Countdown had a nice Bush tax cuts segment, including an interview with David Cay Johnston (this guy). Johnston is always very clear and very specific. (I'm including the whole piece, including the lead-in bit from Meet the Press. The Johnston interview starts at 3:58.)
So from Johnston we learn:
The Bush tax cuts were financed with $2.4 trillion in borrowed money.
Interest alone on that: All income taxes paid in January & February of this year. (That's 1/6th, if you got through grade school math.)
Right now, Small Business needs domestic demand, not tax cuts, to be profitable.
Which prompts me to ask, does Big Business need domestic demand? Because the rich are doing everything they can to kill it, and when the subject is money, those folks aren't stupid. (That's not a facetious question, by the way; it's worth pursuing. Do the rich still need the U.S. consumer?)
About that "relentless questioning" by David Gregory, I have the same media curiosity I had before. Assuming Gregory's not off the reservation, it seems he's busting Boehner's chops because:
The fix is in to kill the Big Boy tax cuts, and this is his piece of it; or
The fix is in to extend the tax cuts, and he's burnishing populist cred in spite of that.
Either way, he's leaving an actual mark on GOP chops — not something you normally see on the Sunday talks.
Fox says that the Kingdom Foundation "funds terror groups."
The Prince also funds Imam Rauf, the man behind the Park 51 Muslim community center.
Bonus: Fox & Friends announces points 2–4 without ever naming al-Waleed.
For Fox, this means Imam Rauf is financed by terror-funders. For Stewart, this means that Fox is either Stupid or Evil.
But for us, this is valuable information, including the part about connections to Bush II. Forget the "mosque"; the Saudi royal family's relationship to right-wing and GOP politics has needed a spotlight for years. Thank you, Daily Show, for shining it.
Just wait till the Saudis start flexing their Citizens United muscles. Mr. Roberts, you are truly a "revolutionary force".
GP
(By the way, I'm with Evil all the way, even though Evil can also be "inspiringly Stupid." Why?
Because about 1:55 into the segment (repeated at 5:08), Dan Senor says, "The Kingdom Foundation, so you know, is this Saudi organization headed up by the guy who tried to give Rudy Guilani $10 million after 9/11 that was sent back, he funds radical madrassas all over the world" — with a picture of Imam Rauf, not our billionaire Prince, behind the voice-over.
It's the Prince he's talking about. From Dan Senor especially, that's not Stupid, that's inspiringly Evil.)
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From the always-good Scott Horton, comes a whole lot more detail on the Assange rape-but-not-really story.
This is bar none the best account I've found of what's happened. I really want to print the whole thing — it's that good. But I'll make do with a taste (I'll find a prime slice) and then strongly suggest you read it all. Horton's a lawyer and an expert in these things; he's also a hell of a researcher.
This weekend, the controversies surrounding WikiLeaks took another strange turn. Late on Friday, the Swedish newspaper Expressen disclosed that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was the subject of an arrest warrant arising out of charges by two female witnesses that he had raped them within a three-day period. The late-hours special duty prosecutor, Maria Häljebo Kjellstrand, issued an arrest warrant for Assange, who quickly protested his innocence and charged that the claims against him were a “dirty trick.” Within twenty-four hours, Swedish prosecutors did a near complete about-face. . . . One of the women behind the charges gave an interview to the Swedish paper Aftonbladet on Sunday, backpedaling furiously. She stated that she was surprised to learn that the accusations were treated as a rape charge and denied that there had been any encounter with Assange involving violence or force. She suggested that the controversy had to do with Assange’s failure to use a condom during intercourse. In the meantime, Sweden’s Justice Ombudsman was demanding a formal investigation into how the accusations came to be sensationalized by the press on the basis of an improperly issued arrest warrant.
