Der Spiegel is basking this week in the glory after it was among the three news publications – the others were the New York Times and The Guardian – that were given the 90.000+ pages of Afghan war documents. Der Spiegel crowed about being in such prestigious company – and scooping its rivals in Germany and Europe.
"Es ist eine internationale Kooperationen zwischen Redaktionen, wie es sie in der Geschichte des Spiegels noch nicht gab".
(There has been international cooperation between editorial staffs that is unique in the history of Der Spiegel.)
Unfortunately, the analysis of the documents of Der Spiegel has lacked the cool professionalism of the New York Times, with Der Spiegel preferring sensationalistic headlines (Amerikas geheimer Krieg – America's Secret War) when most of the actual information in the leaked documents was already known. Also, Der Spiegel used its magazine to highlight possible war crimes committed by US an NATO forces, while the New York Times delved into the potentially explosive evidence of collusion between Pakistan and the Taliban.
Will the WikiLeaks Afghanistan documents change the course of the war? That is not clear. But what is clear is that critics of the war effort now have ample evidence to support their call to withdraw troops, while war supporters (fewer and fewer each day) can find nothing in the mountain of information that they can point to for making the "stay the course" argument.
Ines Pohl, editor in chief of the Tageszeitung makes the following observation after examining the documents:
Dass im
deutschen Lager Masar-i-Scharif Scharfschützen beherbergt werden, die
Männer, Frauen und Kinder töten – und das belegen die Dokumente -,
verstößt eindeutig gegen das deutsche Mandat. Damit haben es jene, die
schon lange den Abzug der Bundeswehr fordern, nun schriftlich: Auch
nach Einschätzung der Militärs hat die Bundeswehr mit ihrem Mandat in
Afghanistan nichts zu suchen. Sie muss abgezogen werden.(The fact that the German Camp Masar I-Sharif has harbored sharpshooters who have killed men, women and children – as the documents show – is a clear violation of the German mandate (in Afghanistan). Those who for a long time have called for a withdrawal of German troops now have it in writing: even according to the assessment of the military the deployment of the Bundeswehr (German Army) has nothing to do with its original mandate. Withdrawal is the only option. )
