"It is said that a withdrawal is unthinkable now because the Afghan people cannot be left in the hands of the Taliban. The publication of these documents makes it clear that this will be the case even three, four, or five years from now. So two conclusions can be drawn from these materials: A) We need much more time than was previously stated publicly to get the country under control. So we have to stay longer and with even more troops; B) We failed before. We won't succeed in the years to come. So let's get out as soon as possible."
Founder, spokesperson and editor in chief of WikiLeaks Julian Assange: His group's release of 90,000 classified documents pertaining to Afghanistan has turned the media world and world at large upside down.
The betrayal of secrets is
nothing new in the history of war. But when 75,000 classified documents are
made available to the global public - that’s unprecedented. It will take a
while to process this mountain, even for those familiar with the subject matter.
WikiLeaks has declared us worthy
of enlightenment - but not completely. The organization is withholding 15,000 documents.
Their publication - as explained by WikiLeaks and the print media involved - could
endanger human lives. The impressions we get now may differ little from those
many had before. But one thing seems certain now: There will be no peace in
Afghanistan for the next few years and it’s sure that there will be no peace
without the Taliban. The moment that seemed possible has long since passed -
and it passed unused. Now there's no way around the Taliban. Bombing them out
of existence didn't work and no one believes any longer that it could.
It is said that a withdrawal
from Afghanistan is unthinkable now because the country cannot be left to its
fate, i.e.: the Afghan people cannot be left in the hands of the Taliban. The
publication of these documents makes it clear that this will be the case even
three, four, or five years from now. So two conclusions can be drawn from these
materials: A) We need time, much more time than was previously stated publicly,
to get the country under control. So we have to stay longer and with even more
troops; B) We failed in previous years. We won’t succeed in the years to come. So
let’s get out as soon as possible.
Perhaps the documents now found
their way into the open to convince the public of the first conclusion. Perhaps
WikiLeaks' source isn't as far from the government as we assume in our initial
enthusiasm. Maybe we, along with WikiLeaks, The New York Times, The
Guardian, and Der Spiegel, are being used to create a climate in
which a retreat from the withdrawal can be announced. Then the exercise, while
giving the appearance of enlightening us, is in reality a case of counter-enlightenment.
The game of intelligence and counterintelligence.
But what does "in reality"
mean in this jungle of intrigue? After all, it’s conceivable that a large majority
of the public, so adeptly guided toward A, might, in view of the documents,
decide on B. Playing with the public mind is a dangerous game - for everybody
involved. When the public - that is, us - knows precisely what needs to be done
but doesn’t have the faintest idea how to get it done, we have a tendency to drop
the issue and resign ourselves to the next one - hopefully one that can be
solved more easily.
Only in rare cases does
knowledge come with insights into how to put solutions into practice. When
people fail over and over again, resignation follows. Knowledge is not, in
fact, power. Usually, knowledge is nothing more than the realization of one’s
own powerlessness. All too often in these cases, we draw the conclusion that
it's better to do without knowledge and allow the powerful to carry on.
