Wikileaks recently released over 95,000 formerly secret documents related to the war in Afghanistan. Obviously, this has caused quite a buzz in the news media. Boing Boing and Dan Gilmore are expecting backlash from those who keep secrets. Me too, I guess. However, from what I've read about the documents, are there really surprises? The following aren't surprises, even to someone like me who doesn't pursue war news in depth: the war is going badly; lots of civilians are killed; US troops commit war crimes; Taliban and Al Qaeda are even worse; the Pakistani ISI aren't really our allies, but often work for the Taliban etc. Haven't we been hearing this for the last couple of years? Maybe that's why support for this war is declining rapidly.

The Whitehouse response is interesting. It's along the lines of That's so 2009. Things are better now and Pakistan is our ally. Yeah, right.