A few points should be noted about this case. . . . [U]nder the Swedish criminal justice system, like in many others, the preliminary investigation of allegations of a crime is a secret matter. That is doubly the case in questions relating to sexual misconduct, since disclosure may do severe damage to the reputation of all the parties involved. In this case, the information was fanned in a tabloid-style paper within minutes of its being opened. The prosecutors involved insist that they did not disclose this information. Who did? The Guardian speculates that it was the Swedish police.
Assange, however, quickly laid the blame on the Pentagon.
This doesn't begin to do justice to this valuable piece. Please do click through.
Note in just this small bit, we get the name of the prosecutor, the way that system works, and links to original sources — Expressen, Aftonbladet and de Verdieping Trouw — with information none of the English-language papers offered.
Why are we getting this information? Because Horton's consulting Swedish and Dutch sources and passing the info along instead of keeping it all safely low-key. (I assume Horton reads Swedish and Dutch himself; he reads everything else.)
Scott Horton is a valuable resource, someone to keep on the radar. For me he's a daily read.
Our own earlier coverage of the rape charge is here. The asymmetrical war, coming to a homeland near you. As I said, stay tuned.
GP
UPDATE: From The Local: Sweden's News in English, the initial prosecutor has been "reported for violating rules on the confidentiality of preliminary investigations."
The prosecutor on duty, Maria Häljebo Kjellstrand, decided on Friday to issue a warrant to arrest Assange on suspicion of rape. She later confirmed to Expressen that there was a case and that Assange was charged in absentia. The warrant was withdrawn one day later. . . .
According to the organisation, the prosecutor violated the confidentiality of preliminary investigations by giving the media information about this case, DJ reported.
Two dots left to connect. The on-call prosecutor confirmed the case to the tabloid. Who tipped the tabloid to ask about it? (Thanks to Marshall for tipping us.)
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In my earlier discussion of contractors in Operation New Dawn, I focused on the SpecOps side. Here, Rachel Maddow discusses the whole spectrum of dependence* on contractors by the military and State Dept. (which takes front seat from the DOD in our new "enduring relationship").
*Dependence — One layer less clear than "shoveling money out the door to your Congressionally connected friends."
Take-aways:
50,000 U.S. troops will remain for 16 months.
72,000 contractors (including what Engel calls DOD "service contractors," like those great KBR electricians, I'm sure).
Richard Engel: "This draw-down is all being brought to you by KRB. They are the biggest contractor involved in ... moving things to the south."
And: "About 45% of all of the contracts right now are KBR contracts."
Finally, I must express admiration for Rachel's role in these Iraq segments.
Having listened to the Air America version of her show for years, I know the subtlety of her understanding of the Iraq war and "Life During Wartime." In my view, she walks a beautiful line between being one of the NBC on-air people who presents the official view, and a commentator who presents her own thinking.
Because of my familiarity with her views, I know what she's not discussing (those KBR electrical death-traps, for example). But nothing that she is saying violates her integrity; and she is saying a lot. Rachel Maddow is a smart, capable woman and beyond the obvious, this is subtle stuff.
The Friday show from which this was abstracted is rich; time permitting, I may bring more segments later this week.
Another weekend with an array of guest and topics.
In the wake of the last combat troops leaving Iraq, General Ray Odierno, will be appearing on CBS and CNN.
ABC has Afghanistan's (corrupt) President Hamad Karzai -- and will do a segment on Cordoba House.
NBC has a typically unbalanced slew of guests to talk politics: GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, former GOP House Majority Leader/Head Teabagger Dick Armey, former GOP Congressman/NY GOP Gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio and Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D-MI).
Last Friday, Rachel Maddow continued her coverage of Corrections Corporation of America, the Prison-for-Profit company that's working to "help" Arizona increase its state and federal incarcerations — because more incarcerations means more money, and that's just good business, right?
She interviewed Morgan Loew of KPHO-TV, who is doing terrific investigative work — the kind of work that's mostly done these days by tier-1 mags, like Rolling Stone and the New Yorker, and local writers like Jon Ralston at the Las Vegas Sun.
