What You're Not Supposed to Know About Afghanistan

Today, I want to recommend a piece of analysis I came across from Al-Jazeera.  It discusses the contents of the recent leak from Wikileaks as well as predicting possible reactions to the leak that is expected to be released soon.  I suppose Wikileaks and the recent leak of military documents from the Afghan war deserves a thread of it's own, but this will have to suffice for now.  Pretty devastating stuff.

Some highlights of this article:

"...representatives of the human rights community and foreign policy analysts paint a very different picture of the logs than that presented by the Obama administration, arguing that they reveal evidence of previously unreported or under-reported war crimes, including apparent revenge rampages, secret task forces running amok and attempts to cover-up or gloss over atrocities with little to no investigation."

"Details surrounding at least six possible war crimes emerged from the released Afghan war logs, including a string of shootings by British troops."

"A suicide attack and IED explosion targeted a 120-man convoy of US marines on March 4, 2007 in Shinwar, injuring one soldier. Immediately following the attack, the marines then tore down a six-mile stretch of highway, opening automatic and indiscriminate fire on civilians, including teenage girls and elderly men."

 "Little was known about an elite 'black' unit called Task Force 373 and the man-hunting it undertook before the war logs were released. Since then, however, alarming details have emerged about their previously secret activities.

Some 200 files contained in the war logs reveal that Task Force 373 was a US special forces unit operating with a 'kill or capture' list of supposed Taliban and al-Qaeda commanders, which reportedly numbered well over 2,000 people."

"...US army prosecutors revealed that four US soldiers are being prosecuted for alleged war crimes committed between January and May of this year.
The soldiers have been accused of randomly killing Afghan civilians in a premeditated fashion, mutilating their bodies and collecting their fingers for sport. The case is widely regarded as the worst officially acknowledged war crime by members of the US military."