You claim that, "[Assange] must have thought that the documents would expose American imbecility, or hegemony, or both. He has, at any rate, probably done a good deal less damage than he had hoped."

Do you have any support for either of these statements?

Do you sincerely believe that anyone of reasonable intelligence reviewing these (which he did before release, or at least had done for him before release) was going to think that they made U.S. diplomats look like idiots? How do you explain the lack of stories now saying so (though we do have other stories that do take your line--that the diplomats are smarter than the look from the outside)?

As for "the damage he was hoping to do," I suggest you go back and look to see what Wikileaks goals are. He may well be doing exactly the damage he intends to do: that damage does not seem to me, however, to make the U.S. look like a bunch of bumbling idiots.

US failure in Afghanistan is of its own making.

US has deliberately ignored Taliban’s Pakistan connections in fueling and sustaining Afghan insurgency as reported by Matt Waldman in ‘The sun in the sky‘ on 6/13/2010 that were corroborated by WikiLeaks leaks on 7/25/2010 and then further corroborated by Chris Alexander, Canadian ambassador to Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005 and Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Afghanistan from 2005 until 2009 in his article on 7/30/2010 titled ‘The huge scale of Pakistan‘s complicity‘.

US refuses to use its aid leverage in spite of knowing fully well the duplicitous Pakistani policy of ‘running with the hares while hunting with the hounds’.

Afghan President Karzai told a news conference in Kabul on 7/29/2010 after WikiLeaks leaks, “The time has come for our international allies to know that the war against terrorism is not in Afghanistan’s homes and villages. But rather this war is in the sanctuaries, funding centers and training places of terrorism which are in Pakistan. Our international allies have the ability to destroy these Pakistani sanctuaries, but the question is why they are not doing it?“

Afghanistan’s national security advisor Rangin Dadfar Spanta asked the similar question in a Washington Post article on 8/23/10: “While we are losing dozens of men and women to terrorist attacks every day, the terrorists’ main mentor (Pakistan) continues to receive billions of dollars in aid and assistance. How is this fundamental contradiction justified? Despite facing a growing domestic terror threat, Pakistan “continues to provide sanctuary and support to the Quetta Shura, the Haqqani network, the Hekmatyar group and Al Qaeda. Dismantling the terrorist infrastructure “requires confronting the state of Pakistan that still sees terrorism as a strategic asset and foreign policy tool”.

Once Reagan embraced Islamic fundamentalists to evict Soviet Union from Afghanistan, that union was sealed. Pakistan is like a ‘mafia’, a relationship once established can NEVER be ended, come hell or high water.

I have been writing for an age in the comments columns of several newspapers that the crux of the problem was tackling Pakistan’s support to and use of terror as an instrument of its policies. I did not have – naturally – access to despatches from distinguished diplomats like Anne Patterson and Karl Eikenberry reporting from Pakistan and Afghanistan. I am amazed to see how closely their analyses coincided with mine.
Among other things I wrote that Pakistan would take only pro forma action against its own terrorists because it regarded them as useful means of putting pressure on India and using them against India after the Allies leave AfPak. We can see that in practice Pakistan has done nothing to weaken its terrorists because, in Anne Patterson’s words, "There is no chance that Pakistan will view enhanced assistance levels in any field as sufficient compensation for abandoning support to these groups, which it sees as an important part of its national security apparatus against India." I must admire Anne Patterson’s perspicacity in coming to this view rather early on, but of course policy is made in Washington. In the corridors of the White House, the Department of State and the Pentagon there are still many who would in a way fight Pakistan’s battles inside the repositories of power in Washington.
I have argued that Mr Bush made a capital error when he demanded and accepted Pakistan’s cooperation in the war against terror in the wake of 9/11. Mr Bush persisted with that decision for the whole of his tenure and his successor Mr Obama has not had the strength or conviction to make appropriate modification of policy although he realizes that “the cancer is in Pakistan”. I have seen nothing in any of the Western newspapers which would encourage me to think that anyone out there sees Pakistan as part of the problem and not part of any possible solution to the Afghanistan question.
I beg to urge for the consideration of all concerned that as long as Pakistan is part of the coalition fighting against terrorists in Afghanistan, there is no possibility that the Allied effort in Afghanistan shall succeed, whether during the rest of Mr Obama’s tenure or during the next presidency, or, for that matter, during the next two or five decades. Mr Obama has correctly understood the problem but he still shrinks from the obvious conclusions that should be drawn from it.
Successive US administrations over the last 50 yeas have put all their eggs in the Pakistani basket. Only occasionally some Western help to India was forthcoming, as in the case of the response to China’s war of 1962. At that time there was nothing like a China–Pakistan relationship, which to be sure arose in the aftermath of the said war until the China–Pakistan relationship became the so-called all-weather friendship. Today, Pakistan basks in the warmth of two patrons, China and the US, which are not entirely compatible as world powers. No one in Washington seems to see that there is no way in which a country can be a friend of both China and the US.
There have been indications that Mr Bush and Mr Obama have been inclined to attach some importance to relations with India. This has even taken the form of US support to India’s nuclear programme by both the presidents. Lately, Mr Obama has been speaking more warmly about India. But this has yet to translate into definite reassessment concerning Pakistan. Pakistan remains one of the two blind spots of the US foreign policy establishment. The other is Israel, about which on another occasion – perhaps.
V. C. Bhutani, vineycb1@vsnl.com, Delhi, India, Dec 5 2010, 0730 IST