It turns out CCA's fingerprints are all over the "Send Browns to Prison" law. Not only did unelected Gov. Jan Brewer employ two CCA lobbyists on her staff — but the bill itself was introduced by Russell Pearce, senate Appropriations chairman and a man with huge ties to CCA (and far-right hate groups in general).
(There's a nice little light show of video artifacts about 30 seconds into this clip — you're welcome.)
Unelected Gov. Brewer is up to her eyeballs in this and she knows it. Go to this post, our earlier coverage of Rachel and CCA, and watch the clip at the 8:20 mark. She can't get away from the questioner fast enough.
I'll say what Rachel says — This is only marginally about jailing browns and blacks. (Remember those heavy-handed drug laws?)
Like all things Tea Party, this is really just that old post-bellum Southern Strategy, the original one: The rich guy shouts the N-word at the poor white sharecropper, then robs the both of them blind.
It's all about the Benjamins, folks. The beast wants only money, this beast especially, and it has no conscience at all. Those Tea Bags are just stage props.
If there's a Hell, this beast is going straight to the mouth of Satan.
Wonder where the Tea Bags are going.
GP
(If you really want to follow up on this subject, the comments to our earlier coverage contains several excellent items. For example, see here on placement of private prisons; here on judges who get kickbacks, up to $3 million, from private prison operators; here for the potential for forced-labor abuse; and here for lack of job training in Prison-for-Profit operations.)
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I agree with Maureen Dowd that Robert Gibbs should be replaced as the WH spokesman. For that move, she makes a good case:
Gibbs does not see his job as a bridge between the press and the presidency. He sees himself more as a moat. He has always wanted to be an inside counselor to the president. So Obama — who bonded with Gibbs during the campaign, over sports, missing their families and how irritating the blog-around-the-clock press corps is — would be wise to promote him to a counselor. Let someone who shows less disdain for the press work with the press, and be the more engaging face of the White House.
But in my opinion, most of the rest of her opinion piece in today's NYT misses the mark by a mile.
I don't believe the left doesn't recognize the necessity of compromise. Instead, I think the left doesn't understand why Obama feels the need to compromise in public. It's not a matter of idealism v. pragmatism as Dowd would suggest. It's a matter of having sold the American public a bill of goods to win the White House and then taking the proposed agenda and treating it like used goods at a giant yard sale where everything starts out marked down to move for cents on the dollar.
Dowd remarks that the left was quick to defend a centrist Clinton but is not showing the same loyalty to the more progressive-ish Obama. What she continues to ignore by making the comparison is how the left - and many centrists who voted for Obama - feel duped and manipulated. Forgive me for not being grateful for crumbs when you've promised me a meal.
I'd be remiss not to comment on Dowd's remark that Obama and some liberals felt they could live without the public option in health care reform. Although the public option was distorted and demonized early and often and arguably was easier for the White House to abandon than defend, it was important. Very. It was the means by which we could control costs and keep the insurance companies honest. It would have provided a benchmark for benefits so that consumers would finally know if what they were getting from their private coverage was a good deal. No one would have been forced to choose it. It just would have been another option in the mix and a good one at that. But instead of explaining to the American people what this really was and why it would work for them, Obama quickly softened his language on the public option until his endorsement had the strength of marshmallow fluff.
Why is anyone blaming the left for wanting Obama to be better? The Administration and its surrogates should be lashing out at the radical right and obstructionists in Congress. They should be chastising the media for perpetuating fabricated controversies like death panels and terror babies. Instead, the meme now is about liberals snacking on their own. It's absurd.
I know some may think me a bit naive to have expected Obama to be as good as he promised, but I know I'm not alone. And reminding him we want better - we need better - is not a flaw to be mocked by his spokesman or opinion columnists or the press. As voters, we're disappointed, and last I checked, in a government of, by, and for the people, the people are allowed to have a say.
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An array of topics on the Sunday shows today. Seems that each network has its own theme.
