From my nightly series over at Palestine Note:
By far the most important story in the wider Middle East this week, and in the coming weeks, will be an ongoing discussion of the information revealed in the 92,000 leaked documents about the US-led war in Afghanistan revealed by Wikileaks on Sunday.
To help you parse the flood of information, here’s a cheat sheet:
The US government has launched a manhunt for the source of the leak.
The Guardian has overlaid the information, collated by type of incident (friendly fire, civilian casualties, etc) onto a map of Afghanistan. The newspaper also notes how US troops whitewashed the killing of civilians. The Guardian also notes that the specter of Osama Bin Laden appears in the documents.
The Afghanistan War Logs are inevitably evoking comparisons with the Pentagon Papers. TheWashington Post and CBS News argue that the similarities are mainly superficial.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has this to say about his motivations in an interview with Der Spiegel:
We all only live once. So we are obligated to make good use of the time that we have and to do something that is meaningful and satisfying. This is something that I find meaningful and satisfying. That is my temperament. I enjoy creating systems on a grand scale, and I enjoy helping people who are vulnerable. And I enjoy crushing bastards. So it is enjoyable work.
The New Yorker profiled Assange in June.
The New York Times reports on how the leak is putting the White House under increasing pressurein Congress.
Human Rights Watch is calling on the US and NATO to immediately investigate any newly disclosed civilian casualty incidents.
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Meanwhile, the Palestine-Israel arena:
The Los Angeles Times draws our attention to a non-scientific online poll that shows that there issignificant support for a one state solution among Palestinians in the occupied territories.
Richard Silverstein notes that Danny Seaman, the much-loathed head of Israel’s Government Press Office is stepping down, calling him “Israel’s media equivalent of J. Edgar Hoover.”
Following the US’ lead, France has upgraded the status of the PLO mission in Paris to a general delegation.
The Washington-based Center for American Progress argues that it makes no sense to designate the flotilla-sponsoring Turkish NGO IHH a terrorist organization.