The Afghan War Docs Leak: Who Benefits?

During the Bush years, when the fight against Islamic terror was still relatively new, big newspapers and other media outlets raced to publish or broadcast major state secrets of the war. The New York Times splashed all over its front pages the secret of the warrantless wiretapping of suspected terrorists. They and other papers published on Page A1 the secret of the black sites abroad, including the names of the countries that were helping us covertly detain terrorists. They published the details of the enhanced interrogation techniques we were using to extract life-saving information from top al Qaeda terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. USA Today

published a memorable piece detailing the specifics of the SWIFT program to track terrorist financing.

When these stories broke, most Americans were outraged at the lack of journalistic responsibility. How dare these left-wing outfits publish secrets that would likely empower our enemies with high-value information and endanger American lives? Normal Americans were aghast.

But the nutcases on the Left are not normal. They were so consumed with Bush Derangement Syndrome that they were automatically opposed to everything he did and were willing to imperil the nation in order to hurt him. National security was way down the list of priorities. The Bush White House begged these papers not to publish these state secrets, for fear of enhancing the enemy’s intel. The papers told the White House to take a hike.

The Left elsewhere cheered the Times and the others. They were simply doing their patriotic duty, you see: informing the public of the evils of the Bush administration.

Of course, it would have been their journalistic and patriotic duty to inform the public of the evils of the ACTUAL ENEMY, but I digress.

Today, the Times, the UK Guardian, and Germany’s Der Spiegel have simultaneously published portions of 91,000 secret documents about the Afghanistan war leaked to them by WikiLeaks. They pretend to have been all anguished about the decision to publish, which is nonsense of course. These papers are the Hard Left. Yes, they wanted to hit Bush when they previously

published secrets. But above all, they are anti-war. They don’t really care who is prosecuting it; to them, war is war and the U.S. is wrong to be anywhere.

So, they published these documents today, and it’s fascinating to watch the same Left that nodded approvingly when Bush’s war effort got hit be outraged today. “Irresponsible,” said National Security Adviser Jim Jones yesterday. Murmurs of “treason” are bubbling up from Obama’s supporters. The whole irony would be hilarious if it didn’t involve the life and death of the

nation.

Here’s another thing to keep in mind: the leaked docs are from 2004 until December of last year, when Obama decided on the surge. Nothing after that was leaked. Convenient, isn’t it? Obama’s surge effort is protected, while the Left can still pound Bush for the previous years.

One last point: the docs indicate how nearly impossible the combat effort is, with Pakistan’s internal security service, the ISI, helping the Afghan insurgency with a hidden hand while Pakistan takes truckloads of money from us in aid. Let your conspiratorial mind wander: what if the leak is meant to HELP Obama? What if it’s meant to help him GET OUT of Afghanistan? The story the docs tell gives Obama the perfect pretext to withdraw on his original timeline.

Whenever you see a story like this, always go deeper and ask yourself: who benefits?

The answer is: Obama.

Who clearly does NOT benefit? Has anyone asked General David Petraues how he’s doing today?