Julian Assange on "the real story" of the Afghan war logs

Julian Assange on "the real story" of Wikileaks release of 91,000 classified Afghan war documents from 2004 to 2009 to The New York Times, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel.

"This is the story of the war since 2004. Like most of the accidents on the road are the result of cars not of buses, most of the deaths in this war are the result of the every day squalor of war not the big incidences."

Among other disclosures : the US gives Pakistan $1-billion a year to help fight the "insurgency" in Afghanistan but these reports indicate that the Pakistani spy service ISI, which works in concert with the CIA, is guiding the attacks on US/NATO/Afghan troops.

The Real News Network, who you should all be sending money to, has a very good interview up with Assange on the significance of these leaks and how they were obtained.

Ch 4 : There's been publicity about Bradley Manning, a military officer, who claims to be a source for Wikileaks. What can you say about him?

JA : We have a number of military sources, including ones before Manning joined the army.

Ch 4: Do you know who the source is?

JA : No, we don't know who the source is.

Ch. 4 : So how does Wikileaks work?

JA : Other journalists try to verify sources. We don't do that, we verify documents. We don't care where it came from - but we can guess that it probably came from somewhere in the US military or the US government, from someone who is disaffected. Clearly, a heroic act by the whistleblower.

CH. 4 : So the same computer system that protects the source also stops you from knowing that source?

JA : The system we have deployed to make whistleblowers to us untraceable, also prevents us knowing who they are.

Netanyahu : "80% of Americans support us. It's absurd."

Israeli's Channel 10 has aired a video of Prime Minister Netanyahu, secretly-recorded 9 years ago, in which he boasts of conning the US and scuttling the Oslo peace accords.

"I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won't get in our way."

"80% of Americans support us. It's absurd."

"They asked me before the election if I'd honor [the Oslo accords]," he said. "I said I would, but ... I'm going to interpret the accords in such a way that would allow me to put an end to this galloping forward to the '67 borders. How did we do it? Nobody said what defined military zones were. Defined military zones are security zones; as far as I'm concerned, the entire Jordan Valley is a defined military zone. Go argue."

He also said the only way to deal with the Palestinians is to "beat them up so badly it's unbearable."

Various translations of the vid provided by Haaretz, Washington Post, and Tablet, who also posts the original.

Ten days ago Netanyahu said he did not intend to extend a 10-month moratorium on housing starts in West Bank settlements that expires in September, saying, "I think we’ve done enough."
32 new Israeli homes were just approved in the settlements even as occupied Palestinian houses are being demolished.

"I believe Prime Minister Netanyahu wants peace,” responded Obama, as Washington plans to provide Israel with $2.7-billion in security aid for 2010.

Racketeering - Funding both sides of the war

On a day marking the worst number of casualties NATO has seen in Afghanistan this year, the New York Times adds to recent reports of Afghan security contractors buying off the Taleban the next obvious step - Taleban and Afghan officials cooperating to hold NATO to ransom.

Rule of the Gun :

After a pair of bloody confrontations with Afghan civilians, two of the biggest private security companies — Watan Risk Management and Compass Security — were banned from escorting NATO convoys on the highway between Kabul and Kandahar.

The ban took effect on May 14. At 10:30 a.m. that day, a NATO supply convoy rolling through the area came under attack. An Afghan driver and a soldier were killed, and a truck was overturned and burned. Within two weeks, with more than 1,000 trucks sitting stalled on the highway, the Afghan government granted Watan and Compass permission to resume.

Watan’s president, Rashid Popal, strongly denied any suggestion that his men either colluded with insurgents or orchestrated attacks to emphasize the need for their services. But the episode, and others like it, has raised the suspicions of investigators here and in Washington, who are trying to track the tens of millions in taxpayer dollars paid to private security companies to move supplies to American and other NATO bases.

Although the investigation is not complete, the officials suspect that at least some of these security companies — many of which have ties to top Afghan officials — are using American money to bribe the Taliban. The officials suspect that the security companies may also engage in fake fighting to increase the sense of risk on the roads, and that they may sometimes stage attacks against competitors.

“We’re funding both sides of the war,” a NATO official in Kabul said.

The investigation is complicated by, among other things, the fact that some of the private security companies are owned by relatives of President Hamid Karzai and other senior Afghan officials. Mr. Popal, for instance, is a cousin of Mr. Karzai, and Western officials say that Watan Risk Management’s largest shareholder is Mr. Karzai’s brother Qayum.

The principal goal of the American-led campaign here is to prepare an Afghan state and army to fight the Taliban themselves. The possibility of collusion between the Taliban and Afghan officials suggests that, rather than fighting each another, the two Afghan sides may often cooperate under the noses of their wealthy benefactors.

We pay off the security contractors who escort our convoys not to bomb them or attack NATO troops; if we don't pay up, we get a little reminder from Karzai's relatives.

Harper's Afghanistan occupation MEPs emphasize building schools and promoting democracy. They don't mention anything about racketeering.

Dave on the flagrant abuse of armed forces : Eyes shut and fingers crossed.