“All Afghans
working for NGOs receive text messages on their cell phones. I have received
them and was afraid, but I need to work. To set my mind at ease, I spoke about
the messages with my employers … and they sent me packing! They were more
afraid than I was …”
-- A
former worker at an international NGO in Kabul
Afghanistan President Karzai: Although WikiLeaks seems to back up his claim that the root of the immediate problem lay in Pakistan, the fact that the documents, according to him, expose Afghan informants, has reportedly enraged him.
Once again, the Afghan
President feels betrayed by the West. Not only doesn't it have the courage to strike
at terrorists in Pakistan where they hide in plain sight, but he asserts that
the revelations of Wikileaks endangers the lives of Afghan informants.
When WikiLeaks' "Afghan
War Diaries" were published, Hamid Karzai didn’t applaud - but that was all. These
revelations are “no surprise,” his spokesperson immediately said. According to him, the documents had finally put
their finger on the "truth” that Westerners, chiefly the Americans, have been unwilling
to directly confront what can be summarized as follows: all the trouble comes
from Pakistan; that is the country where the problem is located … and that is the
country that holds the solution to the Afghan conflict. The Afghan President
himself has been saying this for years, but nobody wanted to listen.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
The Wikileaks revelations
also reinforced Karzai’s certainty that “collateral damage” in terms of outright
civilian casualties is much greater than the coalition forces say.
And yet … this activist site, which
seemed to offer such grist for his mill, has plunged Karzai into a dark rage. Karzai explained that after the diary was
revised and corrected in part by the White House - it exposed Afghan informants while carefully avoiding
endangering the lives of coalition troops.
During a press conference in
Kabul [see video below], Karzai insisted, “My spokesperson told me yesterday
that the names of certain Afghans who are cooperating with international forces
have been exposed by these documents. This indeed is irresponsible and shocking,
because if these people acted legitimately or illegitimately in providing
information to the NATO forces; their lives are in danger now."
Afghan
President Karzai tells reporters that WikiLeaks has
endangered
the lives of Afghan informants, July 29.
If one believes the British newspaper,
The Times, one of the documents relates the interrogation
of a Taliban fighter ready to defect - in great detail. The man gave his name and that of his
family. Other “reports” detail intelligence provided about the Taliban by other Afghan
informants.
Julian Assange, founder of
the Web site Wikileaks, immediately defended himself by shifting the blame to
the American presidency. He asserts that the White House hasn't responded to
his request to review the documents in his possession. In contrast, The New
York Times recently reported having consulted the White House before publication
of the “diaries” so as not to compromise national security.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
If it's true that the names
of Afghans who have worked “against” the Taliban appear in the documents, Karzai
has reason to be angry.
“Few analysts dare appear
on television and criticize the Taliban,” an Afghan politician in Kabul recently
confided to me. “They know they'll receive death threats from the Taliban, and these
aren't empty threats.”
“All Afghans working for NGOs
receive text messages on their cell phones,” I was told by a young father who had
succeeded in landing a job with an international organization, the name of
which we’ll conceal here. “I have received them and was afraid, but I need to
work. To set my mind at ease, I spoke about the messages with my employers … and
they sent me packing! They were more afraid than I was …”
