Today's dose is from the Confidential/NoForm cables as currently released and available to the public. What do we see?
An Afghan war that we are losing, as witness quotes. An American Ambassador displeased that Afghans complain about civilian deaths rather than singing paeans of praise for their liberators. Our spy operation inside the German Parliament. German internet censorship.
Cynics would add: the Depravity of the American Government. Details below fold. Aside: This sort of search is rather tedious.
T07KABUL1132 Cable date: 2007-04-06 Drug Tsar Walters visits Kabul. He is advised "Senior ISAF officials told Walters that although eradicating poppy would, in their estimation, increase the security threat, it needed to be done and they would be as supportive as their mandate allowed." That is, ISAF is working to defeat itself. (COM ISAF General McNeill) indicated that "by not taking the issue on, Karzai was tacitly signaling his OK for poppy production." This is the Karzai who is the unelected dictator (his election was canceled) of Afghanistan.
Eradication recruits for our opposition: "(COM ISAF General) McNeill also criticized the timing and conduct of eradication, arguing that farmers eradicated in the spring would be fighting by summer."(paragraph 4).
In some provinces nothing is happening: "the failure of Uruzgan Governor Monib to take any action on eradication."(paragraph 7)
Paragraph 9: Walters visits Helmand. (Walters) "was disappointed with the recent lack of eradication progress in areas with the highest concentration of poppy cultivation, like Marja sub-district." Readers may recall the liberation of Marja, in what was said to be "one of the largest offensives" of the war http://www.csmonitor.com/... And what did Walters see in Helmand before we attacked? Paragraph 13 "In the background, the poppy continues to grow, and Walters’ aerial surveillance of rich poppy fields in Helmand offered immediate and powerful visual evidence of the scope of the problem."
08LONDON2181 2008-08-22 15:03 Here one can read about internal Afghan scheming, but buried in Paragraph 2 is the observation on Helmand Province "major roads were still very dangerous given the increase in insurgent use of IEDs and suicide bombers." This is repeated in paragraph 4 "lack of security along transport routes makes it difficult to build on the security improvements."
08BERLIN1387, GERMANY: BUNDESTAG SET TO RENEW A BEEFED-UP ISAF 2008-10-10 17:05 The discussion is on the expected decision of the German Parliament to allow an expansion of German forces in expansion from 3500 to 4500, with a withdrawal of an unused special forces capacity. (Except, see below, it is not unused.) Why is there this expansion? Paragraph 4 "deploy additional troops to respond to the deteriorating security situation in the north, to fill in for departing Allied troops (primarily Czech and Danish soldiers who re-deployed to the south and east), and to take on new tasks (like the 200-man RC-North Quick Reaction Force)" The bill for the poor German taxpayer is seen in Paragraph 11 "Germany's total outlay per year for the mission in Afghanistan is now more than 1 billion Euros." In addition, it seems that the Germans have deployed Special Forces (KSK) to Afghanistan under German national control (i.e., not as part of any of the international groups there).
08LONDON2964, AFGHANISTAN: PRESIDENT KARZAI NOT CONFIDENT ON ELECTIONS 2008-11-28 15:03
But he had been in touch with President-elect Obama and had sent a security paper "It covered civilian casualties, and ending house searches and arbitrary arrests of Afghans by coalition forces." (Paragraph 1). In addition, paragraph 4, Karzai"was also concerned that many of the private security companies were little more than "criminal organizations." The same applied to some of the transport companies used by the U.S.; it had become apparent to Karzai that the transport companies were responsible for much of the insecurity on the highways, in order to extract higher fees and insurance payments from the Americans." Karzai (paragraph 11) was also not optimistic about sending American troops: "Karzai said that the U.S. had failed to send the troops for which Karzai had asked in 2002, but now it might be too late." On a brighter note (paragraph 15), European visitors in Garmsir did a walkabout through the bazaar, which supposedly would have been impossible until recently.
09KABUL1677, HELMAND GOVERNOR MANGAL UPBEAT, HOPEFUL IN MEETING IN MEETING WITH AMBASSADOR 2009-06-27 11:11
The Governor came to the American embassy. In paragraph 2 the Governor remarked on "security situation in Helmand since he was appointed in early 2008, describing security throughout the province as bad, and pointing specifically to the complete lack of security in provincial capital Lashkar Gah" Not controlling your capital is not good. "...narcotics traffickers operating with impunity lived within 100 meters of the police station in the capital." However, the Governor had acted on the matter "Mangal admitted that the crackdown on narcotics traffickers in the city had created problems, and that his effectiveness as governor has suffered because of it." In Summer 2009 "five districts in Helmand are currently under control of enemy forces."
Paragraph 5 discusses the Marjah Operation. There is an inserted complaining remark apparently from our Ambassador: "Referring to the successful counter narcotics operation at Marja last month, Mangal told the Ambassador that some people had misinformed President Karzai. [The following note is in the original message.](Note: Mangal was referring to tribal leaders who reportedly misinformed Karzai that the operation had resulted in civilian casualties, rather than supporting the success of the operation. End note). ... He also said civilian casualties had, in fact occurred, but not as many as Karzai’s friends reported.
09ROME649, SCENESETTER FOR ITALIAN PM BERLUSCONI’S JUNE 15 VISIT TO WASHINGTON 2009-06-09 08:08
Here we have a cable addressed directly to President Obama. Paragraph 1 laments that the Italians have not 'invested in the instruments of national power', i.e., they are not rabid militarists. Worse, they are taking individual stands on issues such as Iran and Russia, rather than supporting us. On the bright side (paragraph 5) Italian banks are in relatively good shape. An unpleasant reminder of an Obama administration failure comes in paragraph 7 "Berlusconi welcomed your decision to close Guantanamo, and has publicly and repeatedly underscored Italy’s desire to support the move by taking detainees."
09LONDON1156, HMG FLOATS PROPOSAL FOR MARINE RESERVE COVERING THE CHAGOS ARCHIPELAGO (BRITISH INDIAN OCEAN TERRITORY) 2009-05-15 07:07
How nice, protecting ecology. However, if you read carefully this marine water park would exclude the former residents of the Chagos Archipelago, who were thrown out for the military base at Diego Garcia, from returning to their land, and would protect military basing at Diego Garcia and surrounding waters. British environmentalists are going to be used as cover, and they are much more influential than the Chagosians.
The next few cables treat British energy exploration near the Falklands.
And lower down the list
09BERLIN1296, GERMANY COULD HAVE NEW COALITION GOVERNMENT WITHIN 2009-10-16 15:03
The series of related messages make clear that we recruited a German Parliamentarian to spy on the coalition negotiations that led to the current German government and supply documents. Of interest to German readers is the aside (Paragraph 4) that the Free Democratic party wanted to end "what is termed "unnecessary and ineffective" measures to censor the internet and preventing domestic military deployments." If you are a German, did you know that your government is censoring what you see on the internet?