The 90,000 plus leaked Pentagon documents give a rare insight into American war strategy in Afghanistan. These documents reveal that no one in the former Bush Administration knew about the objectives that needed to be achieved through military intervention in Afghanistan. If the objective was to kill or capture Osama bin Laden and to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, then its mission has achieved limited success. There has been little change on the ground and we stand where we were in 2001, even after spending $300 billion and suffering the loss of a large number of American and Afghan lives.
Surprisingly there is no reaction from American public over the leakage of such a large number of official secret and highly sensitive documents. One reason for the missing public outcry and political firestorm over the leaks could be a popular perception that it could impact war in Afghanistan and dampen the morale of troops on ground. That's why the administration and public representatives are also carefully responding to the situation emerging after the leaks. Republicans are silent because much of the leaked documents cover the years when they were in power. The so-called liberal and conservative media are also avoiding commenting openly on the leaks.
The documents give new details of secret reports on different aspects of Afghan war. Some of them are related to Pakistan, alleging contacts between some cadres in the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Taliban. The reports point out how disgruntled ISI officials informed the Taliban about the exact location of U.S. forces deployed in different parts of Afghanistan, putting U.S. forces at greater risk of attack by the Taliban. Some of this information was shared with Pakistan's former military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, while he was still in power. The documents also divulge details of a secret hit list of America's enemies and how the CIA eliminated them. Such lists may not be illegal; however, some of the CIA operations to eliminate said enemies might fall in the ambit of war crimes. Putting aside the legality of these operations, Americans fully approve of such tactics saying they have every right to defend their troops.
While many aspects of the leaked documents are being discussed in the media, their impact may be inconsequential since the United States seems to be in no mood to win the war in Afghanistan. All it is doing now is getting out of that land-locked country and cutting their losses.
