But Dilmah G is agreeing with me. Let's review his post:
Why of course I'm agreeing with you, you clot.
I even restated the same points you did in some instances. But the motive behind
this release? Perhaps it wasn't too commendable, or perhaps they may have been trying to do the right thing.
Why did they spend several weeks (or months, I don't remember) discussing the War Diaries with major newspapers and redacting sensitive information before releasing?
On 90,000 documents? That's not a lot of time at all, really. Let's say three months, or 90 days was spent on it.
90,000/90=1000 documents a day.
Whether these are mostly SALUTE reports, 1000 a day? Really?
Why? Why do a half-assed job of it?
How could they have done this to 'coincide with Manning's publicity' - the ****? - if they waited several months? Manning wasn't arrested until after the War Diaries came out. Manning was arrested in May.
IIRC, Manning was in the spotlight again in the timeframe of the documents release, being transferred to suicide watch or some ****, nonetheless, I'll concede that they released it at the time they did to capitalize from Manning's publicity.
But I suspect they did such a half-assed job of reading through them in order to release them as soon as possible, maybe while Manning was right at the back of the world's mind? Maybe because they knew how much of a ****storm it would create?
Maybe. But in fact, I think you're not paying much attention here. The War Diaries only cover the conduct of the war up to the beginning of the Obama administration. The leaker (intentionally or not) left out material more recent than '08, suggesting his motivation involved transparency more than attempts to change policy.
Fair enough.
Wow, it's as if you never read the threads I started discussing this topic specifically. I am well area of this. Part of the remarkable nature of these papers is how they outline Afghan reaction to our policies - including rising anger at unaccountable SpecOps headhunters.
Uh, that's because I haven't.
I don't recall at all you starting any threads about the subject.
hahahahaha
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I don't think any single point event can be causally coupled to the outcome of the war. I don't think the outcome of the war will even be fully apparent for a long time.
Bradley Manning has been under arrest and headed for court-martial since May. Assange, well, I have no idea whether he's actually done anything illegal given that he's Australian.
Well I'll rephrase, if this is listed as one of the key contributing factors to an acknowledged defeat (ha ha. Not going to happen anyway), he should be tried for treason.
The Australian Defence Association's been fairly annoyed at Assange, I wouldn't be surprised if he was pulled in for treason sometime soon, since this could be linked to helping forces hostile to the ADF.
And it raises an interesting point that I hadn't considered. For all the indiscriminate collateral damage Coalition troops might do, the Taliban does more. So why are they gaining support and strength? How does that mesh with hypotheses about COIN and not pissing people off?
Whose to say this happens in the same district? And the strength, well, that seems to be coming from a place starting with I and ending in ran.
Like everyone whose been force-fed the John Adair action-oriented leadership model (Mostly us Commonwealth blokes), if you're going to be successful leader, you need to minimize your mistakes, and maximise the good things you do. The same applies for COIN. We made/make some fairly major screwups in the application of COIN during this war, and for people who've lost mates, family, and property, they are never going to see the light in our reconstruction efforts, and every time we screw up, we create more, and more of these people.
Every time Marines mow down civilians on a highway (or whatever it was), we make a lot of people, very, angry.
Why is the Taliban gaining support?
Because we keep ****ing up. For every family the Coalition gives shelter, an education, and food, we create even more hostile members of the community when we have people start shooting civilians. In effect, we've been losing our own war since we got there.
And then we have the other fairly major element.
Human nature. You'll recall in Vietnam, the NVA and Vietcong used strong-arm tactics
on their own people. But why did the people side with the Vietcong in the end? The first reason is the same as the one above. The second reason, is that people are always, always, always, going to prefer being treated **** by their own people, their own flesh and blood that's been spilled in the name of the same flag, than foreigners who mess in other people's affairs.
People in most cases, will be far more ready to sweep aside what their own side has done in relation to cleansing their country of an invasion by a foreign power. When you have an 'invasion' going on, organisations like the Taliban/Al-Qaeda, become easier to see as a partisan force to defend the country from the 'invasion' get support much more readily.
A foreign invasion in which the invading forces have mowed down civilians gives those organisations endless belts of ammunition to use in support of their case. "These invaders kill our children and rape our women! Join us, and avenge your brothers and sisters! Rid this land of the foreigners!" Just invading a country is asking to be demonized by its people.
