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July 26th, 2010
05:18 PM ET

Opinion: WikiLeaks files will complicate war

Patrick M. Cronin
Special to CNN

[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/OPINION/07/26/cronin.wikileaks.war/tzleft.cronin.patrick.courtesy.jpg caption="Cronin says material will make the U.S. quest for stability more difficult" width=300 height=169]

The mother lode of ground-level raw intelligence from the Afghan war disseminated by WikiLeaks may ultimately bring about some good. In the short term, however, it will almost surely further undermine the U.S.-led search for stability.

Sifting through some of the 92,000 records is likely to strike an informed reader that there is nothing here that fundamentally alters his judgment about the war so much as it provides a level of granularity often missing from daily news reports.

Indeed, almost every issue has been previously reported in major news outlets, albeit with perhaps less authority than is permitted by these electronic records.

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Filed under: Afghanistan • Opinion
soundoff (6 Responses)
  1. William of Iowa

    I don't think you can "complicate" war.

    July 27, 2010 at 11:10 am |
  2. H Singh

    It won't complicate the war but make the things simpler. US gov didn't know that Pakistan is enemy or friend. Now it is clear to even public that Pak is enemy. Billions of dollars will be saved. Now military will rely on its own intelligence rather than ISI. Now US will also listen to India as India was whinging about the same since 30 yrs. India could be of great help to US. Now China will start supporting Pak to fight against US forces. US will start supporting India to fight against Pak and Taliban. The only worry here is that US and China shouldn't go on war after this. Else there would be a trouble.

    July 26, 2010 at 8:43 pm |
  3. TJ

    Couldn't this be an act of treason?

    July 26, 2010 at 7:11 pm |
  4. Smith in Oregon

    Billions of American taxpayer dollars being given to Pakistan during the utterly corrupt Republican administration of Bush-Cheney appears on official US Military documents tracking them to have funneled those free dollars to the Pakistani ISI spy agency who used that free money to equip, train and fund the Taliban killing American and NATO troops in Afghanistan.

    White House spokesperson Gibbs is stating 'the present administration' has been fully aware of the US military information that was leaked. Really? You knew Billions of free American taxpayer dollars were being funneled by the Pakistani ISI to the Taliban??!

    July 26, 2010 at 5:49 pm |
  5. Keeva

    This only complicates reporting on the war by lazy journalists who are content to simply read the daily briefing and not actually work at it. It also complicates the ouroboros relationship between mainstream reporters and their sources.

    July 26, 2010 at 5:46 pm |
  6. donald sisco

    Who leaked the docs to Wikileaks?

    July 26, 2010 at 5:29 pm |