Taking American Public for a ride

'A huge cache of secret US military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency.

The disclosures come from more than 90,000 records of incidents and intelligence reports about the conflict obtained by the whistleblowers' website Wikileaks in one of the biggest leaks in US military history. The files, which were made available to the Guardian, the New York Times and the German weekly Der Spiegel, give a blow-by-blow account of the fighting over the last six years, which has so far cost the lives of more than 320 British and more than 1,000 US troops.' - The Guardian.

The White House response to the leaks has been stunning.'Irresponsible leak','risk to National security'..!!


''These irresponsible leaks will not impact our ongoing commitment to deepen our partnerships with Afghanistan and Pakistan,'' President Barack Obama's National Security Advisor Jim Jones said in a statement.


It's time the American public decide,what is risky to America.Continuing to live in a fools paradise and providing massive aid to a country (pakistan),which is directly involved in the killing of American soldiers in Afghanistan or a leak which provides the public an opportunity to understand the truth.


The truth of the blatant double game being played by America's trusted 'War on Terror' ally.Other things in the leak are peripheral.The most important factor to consider here is why on earth a rouge nation is being rewarded for it's back-stabbings..'


Deccan Herald reports :
"
A massive cache of leaked Pentagon documents on the Afghan war highlights the role that Pakistan's intelligence service plays in destabilising Afghanistan, Afghan president's spokesman said Monday.

Kabul has long accused Islamabad of providing support and sanctuary for militant groups that plan, fund and carry out attacks in Afghanistan.

The whistleblowing website Wikileaks made public 92,000 Pentagon files and field reports about deaths of innocent civilians, Pakistani agents meeting the Taliban and Iran secretly furnished it with money, arms and training.

The Kabul government welcomed the leaks, saying the documents on Pakistan's activities in Afghanistan could help "raise awareness on the sanctuaries" Islamabad provides for militant groups.

"Since 2006, since the first suicide bombing, we have talked about the role of (Pakistan's) intelligence services," Waheed Omar, President Hamid Karzai's spokesman, told reporters.

"We need more understanding and awareness on the sanctuaries and I hope the leaked documents can raise the level of awareness on that question," he said.

"We hope they (Pakistan) will take practical steps that convince everyone they don't support them," he said, referring to militant groups that include the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network.

Omar said the Kabul government had been "shocked" at the volume of documents but had found nothing new in their content.

Afghanistan's national security adviser this month called on the Pakistani government to "take serious measures" against Islamist groups launching attacks on Afghan targets from secure havens inside Pakistan.

Rangin Dadfar Spanta said that throughout nine years of Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan, Pakistani authorities had failed to take action against the groups taking refuge on their side of the porous border.

Afghan officials have blamed a number of major attacks on Pakistani-based groups whom they say are supported by Pakistan's intelligence and military.
Such militants were blamed for blowing up the Serena Hotel in Kabul in 2008, attacking the Indian embassy, other Indian targets and a UN guesthouse in October that led to a mass withdrawal from Afghanistan of UN staff.

"

The Guardian reports :
"
Hamid Karzai is said to be shocked by the massive leak of classified military documents, but to be hoping further allegations of links between Pakistan and the Taliban will support his claim that Islamabad is directly supporting the insurgency.

Waheed Omar, the Afghan president's spokesman, told journalists the Afghan government would not seek to exploit revelations of previously unknown incidents in which Nato troops have killed Afghan civilians, even though in the past Karzai has publicly berated the US and its allies after high-profile tragedies.

Omar said: "As far as the substance of these leaked documents, the president's reaction was that most of this is not new and has been discussed in the past, and has often been raised in the past with our international partners."

Omar praised the "good progress" made over the last 18 months to lower the number of civilians accidentally killed.

General Stanley McChrystal, the recently sacked US commander of Nato troops in Afghanistan, took the issue particularly seriously and introduced tough rules of engagement restricting the use of force by foreign soldiers.

Meanwhile, William Hague, the foreign secretary, speaking in Brussels, said the leaks would not harm international efforts in Afghanistan. "A good deal of progress is being made, in building up the capacity of the Afghan state and in Afghanistan working together with so many nations in the world," he said.

"So I hope any such leaks will not poison that atmosphere, and I don't think they will."

But observers in Kabul warned that allegations of Pakistani involvement – while not new – could heighten tensions with Afghanistan's neighbour. .

Haroun Mir, a political analyst, Karzai critic and parliamentary candidate, predicted that the intelligence documents alleging skulduggery by Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence agency (ISI) would make it harder for the coalition to tolerate anything less than full Pakistani support in fighting the Taliban.

"For us, this is no secret – it is something we have been talking about since day one. But now there is no secret left. These are no longer allegations; these are facts," he said.

"It is up to the US and the UK to do something about it. Every day we see Nato soldiers die and Pakistan is very clearly linked to these killings, but there is no reaction. The west just rewards bad behaviour by the Pakistanis."

He said that when the details are re-reported by Afghan media, they will fuel popular conspiracy theories that the western powers are not serious about beating the Taliban and instead are looking for excuses for the permanent occupation of Afghanistan.

Any anti-Pakistani uproar will probably disrupt the detente between Karzai and Pakistan's leadership.

For months now Karzai has pointedly dropped his old anti-Pakistani rhetoric, and has held a series of meetings with Pakistan's army chief, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and Ahmad Shuja Pasha, the head of the ISI – the very organisation cited in the documents as being part of an alleged plot to assassinate the Afghan president.

Mir said: "We have all been trying to warn President Karzai that you cannot trust the Pakistanis. They are not co-operating with the US and the UK, so why should they co-operate with Afghanistan?"

"