The Power Of The Leak

Fig. 1: No illustration necessary

Now there comes a time when heavy oils, salt water, and cyber non-molecules shall come together, and in the resulting admixture, certain unpleasant truths may be examined and accepted.

It hasn't even been 36 hours yet, but the WikiLeaking of the US reports on the 5001st Afghan War has been of the very highest significance.

Yeah, those in the loop are minimizing the impact, but those of us who were signally opposed to the war BEFORE IT EVEN BEGAN can take some sense of grim vindication in welcoming this all-too-obvious evidence of consistent failure in the Afghan venture. There's nothing like low-level evidence to indict high-level secrets.

It is indeed a wearisome enterprise, pounding out the tiresome fact that a long and high-priced war is an abject failure, but even the most arch of hawks (who might be less insane than others) know that sooner or later, the truth will out. Especially via cyber techniques. This stuff isn't hard to figure out at all. The trick is making the lie last as long as possible. And it is a credit to the warmakers for making it last as long as they have - even in this cyber age. That fact alone shows how they're keeping up, intending to outwit even the most skilled of hackers. Cheney was right: to beat 'em at their own game, ya gotta be more devious than even the worst of them are.

It is indeed a deep disappointment to have the Obama Administration embrace this blatantly Neocon war with so much dedication. It should never be forgotten though, that once planned and implemented by said Neocon interests, contingency factors were deeply integrated. Such as, should the opposing party (e.g. Obama) win, a fully activated war in Afghanistan would be virtually impossible to end on Inauguration Day. In short, ANY administration would automatically be pre-addicted to an Afghan war as surely as a high-potency dose of heroin jabbed into an 8th-grader's arm (to wit: instant addiction). That's part of the genius of the Neocons. So, Obama's stuck, and the Neocons knew it would happen this way. Talk about vindication! And the fact is, Obama is neither heroic enough or larger than life enough to make the epic gesture and enact a will to power that would end the conflict with dispatch. It would instantly be regarded as radical, but perspective would prove it to be the right thing to do. Such a gesture would of course be made late, very late, in the game, and its sentiment irresponsibly conservative, regardless of being monumental dawdling under corporate and Neocon intimidation, but there's nothing else for it now. Banal, but oh-so-true.

That's where leaked documents come in. Daniel Ellsberg, on DemocracyNow! sagely commented that this WikiLeak is of the same caliber as his Pentagon Papers leak. To which I might add: expect change, some sort of change, in the whole Afghan War's course of action. It is inevitable, but we should not expect revelatory decisions to be made in its immediate cessation, naturally. Nevertheless, something's got to give in this doomed war's immediate future.

So now we have a bunch of info that even the Masses will be able to grasp. But if they choose not to grasp it and to seize this better-late-than-never opportunity to shut down a failed mechanism, then they're more worthless than would have been thought. I'm talking about Congress too, who damn well better dip their bread of protest into this elephant-in-the-room gravy while it's still hot.

Gross abuse of power is one of the easiest things to pull off in this, our very own era. Preventing it is one of the hardest. It will be most interesting to see what real political effect this current leak (hopefully the first of many) will bring about.

PS: I salute WikiLeaks for their act of high conscience and high consequence, and may those who wield the power to make sanity possible agree.