Celebrating the “enabling environment”

Unreasonable TV: Episode 4 - Sierra Leone and the Heart of Community from Unreasonable Institute on Vimeo.

using sms to organise kite festival

using sms to organise kite festival

Revelation of the War

 

After the publishing of more than 90,000 obviously compromising documents on the wikileak one would wonder what else can be done in Afghanistan. No matter what strategies the US, Brussels and Kabul come up with their credibility has been severely damaged. There was already much distrist between the three parties especially between Kabul and Brussel and Washington; this takes it to a new level. It will help undermine the trust between the coalition partners fighting in Afghanistan - as well as increasing public anxiety.

I have been monitoring some media today to see the response and I think they got it wrong again. Instead of dealing with what has been leaked they are only blaming the whistleblowers. Children or Generals? Here are my questions: How are they supposed to explain that a special task force has been hunting down the Taliban for years now without success? How can they justify publicly praising cooperation with the Pakistani authorities when it turns out that the Pakistani secret service is 'probably the Taliban's most important non-Afghan helper'? … Governments should start reading them. This also shows how risky this operation is no matter what NATO is trying to do about it. For Nato, which since the end of the Cold War has seen it's role as that of the global policeman, this raises the question of its legitimacy.

The parallels with Vietnam are becoming obvious: In 1971 a US court forced the publishing of secret documents on the situation in Vietnam, nowadays the Internet ensures transparency. Is the same fate waiting for the US? many has argued 'Yes' but I disagree. The war in Afghanistan is winnable; only if Washington, Brussels and Kabul stop making mistakes; only if Washington and Brussels could stifle corruption in Kabul administration. These documents show how widespread corruption in Afghanistan is and how far it goes behind the crippled Kabul administration.