WikiLeaks Documents Shed More Light on Afghanistan War

The revelation of newly released classified documents from WikiLeaks about the Afghanistan War has prompted the New York Times headline, "View is Bleaker Than Official Portrayal of War in Afghanistan." This is true, but the real question I want to pose is this: how many people have been taking the official portrayal of the war in Afghanistan at face value? After being boondoggled by the previous administration into invading Iraq and being falsely promised by the current administration to have Guantanamo Bay closed by 2010 I would be shocked if people who read the WikiLeaks documents are, well, shocked.

What are some of the "earth shattering" revelations? The report outlines the corruption and outright collaboration of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (the equivalent of America's CIA) with Taliban/Al-Qaeda/Haqqani forces in the border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan. We knew that the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan was a mess and that "Islamabad has no tangible control over the area." What we did not know (though certainly could have ascertained given the agency's history) is that the reason Islamabad has no control over the region is that they do not try, and they may even be making the situation worse rather than better.