NBC is doing Afghanistan (from Afghanistan) with General Petraeus. ABC is doing the economy. CBS is doing politics. CNN is doing the NY mosque story and some politics. And, FOX, well, it doesn't matter. FOX will do what FOX always does.
I’m guessing the president agrees with Gibbs and was neither angered nor disappointed by Gibbs’s statements, which came not in the heat of his daily briefing but in the cool of his West Wing office.
In other words, Gibbs knew what he was doing. And so did Obama.
In situations like these, you also have to look at the writer. Is Simon off the reservation and writing for himself? Or is he carrying someone else's water by re-defending Gibbs? (Jane picks door number 2; I'll leave you to decide that for yourself.)
My advice: Guys, whoever's doing this, let – it – go. At this point, doubling down just doubles the damage.
2. Alan Grayson appeared on CNN to re-respond. Here's the vid:
Vintage Grayson — he stayed on-point about Gibbs and "GOP talking points" and said, point blank, "I want the president to succeed; I want us to make progress as a country." Pitch perfect. (You can donate to his re-election here.)
Add these together, and what do you get? Someone is trying to re-glue Obama officials to the Gibbs remarks. At the same time, Alan Grayson, of all people, is everywhere trying to re-pry them apart.
John has responded beautifully to Press Secretary Robert Gibbs' painful — and to my ears, desperate — rant in The Hill. I'll just emphasize one point that John made: It's beyond dumb to insult your paying customers the day before you open your brand new store.
But I'd like to focus on the article itself, and its writer, Sam Youngman. If you knew nothing at all about Mr. Youngman other than his profession (DC-based political writer for insider publication), what could you deduce from these comments?
Don't focus on the Gibbs' quotations; focus on the writer. Just a few snippets from the article (my emphasis):
The White House is simmering with anger at criticism from liberals who say President Obama is more concerned with deal-making than ideological purity.
. . . the $787 billion economic stimulus package, which some liberals said should have been larger.
PCCC is now pressing Obama to nominate Elizabeth Warren, a hero to the left, as the first head of the new consumer protection office created by the Wall Street reform bill.
[Obama] also added diversity to the Supreme Court by nominating two female justices, including the court’s first Hispanic. Yet some liberal groups have criticized his nominees for not being liberal enough.
The press secretary dismissed the “professional left” in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right . . . Gibbs said the professional left is not representative of the progressives who organized, campaigned, raised money and ultimately voted for Obama.
I don't know what you get from this; I get that Sam Youngman is doing Gibbs and Obama a huge favor by adopting all of Gibbs' messaging in his own "reporting," as though Gibbs comments were prima facie correct. Which would be fine if Gibbs were right; but each of the statements above contains fallacies and errors:
Straw man argument; no "liberal" says that.
Misrepresents the economic objection — Stiglitz and Simon Johnson are hardly liberals. And they, along with Krugman, certainly carry a tad more gravitas than the label "some liberals" would connote.
Ignores the real reason for wanting her nominated.
Change "yet" to "and" — why wouldn't liberal groups want liberal judges? But it's not a complaint without "yet".
Adopts Gibbs attack phrase as his own.
And then there's this — you can almost hear them both spit when the word "liberal" comes out their mouths. And as for "professional left" — nicely crafted to inspire contempt. Almost as bad as "professional politician" or "professional PR writer" in its ladies-of-the-night implications.
Conclusion: This is not just Gibbs' rant — it's Youngman's rant too. Fair enough, but he needs to own it as his.
And we need to see the whole piece for what it is — either a gift or a trade. If it's a trade, pay attention; perhaps down the road you can spot what Youngman got.
I realize I have to admit I flipped on daytime cable in order to bring you this nugget, but if I tell you I was looking for news on the Stevens crash, I suspect you'll forgive me.
Anyway, MSNBC is switching between coverage of the plane crash in Alaska and the jobs bill that just passed the House:
House Democrats on Tuesday pushed through a $26 billion jobs bill to protect 300,000 teachers and other nonfederal government workers from election-year layoffs.
