Wired writer and Danger Room blog editor Noah Shachtman has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today cautioning those who dive in to the Wikileaks Afghan war logs to read the military-produced reports they contain with some skepticism. Not because Wikileaks has released anything less than the genuine article, but because reports produced by the military don’t always tell the whole story. Shachtman cites a series of reports related to actions of the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines, in Helmand province on August 25th:
I happen to know this because I was there with Echo company, reporting for WIRED magazine. And the wide difference between what actually happened at the Moba Khan compound and what the report says happened there should give caution to those who think they can discover the capital-T truth about the Afghanistan conflict solely through the WikiLeaks war logs. It should also give pause to those officers in military headquarters who count on these updates to learn about what’s happening on the front lines. The military has a problem in how it talks to itself.
My War, WikiLeaked: Why the Public (and the Military) Can’t Count on Those Battle Logs (Danger Room)
Here’s the full op-ed at the WSJ. If you