrooms network 2010 request for proposal files -> Northern England’s set-jetting locations Download 0.66 Mb. Share with your friends:
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