Wikileaks has done it again. After their stunning exposé of reporter deaths, the site has released a new flood of documents onto the internet. In their ‘Afghan War Diary’ they publish over 91000 incident reports from intelligence officers on the ground.
The reports, while written by soldiers and intelligence officers mainly describing lethal military actions involving the United States military, also include intelligence information, reports of meetings with political figures, and related detail.
What’s more, they provide a Google Earth KML link so you can view them on Google Earth. The map includes loads of reports of civilian casualties as well as accidents and other reports. Afghanistan is often referred to as ‘The Hidden War’, but no longer apparently.
Newspapers from all around the world have picked up on this instantly as the Guardian website shows. They’ve put up a Google Map with the data overlaid on it.
Click on the image to go to the Guardian's Afghan War Diary page
It is hard to say what effect the release of these documents will do to current security for the troops stationed in Afghanistan, but it’s safe to say that this will not go down well in the U.S. and the U.K., where most of the troop casualties suffered in Afghanistan are from. Ill feeling towards Pakistan is due to mount as well.
Some of the reports describe Pakistani intelligence working alongside Al Qaeda to plan attacks. Experts cautioned that although Pakistan’s militant groups and Al Qaeda work together, directly linking the Pakistani spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, with Al Qaeda is difficult.
Whoops. That won’t go down well.
In any case, well done to Wikileaks for putting the war into perspective for us at home.
It’s taken a while for Pat Condell to post a new video, but our favourite angry atheist is as always totally in form. In his latest video he takes on Labour, the Muslim Council of Britain and Islamic nutjobs in the U.K.
The war is on! The internet, being the catalyst for change, has revolted against the establishment again. This time it’s target is Simon Cowell and the X-Factor Christmas song.
Each year since 2005 the winner of the British number one Christmas single has been an X-Factor song of boundless mediocrity. Bookies have even stopped taking bets on who will win because the expectation is that the X-Factor choice of song will beat all other rivals. This year, however, might be different.
A Facebook group, led by Jon and Tracy Morter and aptly named ‘RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE FOR CHRISTMAS NO.1‘ has sprung up, ready to battle for the U.K.’s Christmas number one single spot. Surprisingly, the 1993 hit Killing in the Name by Rage against the Machine now has a real chance of becoming the Christmas number one for 2009.
… bookies have been forced to admit that Rage Against The Machine have overtaken artists such as Leona Lewis, Robbie Williams and Susan Boyle to become the second most likely to be Number One this Christmas.
The Facebook group already has well over 400,000 members and is growing by the second. Mainstream media such as Channel 5 and BBC Radio 1 have already broadcast reports on the group and twitter is .. uh .. a-twitter about it as well. People from all across the U.K. are being urged to buy the single on the 13th of December to coincide with the release of the Cowell-sanctioned X-Factor single.
So, if you live in the U.K. I urge you to join the Facebook group (by visiting http://bit.ly/inthename) and get the Rage against the Machine single (for less than the price of a pint of ale) on the 13th to confound Cowell and the mediocrity that is the braindrain on talent in Britain.
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