WikiLeaks expose: US, Pak and Taliban scamper for cover
By Rajiv Singh | 27 Jul 2010
If it weren't so deadly serious it would easily be considered hilarious as nominal allies and supposedly 'sworn enemies,' the United States, Pakistan and the Taliban, all provided covering fire to each other on Monday over the WikiLeaks Afghan War Diaries.
While the US spoke up on behalf of Islamabad, insinuating that they perhaps weren't as duplicitous as the WikiLeaks expose was making them out to be, the Pakistani establishment spoke up on behalf of its notorious military intelligence outfit, the ISI, which has been waging a covert war in the entire south and south west Asia region. The third part of the Afghan War triad, a top ranking Taliban military commander, also made a laughable attempt to disassociate his organisation from the ISI.
Interestingly, Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban commander in question, who also carries a $5-million bounty on his head, is mostly unavailable for interviews or media interaction of any sort, which is understandable given the security risks they entail, but with the WikiLeaks expose damning his long-time patrons, the Pakistan Army's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), he apparently considered it worthwhile to risk life and limb to speak to a Daily Beast correspondent.
Even as the world recoiled with shock at the knowledge that some 92,000-odd pages of highly classified war information were now available for public browsing on the Internet, spokespersons for the Obama administration in the US, the Inter Services Intelligence in Pakistan and the military head of the Taliban-allied Haqqani Network in Pakistan's tribal North Waziristan state all spoke up on behalf of each other in a desperate attempt to control damage and downplay the explosive potential of WikiLeaks Afghan War Diary: 2004-2010.
The two most damaging inferences that have emerged from the material now publicly available is that the international military forces have been hiding the extent of the duplicity of Pakistan military's ISI , which has been deeply involved in supporting, guiding operations and using the Taliban insurgents as its tools for its own purposes.
The second damning indictment is the extent of the casualties suffered by Afghan civilians in the conflict and the extent to which international forces have gone to disguise the fact.
Mission unaccomplished
Commencing with Washington, White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, appeared to be tying himself up in knots as he fended questions on the relationship between Pakistan's spy agency and the Taliban. He insisted there was nothing new in the reports and tried to charm his audience with the suggestion that Pakistan was fully cooperating with the United States and NATO in combating the Taliban and militant groups operating in its borders.
''I don't know that what is being said or what is being reported isn't something that hasn't been discussed fairly publicly, again, by named US officials and in many news stories. I mean, The New York Times had a story on this topic in March of 2009 written by the same authors.''