For some godforsaken reason, the Pakistanis have a knack of never coming out clean, or, as for that matter, straightforward.

The Pakistani 'system' ( in reality a non-system ) operates at different levels. Whereas the civilian bureaucracy is good for nothing anyway, the politicians act as the clowns in the theater of the absurd. It is, as we all very well know, the military that holds the key to all issues.

Being that as it may, Pakistan's existence, in the light of events post Afghan jihad days, has been in jeopardy. An entire generation has witnessed Pakistan grappling with the problem of extremism, and an entire generation has now been wasted, living in fear and terrorized by the religious zealots.

The US keeps impressing upon the world that Pakistan's cooperation is a must in the war against terrorism. The US keeps giving tons of money of Pakistan. However, Washington needs to realize that the military is ideologically wedded to the 'well-being' of wahabism and to protect the interests of those propagate the stone-age shariah.

The relationship is inter-connected and certainly beneficial to both the military and the mullahs. It is conducive for the keeping the general population under control, paralyze the nation psychologically and deprive them of their basic rights.

Bastards like Mullah Qureshi who recently offered a handsome monetary reward to anyone who kills an innocent minority woman are rampantly available. They have eaten up the very roots of Pakistan.

The question, however, is: Will the military really go after the religious extremists, up in the mountains or down below the depth of the seas? One has serious doubts if anything impactful will be done. The mullahs suit the power wielders and the Establishment loves the atrociously obnoxious ‘faithfuls’, the so-called ‘soldiers of G_d’.

Pakistan is a lost cause. Everyone understands that and US diplomats are no exception to the rule. What really should be done is to effectively, diplomatically or otherwise, target ‘areas of interest’ in Pakistan, wherever the terrorists are hiding, be clear with Islamabad and the GHQ that no American taxpayers money will be ‘gifted’ to them unless results are produced that show that the march of the real terrorists is halted and not those who get killed in ‘fake encounters’ conducted by the Pakistan Army.

Furthermore, ISI ( Inter-Services Intelligence ) is a major culprit in the Pakistani woodwork. Its true agenda is not known to anyone but all of us, in our right frames of mind, can absolutely decipher and truly understand that this agency works according to a plan of action independent of the civilian leadership. It has created havoc inside the neighboring countries, the victim-in-chief being India.

Several years ago, a study conducted by the Woodrow Wilson Center declared Pakistan a ‘failed state’. This was well before this spate of terrorism had hit the country. If a same type of study is conducted today, Pakistan will qualify to be one worst states in modern world history.

