Just a brief FYI post:

Via an e-mail alert from the New York Times:

A huge archive of documents from the Iraq war, released by WikiLeaks, shows a multitude of shortcomings with the military’s reliance on private contractors. The contractors lacked coordination with coalition forces and often shot with little discrimination — and few if any consequences — at unarmed Iraqi civilians, Iraqi security forces, American troops and even other contractors, stirring public outrage.

The documents also portray the long history of tensions between Kurds and Arabs in the north of Iraq and reveal the fears of some American units about what might happen after American troops leave the country by the end of 2011.

I’ve written about our reliance on private contractors (like Blackwater) many a time, and for good reason. Why our State Department still has them under contract is beyond many of us.

Additionally, Greg Mitchell just tweeted: “The New York Times analysis for what WikiLeaks logs on Iraq mean for Afghan war--tribal cooperation, not surge, was the key.“

And with that, I’m off to record Tim Corrimal’s radio show.