14 DAY TRIAL // With Wikileaks struggling to stay afloat and find funding and with one of its alleged sources up for trial in the US, some had been heralding the demise of the site. But it looks like Julian Assage and company were just getting started, over the weekend the site has disclosed some 92,000 US military documents regarding the war in Afganistan. It’s being labeled as the biggest leak in history and compared to the Pentagon Papers on the Vietnam War revealed in 1971.
Wikileaks has been in possession of the documents for a few months now and made them available about a month ago to the New York Times, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel. The three newspapers have worked together on sifting through the tens of thousands of documents and have now started publishing comprehensive reports based on them.
Some of the info was already known, but the documents paint a much grimmer picture of the war than what has been revealed by the Pentagon or the media so far. They describe civilian killings as well as suspicions of the Pentagon that the Taliban are getting help from Pakistan and possibly Iran.
Predictably, the US military has been highly critical of the leaks calling them irresponsible and saying that the documents put American lives at risk. However, Wikileaks says that it has withheld some 15,000 documents it also has in its possession which are more sensitive in nature than the ones released. The site will reveal those documents as well, but with some of the names or other data censored so as not to jeopardize current operations or put people at risk. Eventually, all of the documents will be released in full.
The source of the leaks is unknown, but one possibility is Army Spc. Bradley Manning who has been accused of leaking confidential documents on the war in Afganistan and other military operations. He is believed to be the source of a video showing an US military helicopter killing several civilians including two Reuters employees and is currently facing trial in the US.