I would not like to answer some of the comments which have been allowed to appear here. I would like your editors to exercise some discretion in ensuring quality in the comments published here.
I do wish to add a few things which I have been turning over in my mind for some time.
I have been arguing that for quite some time China has done everything to show that it does not give a damn about US sensitivities and that it has gone on with blatant incitement and encouragement to North Korea to behave in a certain manner that the world has been seeing in recent months. I have argued further that North Korea has been wholly unsuccessful in building a better life for its people or to create a hinterland of scientific and technological study and research which would enable it to prosecute an autonomous nuclear weapon programme. In short, whatever North Korea has done in the matter of its “successes” in building nuclear weapons and missiles has been the gift of China to North Korea. That to me is the common sense of the matter.
The US administration has gone on persisting with its efforts to persuade China to rein in North Korea. US policy makers should know that it has been China’s effort and objective to rub USA’s nose in the dust and to show to the wide world that the US and the rest of the world can get nowhere without China’s cooperation. Let us be very clear, though, that China is not in a hurry to render its cooperation. To the contrary, it will do everything to push the US to sheer exasperation with North Korea.
The US, and especially Mr Obama, has been rash in proclaiming from the house tops that the US would go in for ending ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. An obvious implication of this is that the US administration would not enter into another war in any other part of the world. As it is, the US has reached the end of its options in Pakistan, which let us be clear is no more than a client state of China, not a friend or ally or partner of the US in the war against terror. The US administration to this day has not formed a determination that Pakistan is not quite with the Allies in their operations in AfPak. But of course we understand the limitations and compulsions of the US situation in AfPak.
The necessary counterfoil of the same Chinese policy has been pushing the US into a realization that it has no options in North Korea either. The US seems to entertain fond hope that it is building a trinomial with Japan and North Korea to meet China’s and North Korea’s challenges in Northeast Asia. But no such trinomial is likely to arise because it necessarily depends on the strength of the three binomials. Let it be remembered that relations between each of the three pairs are far from cordial and perhaps wholly devoid of trust. In other words, the trinomial that the US is trying to build in Northeast Asia shall not come about.
It is amusing to read that the US will increase diplomatic pressure on China to rein in North Korea. Why should China do anything of the kind? It has already shown that the US has no options in several of its foreign policy questions and it has even less of an option in the financial sphere, which China continues to control to USA’s chagrin. In these circumstances the US is in no position to launch further military operations anywhere in the world.
Realization of this should be the starting point of any US consideration of where do we go from here. Without that realization any decision that the US may take shall have an element of unreality and shall run the risk of achieving sheer unsuccess.
To return briefly to the consideration of matters concerning Pakistan, the US needs to assess Pakistan’s role realistically and to determine whether Pakistan indeed has been or can ever be an asset in the fight against terror. It is important to remember that Pakistan itself has been the author and originator of terror which it has using for at least 30 years against India and, do what US will, there is no way of detaching Pakistan from its conviction that Pakistan’s best defence against India is low-cost terror because Pakistan is not a match for India in terms of military power, economic power, educational and social advance, scientific and technological progress, and commercial and industrial development. In absolute terms the proportion between Pakistan and India in the matter of resources would be 1 to 10. Pakistan is not and cannot be India’s equal in any respect, its nuclear weapons notwithstanding.
Nuclear weapons are not for use. They only serve as a matter of strategy. If a war arises it has to be fought with military resources and economic backup. Without that Pakistan cannot stand in the battlefield longer than a week, if that long. And let us remember a few things. If you love a dame, do your own courting. If you choose to fight a war, you have to do the fighting. Do not expect any other country to fight the war for you. In some matters proxy is not an option.
V. C. Bhutani, vineycb1@vsnl.com, Delhi, India, Dec 6 2010, 0940 IST

If Pakistan supports terrorists as a tool to counter India and its influence, the U.S. should therefore tilt more and more toward India as ally against terrorism in south Asia. India is bigger and richer. It has a functioning, democratic government. It's one of the few stable countries in the region. When Pakistan sees the tilt, it will either 1) stop supporting the Taliban to win back U.S. support, or 2) turn away from the U.S. toward China. If it's #2, who cares? Let China try to keep a lid on terrorism.

India is a bigger version of Pakistan. Don't fool yourself into thinking that India is any different than Pakistan for that matter any of the similarly poor countries.

India's problems are just ten times bigger than Pakistan's problem because of its heft and are therefore 100 times difficult to solve.

Disolve India into its original state and back to 500 Princely States, then India's problems can be tackled. Trying to tackle India's problems as is is like trying to get an old rotting elephant into shape; small young elephants is the answer. Disolve India and save the peoples of Kashmir, Junagarh, Manavader, Hyderabad Deccan, Trancore and hundreds more.

India is not only a rotting elephant but its also rotting at the core. Any country where 80% of the population is disenfranchised is NOT a democracy; but is a sham democracy; not to mention the organised genocide of tens of million female fetuses in India. India is not even civilised. It is a backward idiotic place.

And, unfortunately, it will stay the same for the next few hundred years.

AK
lalqila.wordpress.com

If I put on my american hat, I have to say that the US is wasting time and money and men in a hopeless muddle. The US is just over its head in this game. The military is spectacularly good at military tasks but cannot possibly do nation-building in Afghanistan. The diplomats seem to have the same "TIME" magazine level delusions in private as they espouse in public. The aims of the whole exercise seem to be unknown and unknowable. To muddle along spending trillions just to avoid having to admit a mistake does not seem like a good idea.
World government will happen one day, but for one power to pay the price for policing the world (and to try and do so with very limited information and neither the ruthlessness, nor the charisma needed) is a vain hope. Let China and India and Iran and Russia drain THEIR treasuries and lose their men fighting proxy wars in afghanistan and Pakistan. Neither country has oil and neither is essential for US well being. And both can be safely bombed from a distance if needed.
But if I put on my Pakistani hat, I must say that a rapid US pullout has the potential to trigger an awful tragedy....I just cannot believe that GHQ has the ability to avoid slipping back into full jihadi mode after the huge victory celebrations that will follow. And that means more trouble for India, for Iran, for central asia...one day, even for China. I know brother Tariq Ali thinks we will all do better when we don't have Uncle Sam blundering around in the China shop, but past history does not bear him out.
Of course, if one accepts the view that all the trouble (existing and future) is also caused by the CIA and we will all live in perfect harmony if the CIA can leave us alone, then the equation changes. But evidence for this view also seems thin....