Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Obama's Afghanistan strategy under siege

by Gareth Porter from Asia Times Online. The author reports and comments on the recent WikiLeaks' disclosures of classified documents. 
 Among the themes that are documented, sometimes dramatically but often through bland military reports, are the seemingly casual killing of civilians away from combat situations, night raids by special forces that are often based on bad intelligence, the absence of legal constraints on the abuses of Afghan police, and the deeply rooted character of corruption among Afghan officials.

The most politically salient issue highlighted by the new documents, however, is Pakistan's political and material support for the Taliban insurgency, despite its ostensible support for US policy in Afghanistan.