The bill would be paid for mainly by closing a tax loophole used by multinational corporations and reducing food stamp benefits for the poor. It passed mainly along party lines by a vote of 247-161.
(Note the use of the phrase 'election-year layoffs.' Was 'layoffs' insufficient? Did we really have to inject the assumption of political posturing into the lede?)
But back to my initial frustration. Several times now, MSNBC anchors and reporters have asked whether Rep. Charlie Rangel's comments on the floor will take away from coverage of the jobs bill. I don't know, MSNBC reporters and anchors, will it? How about this: Not if you don't let it.
To be clear, the exact issue they're raising is whether or not Rangel's comments will be a distraction while they are actively making it a distraction.
This is why I should not be allowed to watch this crap. It just makes me angry.
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So over the weekend, David Gregory seemed to put the wood to Senate minority leader John Boehner ("John of Orange" in Keith Olbermann's formulation) over the Bush tax cuts on Meet the Press. Here's the vid:
As interesting as that exchange is, I don't want to focus on Boehner, but on David Gregory instead. Newsman Gregory is the famous "MC Rove guy" (see below), and in my book he's a made man until he proves otherwise. So why's he laying into Boehner so ostentatiously? His aggression in this interview really jumps out, at least to me. Is Gregory off the reservation, or is he doing someone's bidding?
I'll let you provide your own answers. Me, I've got suspicions. I don't think he's off the reservation, since his whole career is Village–signed and sealed. That leaves two possibilities; either:
The fix is in to kill the rich boy tax cut extensions (see Geithner's support for expiring them), and Gregory's getting on the right side of the admin by publicly tanking Boehner, or
The fix is in to extend the rich boy tax cuts, and the Big Boys are letting him (and Geithner) burnish his populist cred, knowing that nothing can stop them.
My bet is on No. 2 to win, but No. 1 has that election-year edge.
As an added treat, here's David "1 Live Crew" Gregory dropping the hammer (heh) with Karl "MC Rove" at the 2007 Radio and Television Correspondents' dinner. He's the Fresh Prince on Rove's immediate right (screen left).
Today's show have a mix of topics including Iraq, Afghanistan and the oil spill. But, there will also be a discussion of the Prop. 8 decision. Ted Olson is on FOX. I imagine Olson has been on FOX many times. Maybe he can talk some sense over there. As Karl Frisch from Media Matters points out, FOX hasn't exactly been providing "fair and balanced" coverage of the Prop. 8 decision or LGBT issues in general (big surprise, huh?)
And, Tony Perkins appears on CBS. Note to John Dickerson who is subbing for Bob Scheiffer: There is no rational basis for discrimination. Homophobia is all Tony Perkins and his anti-gay allies have. Make him own it (although, I doubt that will happen, it should.)
John Boehner is on "Meet the Press." I think the more people in the U.S. get to know him, the less they'll ever want him to be Speaker.
This is classic. Some goof ball decides to hang out in front of Media Matters building to ask about George Soros. But, Media Matters, which knows how to play the game, decided to track the tracker. Read More......
One depressing aspect of American politics is the susceptibility of the political and media establishment to charlatans. You might have thought, given past experience, that D.C. insiders would be on their guard against conservatives with grandiose plans. But no: as long as someone on the right claims to have bold new proposals, he’s hailed as an innovative thinker. And nobody checks his arithmetic.
Which brings me to the innovative thinker du jour: Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. . . . He’s often described with phrases like “intellectually audacious.”
But it’s the audacity of dopes.
What's so bad about Mr. Ryan's proposals? Paul Krugman again (my emphasis):
The Tax Policy Center finds that the Ryan plan would cut taxes on the richest 1 percent of the population in half, giving them 117 percent of the plan’s total tax cuts. That’s not a misprint. Even as it slashed taxes at the top, the plan would raise taxes for 95 percent of the population.
