The Betrayal That Has Everything

Okay, this isn’t a timely post on this story. And though I’d like to put myself over as having had a hunch about “another shoe dropping,” the fact is I just didn’t have time to get to it.

So let’s get the due diligence out of the way:

Hundreds of Afghan civilians who worked as informants for the U.S. military have been put at risk by WikiLeaks’ publication of more than 90,000 classified intelligence reports which name and in many cases locate the individuals, The Times newspaper reported Wednesday.

The article says, in spite of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s claim that sensitive information had been removed from the leaked documents, that reporters scanning the reports for just a couple hours found hundreds of Afghan names mentioned as aiding the U.S.-led war effort.

One specific example cited by the paper is a report on an interview conducted by military officers of a potential Taliban defector. The militant is named, along with his father and the village in which they live.

“The leaks certainly have put in real risk and danger the lives and integrity of many Afghans,” a senior official at the Afghan foreign ministry told the Times on condition of anonymity. “The U.S is both morally and legally responsible for any harm that the leaks might cause to the individuals, particularly those who have been named. It will further limit the U.S./international access to the uncensored views of Afghans.”

After WikiLeaks published a trove of U.S. intelligence documents—some of which listed the names and villages of Afghans who had been secretly cooperating with the American military—it didn’t take long for the Taliban to react. A spokesman for the group quickly threatened to “punish” any Afghan listed as having “collaborated” with the U.S. and the Kabul authorities against the growing Taliban insurgency. In recent days, the Taliban has demonstrated how seriously those threats should be considered. Late last week, just four days after the documents were published, death threats began arriving at the homes of key tribal elders in southern Afghanistan. And over the weekend one tribal elder, Khalifa Abdullah, who the Taliban believed had been in close contact with the Americans, was taken from his home in Monar village, in Kandahar province’s embattled Arghandab district, and executed by insurgent gunmen.

The violence may just be beginning. According to Agha Lali, the deputy head of Kandahar’s provincial council, threatening letters have been delivered to seventy elders in Panjwaii district. While it is unknown whether any of the men were indeed named in the WikiLeaks documents, it’s clear the Taliban believes they have been cooperating with Western forces and the Afghan government. One short handwritten note, shown to NEWSWEEK, said: “We have made a decision for your death. You have five days to leave Afghan soil. If you don’t, you don’t have the right to complain.” The screed, written on the letterhead of Mullah Mohammed Omar’s defunct Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, bore the signature of Abdul Rauf Khadim, a senior Taliban official and former inmate at the American lockup in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who had been released into—and subsequently escaped from—Kabul’s custody last year.

...

According to one story appearing in Britain's the Telegraph, Manning, who served as a US Army intelligence analyst, became depressed after a break-up with his homosexual companion. He also wrote: "Bradley Manning is not a piece of equipment," and quoted a joke about "military intelligence" being an oxymoron.

Manning, who is openly homosexual, began his gloomy postings on January 12, saying: "Bradley Manning didn't want this fight. Too much to lose, too fast."

...

Pentagon investigators plan to delve into Manning’s background to ascertain if they missed any warnings when he applied to join the US Army. According to the Telegraph, in May 2010, when he was serving at a US military base near Baghdad, he changed his status to: "Bradley Manning is now left with the sinking feeling that he doesn't have anything left."

Let the record show that while I've not been a fan of "Don't Ask/Don't Tell," it was, in my estimable estimation, a compromise that could actually, practically be lived with.  For the honorable soldier/sailor/airman/Marine who also happens to "put from the rough," it enables them to serve with their retrograde "orientation" irrelevant to that service.  Keep the Hershey Highway maps to yourself, in short, and let's be about the business of defending our homeland, its people, and its vital national interests.

Bradley-boy is a poster-belle for why repealing DODT is a really, REALLY bad idea.

How many Afghans and Americans and other allies are going to die because of this rimmadonna's himmers' quarrel?  And why is protecting and elevating such malevolent molly-mops more important than being ready, willing, and able to overpower any possible enemy the United States may ever face?

Yes, that's a rhetorical question.