CNN is running a story on TF 373, what is apparently a Special Operations Force (SOF) unit in Afghanistan. CNN cites to one of the Wikileaks documents to imply that during an aborted operation, TF 373 killed seven Afghan National Police officers.
I'll let you read it for yourself here. The way that paragraph is written, you come away from it thinking there was foul play -- that maybe this SOF unit maliciously killed Afghan police officers.
But if you click through to the document itself, the data paints a completely different picture. I'm not going to dissect it and explain every single acronymn, because I still believe that the OPSEC violation committed by Wikileaks is outrageous, and although the data is out and the damage is done, I refuse to exacerbate it by helping the layman decipher some of the cryptic terms and verbage.
Here is the bottom line as to what happened in this particular instance: SOF was conducting a night-time operation. They were accidentally engaged by Afghan police forces. SOF conducted a battle drill along with air support, which resulted in the deaths of some of the Afghan police officers who accidentally attacked the SOF unit.
The remainder of the rollup goes into the fallout and second- and third-order effects of the incident. That's the bottom line: it was an accident. Does this kind of shit happen in combat? Absolutely. You've got a special ops unit (which obviously does not coordinate with everyone for security reasons -- even regular U.S. military forces are not privy to what these guys do for a multitude of legitimate reasons), operating at night, that gets engaged by an Afghan unit that can't communicate directly with the American unit (again for security reasons). Both elements did what they thought was the right thing: the Afghans thought they were shooting at bad guys. The Americans thought they were shooting at bad guys.
Once again, I will not dissect the rollup, and I don't have to prove my credentials to read these reports by doing so. I am a United States Army officer with a secret-level security clearance, and I know how to read these documents because I dealt with this kind of information on a daily basis for an entire year.
I realize I am rambling. What I'm trying to get at is that it is not fair for the media to imply (by omission or mischaracterization of data through ignorance) things that are simply not true or cannot be corroborated without additional evidence or information. This is only the tip of the iceberg: media outlets and pundits are going to read what they want to read, and will feed a willing audience what both parties (media and information consumer) want to read/watch/hear. It's ridiculous, because we're talking about CNN: a reputable news source. If it was just some guy's random blog (like this one), it would be a different story. But CNN and any other major news outlet all possess a unique ability to tangibly and substantially shape and effect public opinion. Opinion informed by knowledge or information that isn't quite 100% does not equate to informed opinion: it equates to being hoodwinked. Congrats: you got spun.
I only ask that when you get bombarded with some of the sensational stuff, take it with a grain of salt. Wait for it to be vetted by people with experience and knowledge before swallowing it completely.
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