Obama Should Read WikiLeaks Documents

[reorg]

Obama Should Read WikiLeaks Documents
Monday 03 January 2011
by: Ray McGovern | Consortium News | Op-Ed

Perhaps President Barack Obama should give himself a waiver on the ban prohibiting U.S. government employees from downloading classified cables released by WikiLeaks, so he can better understand the futility of his Afghan War strategy.

For instance, if Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has hidden from him Ambassador Karl Eikenberry’s cables from Kabul, he might wish to search out KABUL 001892 of July 13, 2009, in which Eikenberry reports that Afghan President Hamid Karzai is “unable to grasp the most rudimentary principles of state building.”

And, while he’s at it, he should dig out the September 2009 cable from the U.S. Ambassador in Pakistan, Anne Patterson, in which she warns: “There is no chance that Pakistan will view enhanced assistance … as sufficient compensation for abandoning support to these groups in Pakistan.”

The same conclusion is contained in the recent National Intelligence Estimates on Afghanistan and Pakistan. My advice to Obama would be: Don’t let anyone gist them for you; read at least the Key Judgments.

...
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2011/010311a.html
http://www.truth-out.org/ray-mcgovern-obama-should-read-wikileaks-docs66524

But, then again, he may be well aware that "today’s bedrock American policy appears to be the creation of an enduring U.S. presence in Afghanistan. That’s right; think longer term than even 2014."

[stray cat]

1. Maybe the congress can read it aloud and not bother legislating