Commentary

WikiLeaks documents are not insightful

Nancy Kruh

The more than 90,000 documents on the Afghan war that were leaked are all raw data, which means no one is more tempted than the pundits to determine their importance and impact.

To Eugene Robinson , the WikiLeaks material, confirms "what critics ... already knew or suspected: We are wading deeper into a long-running, morally ambiguous conflict that has virtually no chance of ending well."

The Washington Post columnist notes that "the Obama administration, our NATO allies and the Afghan government responded to the documents ... by saying they tell us nothing new. Which is the problem."

Bret Stephens also finds no revelations in the documents.

The Wall Street Journal columnist summarizes: "Innocent civilians become the tragic casualties of war. Insurgents plant thousands of IEDs. ... Is any of this news? Not exactly."

What concerns Stephens is that the documents have re-energized debate over whether the United States should "begin to withdraw, and if so, how soon and by how much."

Joe Conason expects a different sort of debate to be inspired "among political leaders and a public that neither supports the war nor demands withdrawal" because the material contains "essential facts that ought to be understood by everyone."

Chief among them, in the Creators Syndicate columnist's view, is "confirmation ... that Pakistani military intelligence is connected with central elements of the Taliban."

Foreseeing a far different impact on the war effort, New York Post columnist Ralph Peters dubs the documents "an immeasurably valuable gift to the Taliban and al-Qaeda -- as well as to other enemies, present and potential."

Anne Applebaum wades through the documents' sea of military vernacular, and she doubts their significance, at least immediately.

"After a while, even the summaries don't make that much sense," the Washington Post columnist writes. "Eventually, historians or good investigative reporters will make sense of them, using interviews, memoirs, documentation from other sources. ... Until then, the documents ... provide 'color.' They provide details. They help reinforce existing biases. ... But without more investigation, more work, more journalism, these documents just don't matter that much."

Nancy Kruh writes a weekly roundup of opinion.