With the release today of more than 90,000 documents showing the reality of the war in Afghanistan, the governments of the UK and US are arguing that the real travesty is the fact that the documents were leaked in the first place.
The time for passing the buck is over. It is important to bear in mind that sensitive or confidential documents have been leaked but one must look at the bigger picture. What is contained within those documents and what they point to is that the strategy in Afghanistan has not worked. Worse than that, the strategy may in fact be fuelling further insurgency and leading to a quagmire from which the UK and US may struggle to extricate themselves.
While the security of armed forces is paramount, it must be balanced with a proper scrutiny of the war and its administration and direction. Simply throwing up the smoke screen excuse that releasing the documents endangers troops clouds the issue that we are causing real damage to people and property in Afghanistan and international relations with Islamic nations, which is the original cause of this war.
Osama bin Laden believed America’s foreign policy to be anti-Islam. He saw a country that killed innocent civilians in Muslim countries. Regardless of whether this can be proved, the 9/11 attacks were because of this belief. We are in Afghanistan because of 9/11. If we are now killing innocent civilians we are perpetuating bin Laden’s belief and causing more Muslims across the world to understand his reasoning. We are creating a new generation of terrorists who believe the US and the UK are Islam’s enemies. I argue that this is far more dangerous to troops than the release of documents.
Rather than respond to criticism on the handling of the war both the US and UK governments are attacking the leakers. Instead of investigating allegations that Pakistan’s spy agencies are undermining war efforts, they are giving them more aid and continuing to claim them as an ally.
Instead of being open and honest, admitting the war isn’t working and seeking new solutions, they are attempting to gloss over evidence of civilian deaths, friendly fire-fights, Taliban weapons acquisitions and other atrocities all in the name of not ‘endangering our troops.’ It is appalling obfuscation and answers must be forthcoming. The original goal was to catch Osama bin Laden and oust the Taliban. We have not succeeded should review our goals with urgency.
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