日，一个基于网络的组织披露了数千份美国秘密军事文件。大量泄露的机密信息似乎认为阿富汗战争没有希望，并可能对公众的看法产生巨大的影响。
“维基泄密”(Wikileaks)网站获得并公布了这些文件。这些文件的披露使人想起了事关越战秘史的五角大楼文件(Pentagon Papers)，后者公布时推翻了之前有关越战的公开说法，并导致了公众反对这场战争。
正当美国总统奥巴马(Barack Obama)的阿富汗战略受到越来越多批评之时，此时大量披露这些文件很可能将会火上浇油，同时也会引发人们对获得这些信息的方式展开争论。
数周来，维基泄密网站允许英国《卫报》(Guardian)、德国《明镜》(Der Spiegel)和美国《纽约时报》(New York Times)三份刊物接触这些文件。周日，这些刊物以一种协同的方式进行了报道。
三家刊物中审阅过这些文件的记者称，这些文件大多是原始的战地报道，一些报道很短，一些平淡无奇，但另一些有着丰富的描述性细节。
维基泄密网站过去披露秘密材料时，白宫总是对其表示谴责，此次也不例外。但在谴责之时，白宫还指出此次泄露的大批材料来自于布什政府。
白宫国家安全顾问琼斯(James Jones)在书面声明中说，正是鉴于多年来不断发展的严峻形势，奥巴马总统于2009年12月1日宣布了新的战略，大幅增加了向阿富汗提供的资源，并更为关注基地组织以及巴基斯坦境内的塔利班窝点。
维基泄密网站获得的92,000份文件涵盖了2004年1月至2009年12月这段时期。
报 告中最令人意外之处或许是塔利班曾使用精密的热追踪导弹对付北约组织(North Atlantic Treaty Organization)的飞机。上世纪80年代，阿富汗抵抗运动战士使用由美国提供的类似武器对抗苏联军队，效果显著。美军从未公开承认塔利班拥有此 类武器。
根据这些报告，尽管伊斯兰堡方面正在为美国的战争努力提供帮助，巴基斯坦军方的三军情报局(Inter-Services Intelligence agency)却在巴基斯坦境内为塔利班提供了避难所。喀布尔的最高指控官彼得雷乌斯(David Petraeus)将军甚至曾在公开场合表示三军情报局与塔利班保持着联系。
另一些报道详细描述了肩负抓捕叛军领袖任务的特种作战部队实施的行动。这些报道称行动获得了胜利，但也指出一些错误导致阿富汗平民死亡，从而有损美国在阿富汗的声望。
这些报道指出，多架美国无人驾驶飞机坠毁或发生碰撞，使整体成功率大打折扣。第一批有关维基泄密网站文件的报道出现后，白宫即迅速做出了反应。这表明奥巴马政府认为这些报告披露的内容有可能对其有关阿富汗战争的举措造成破坏。
Thousands of secret military documents were being released Sunday by a Web-based organization, a gigantic leak of classified information that appeared to present a bleak view of Afghanistan war and could have a profound impact on the public perception of the conflict.
The release of the documents, which were obtained and made public by the website WikiLeaks, evoked the Pentagon Papers, the secret history of the Vietnam War, which when published contradicted the public narrative of that war and played a role in turning public opinion against it.
The giant document release, coming at a time when President Barack Obama's Afghanistan strategy has come under increasing criticism, will likely stoke criticism of the war effort, as well as spark a debate about the manner in which the information was made available.
WikiLeaks allowed three publications -- the Guardian newspaper in London, the magazine Der Spiegel in Germany and the New York Times -- to have access to the documents for several weeks. Those news outlets released stories in a coordinated manner Sunday.
The documents are mostly raw field reports, according to the reporters from those publications who reviewed them, some spare, some mundane and others rich with narrative details.
The White House condemned the release of the documents, as it has in the past when WikiLeaks has made classified material public. Even as it condemned the leak, the White House also noted that the bulk of the material released was from the Bush administration.
'On Dec. 1, 2009, President Obama announced a new strategy with a substantial increase in resources for Afghanistan, and increased focus on Al Qaeda and Taliban safe-havens in Pakistan, precisely because of the grave situation that had developed over several years,' Gen. James Jones, White House national security adviser, said in a written statement.
The 92,000 documents obtained by WikiLeaks cover the time period from January 2004 until December 2009.
The most surprising finding in the reports may be that the Taliban have used sophisticated heat-seeking missiles against aircraft operated by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Afghan resistance fighters used similar weapons, provided by the U.S., to great effect against the Soviet Army in the 1980s. The U.S. military has never publicly acknowledged that the Taliban possess such weapons.
According to the reports, the Pakistani military's Inter-Services Intelligence agency provided the Taliban with safe haven in the Pakistan, even as Islamabad was aiding the U.S. war effort. That charge has often been made privately by U.S. officials. Even in public, Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Kabul, has said the ISI retains ties with the Taliban.
Other reports detail missions conducted by Special Operation Forces, charged with hunting down top insurgent commanders. The reports claim successes but also note that mistakes have led to the death of Afghan civilians and, as a result, eroded U.S. standing in Afghanistan.
The reports note that a number of U.S. unmanned aircraft have crashed and collided, undermining the overall success rate. The swiftness of the White House's response when the first stories about the WikiLeaks documents appeared suggests the Obama administration views the release of the reports as potentially damaging to the war effort.