Then Krugman, who never surprises with his surprise, asks why in God's sweet earth does everyone listen to smart-seeming idiots like the representative from Wisconsin's cheese country? (Ryan's district includes the south part of Milwaukee, Racine, and farm country west to Janesville; but he must be smart because that's just north of Illinois.)
So why have so many in Washington, especially in the news media, been taken in by this flimflam?
Two words, Mr. Krugman: Movement Conservatives. The oh-so-collegial economists you don't understand; the face-lift news-blondes you can't wrap your mind around; the faux-lib bureaucrats who just don't get it, even though this time your patient explanations made even more sense than before.
It's a war, Professor. They brought rifles and civilian uniforms; you brought a picnic basket and lecture notes.
And Paul Ryan? He's on the Obama–Peterson Catfood Commission, of course. Chris Van Hollen:
It speaks volumes about the GOP agenda for America that the three House Republican members named to the Deficit Commission strongly support privatizing Social Security and all voted last year to dismantle Medicare as we know it.
Nancy Pelosi has guaranteed a House vote on the Commission's recommendations. It's gonna happen; thanks, Nancy, for doing your part.
It makes you wonder — at what point do our betters just not need us any more? (There's actually an answer, folks; people have been working on that one. Stay tuned.)
Scott Horton at Harpers has been following the push-back by the government against WikiLeaks. He correctly says (my emphasis):
WikiLeaks’ disclosure of the 91,000 U.S. government documents that it labels the “Afghan War Diary” raises a number of vital issues. . . . But quite apart from their contents, the WikiLeaks documents are a test for America’s voracious national-security state. Its response to them gives us a sense of how it intends to fight perceived threats to secrecy.
The WikiLeaks "Afghan War Diary" page is here. The document collection itself is here. Our own initial coverage of the WikiLeaks story is here and here.
Horton identifies three areas of response:
An information war against WikiLeaks
An attempt to make an example of the leaker
An attempt to destroy WikiLeaks, and perhaps even Julian Assange
About the first, you're probably aware of the scare-tactic assault — demonize WikiLeaks as somehow anti–American and anti–American interests, and claim the leaks made soldiers and Afghans unsafe. This meme should get good media play. As Horton points out:
Much of the American media, which filled the airwaves with bogus claims about WMDs in Iraq, can be counted on to view WikiLeaks as an adversary rather than an ally.
After all, WikiLeaks is an adversary of the captive corporate media, by doing the job that the traditionals fail to do — tell the truth about these wars.
Private Bradley Manning, a young enlisted man from Potomac, Maryland, [has been] arrested and detained in Kuwait. He appears to have been denied access to independent counsel and held incommunicado outside the country. Reports also indicate that criminal investigators are looking to identify individuals who may have facilitated his leak. . . . [I]t seems hard to see how Manning can mount a meaningful legal defense. [T]he heavy-handed tactics which are being applied against him are mystifying displays of asymmetrical legal warfare.
It looks like students at MIT are being investigated as well.
And finally, about destroying WikiLeaks:
But the major target surely is WikiLeaks itself, and on this score the goal of the national-security state is unambiguous. WikiLeaks must be destroyed. Indeed, as I noted in March, long before these leaks, the Army Counterintelligence Center had prepared a 32-page secret plan to destroy WikiLeaks. The memo notes that the American intelligence community has valuable allies in the struggle against WikiLeaks—China, North Korea, Russia, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe. It recommended emulating the tactics used by these tyrannical states.
Emulating the Chinese, Russians and North Koreans; ah, the ties that bind. There's a Huffington Post report that WikiLeaks volunteers are already being targeted for "special attention" when they travel.
And what about Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder? Well, if this were a novel, he's a stain on the pavement by page 204. Horton again:
Julian Assange may himself be a even more serious target. How might the United States deal with Assange? Marc Thiessen, a Republican publicist and torture apologist with close ties to former CIA Director Hayden, argues that Assange is a non-American who lives outside the country and therefore apparently has no legal rights. He advocates kidnapping and hints at still more violent conduct.
