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Senator Kerry has pointed out that there is very little new information about the Afghan War in the documents released by WikiLeaks:
WASHINGTON — The leak of tens of thousands of classified U.S. military documents on the Afghan war, while illegal, has little significance for policymaking, Sen. John Kerry said Tuesday.
Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the documents posted on the Internet on Sunday revealed little that was not already known to U.S. officials.
“I think it’s important not to overhype or get excessively excited about the meaning of those documents,” Kerry said at the outset of a committee hearing on prospects for negotiating an end to the Afghan war.
He said the release was unlawful and could potentially endanger U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
But he also said the secret documents should be given little weight because in many cases they reflect raw intelligence, not carefully calibrated assessments of trends on the ground. Some of the documents, Kerry said, are “completely dismissible,” but others are not.
ZombieTory // Jul 27, 2010 at 1:37 pm
David, I think Kerry should have won your summer contest.
busboy33 // Jul 27, 2010 at 7:45 pm
I don’t know if he should win, but I do think that being sucsessfully redundant should be called “Pulling a Kerry”.
msmilack // Jul 27, 2010 at 8:58 pm
I appreciate what Senator Kerry had to say. I am relieved nothing of vital importance was revealed, especially thinking of the Navy soldier who was recently captured; I’d hate to picture the enemy doing to him what they might read we did to one of theirs. Much as I appreciate freedom of information (e.g. the Pentagon Papers), in this case I have no reason to believe the people disseminating the papers necessarily know how to vet them. If the goal was just to show how hard war is, then perhaps they purposely did not release anything valuable or recent but I am still confused by what the larger goal was and if they acted in any way responsibly with this material.
Derek // Jul 27, 2010 at 10:04 pm
The Democrats have known about the war crimes for a long time now. Its not as if this new information will make them do anything about it. Nothing new, move along.
msmilack // Jul 28, 2010 at 12:07 am
Derek
I think you’re right but I suppose theoretically this could force someone’s hand. It’s weird though to be revealing war crimes committed on a different president’s watch during the war as it continues. Why and how would Obama possibly deal with it in present time? It’s not possible even if he wanted to which he clearly does not.
busboy33 // Jul 28, 2010 at 1:33 am
@msmilack:
Granted all of this is mixed in with the fact that the WikiLeak guy is a zealot of breaking secrets, for better or worse, and the water gets murky — agreed.
But it seems to be a catch-22 if the people trying to demonstrate how we need a new strategy are prohibited from using the evidence that demonstrsates the need for a new strategy because all the evidence is classified . . . especially if the information apparently can be released without triggering violence or danger (that we know of so far).
Derek // Jul 28, 2010 at 8:05 am
msmilack Obama has kicked things up in Afghanistan. He doesn’t care about the war crimes because he is very likely committing them as well, just like Bush. Democrats and Republicans are two sides of the same coin.