The Obama administration has reacted predictably to WikiLeaks' release of thousands of classified military documents from the Afghanistan war on to the Internet. Almost immediately, National Security Adviser James Jones was fielded to denounce the leak as a threat to national security. There were no words of apology for having misled the American and global public about the scale of civilian casualties inflicted by the Unites States-led intervention force in Afghanistan. General Jones also insisted that the strategy the U.S. is now following is the right one and that the administration intends to stay the course. Behind his brave words, of course, is a tacit admission of the need to fix at least one part of the story the leaked documents tell: the double-game being played by the Pakistani intelligence services and military in continuing to encourage and even fund terrorists and insurgents inside Afghanistan. He praised the Pakistani offensives in South Waziristan and Swat but added a caveat: “Yet the Pakistani government — and Pakistan's military and intelligence services — must continue their strategic shift against insurgent groups. The balance must shift decisively against al-Qaeda and its extremist allies.” In other words, the strategic shift that the Pakistani military has made so far is not decisive enough.
Has Washington fully internalised what that means — and what it needs to do — in order to get GHQ in Rawalpindi to make a clean and complete break with its policy of using extremists as “strategic assets”? This is a key question the leaked documents throw up. Instead of addressing the host of concerns raised by the documents — including the issue of war crimes committed by U.S. forces — it seems the U.S. government is determined to treat the WikiLeaks affair as a matter of domestic law enforcement. The White House has called the disclosure of the war logs a breach of federal law. Going by the charges the U.S. has already slapped against Bradley Manning, a Pentagon whistleblower suspected of passing on information to WikiLeaks, and the ongoing investigation of James Risen, a New York Times reporter who leaked details of a CIA plot against Iran, the Obama administration is likely to pursue the latest leak with inquisitorial zeal. This would be a grave mistake. Leaks occur because there is something unsavoury (and often illegal) going on. The secrecy that has marked the ‘war on terror' since 2001 has served as a convenient cover for the violation of human rights and the laws of war on an unacceptable scale. As a candidate, President Barack Obama promised to change the policy. It would be a pity if he now goes after the whistleblowers.