I don’t think the Obama Administration will use a drone to murder Assange, but some in the intelligence community will be arguing for use of some of the “black arts” that were a staple of covert operations in the Bush era. . . . [E]fforts to kidnap him are almost certainly being spun at this very moment.
Posted without comment (for now), a profile of the Wikileaks leaker, who will likely rot in jail for the rest of his life, if his captors have any say. From Wired in June:
SPC Bradley Manning, 22, of Potomac, Maryland, was stationed at Forward Operating Base Hammer, 40 miles east of Baghdad, where he was arrested nearly two weeks ago by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. A family member says he’s being held in custody in Kuwait, and has not been formally charged.
Manning was turned in late last month by a former computer hacker with whom he spoke online. In the course of their chats, Manning took credit for leaking a headline-making video of a helicopter attack that Wikileaks posted online in April. The video showed a deadly 2007 U.S. helicopter air strike in Baghdad that claimed the lives of several innocent civilians.
He said he also leaked three other items to Wikileaks: a separate video showing the notorious 2009 Garani air strike in Afghanistan that Wikileaks has previously acknowledged is in its possession; a classified Army document evaluating Wikileaks as a security threat, which the site posted in March; and a previously unreported breach consisting of 260,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables that Manning described as exposing “almost criminal political back dealings.”
The Wired story has a ton of info, and is well worth a click (h/t mirth, in the comments).
OK, one comment — bragging doesn't seem smart. But what do I know?
First the story. As Joe reported this morning, the organization Wikileaks has acquired nearly 100,000 secret documents related to the Afghan war, and is in the process of releasing them. The archive is called "Afghan War Diary" and the description is here:
WikiLeaks today released over 75,000 secret US military reports covering the war in Afghanistan.
The Afghan War Diary [is] an extraordinary secret compendium of over 91,000 reports covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010. The reports describe the majority of lethal military actions involving the United States military. . . .
The Diary is available on the web and can be viewed in chronological order and by by over 100 categories assigned by the US Forces . . .
We have delayed the release of some 15,000 reports from total archive as part of a harm minimization process demanded by our source. After further review, these reports will be released, with occasional redactions, and eventually, in full, as the security situation in Afghanistan permits.
The Wikileaks War Diary document collection page is rich, a valuable resource and entry point to the documents themselves. Citizen reporters, or just casual readers, dig in.
It appears that three news orgs — The Guardian, Der Spiegel, and The New York Times — got early releases of the archive so they could prepare articles simultaneous with the release. Click the link for any of the papers above to see the landing page for their coverage. All three are calling the documents "The War Logs" and it appears their work on them will be on-going.
For a place to start, I'd choose The Guardian. They're covering multiple angles immediately, including interviews with Wikileaks head Julian Assange.
Now the meta-story, the part I want to focus on here. People are going to have to make sense of the multiple angles I alluded to — not just the thousands of "collateral" children and adults, but the double-dealing that Joe's story pointed to, and the three-sided drug trade the leak stories haven't touched on yet. (Yes, we're one of the sides.)
If it weren't already obvious, our situation in Afghanistan is like a three-cornered hat (ignoring India for a moment). Each corner — including the U.S. — is dealing both as friends and as enemies with the other two, simultaneously. It's a six-way transaction. This means that each side is financing and supporting its enemies, thinking it will have the upper hand when the whole is summed. The Great Game.
So watch carefully the reaction to the story. I expect the White House reaction: "Bad, wiki, bad!"
But watch the press. Note which news-blond(e)s trash Wikileaks. (I'm looking at you, Chuck Todd; prove me wrong.) Those that do — list them as unreliable. They're part of the War Sales Team. Operatives.
I'll have more. This exposes a whole layer of analysis about why we're there. It's like that moment when one side in a marriage accidentally tells the truth, and everything falls into place.
So with the Afghan War. (Hint: We never needed to topple the government to capture Bin Laden.)
Operationally yours,
Gaius
Update: I've adjusted some of the links above.
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