Julian Assange, the Australian internet activist, journalist and founder of WikiLeaks, a whistleblower website, responding to criticism from The White House and No.10 Downing Street, defended releasing, yesterday, Sunday, 91,000 secret U.S. military files, records of six years of the war in Afghanistan. Mr Assange told reporters today, Monday, that there does appear to be evidence of war crimes in this material, including unreported incidents of Afghan civilian killings and covert operations against Taliban figures, and that "it is up to a court to decide really if something in the end is a crime."

Mr Assange said the veracity of the material isn't in doubt. But he says "just like dealing with any source you should exercise some common sense. That doesn't mean you should close your eyes."

Mr. Assange rejected the White House accusations that the leak of the war documents had compromised America's national security. He said, "We are familiar with groups whose abuse we expose attempting to criticize the messenger to distract from the power of the message...We don't see any difference in the White House's response to this case to the other groups that we have exposed. We have tried hard to make sure that this material does not put innocents at harm. All the material is over seven months old so is of no current operational consequence, even though it may be of very significant investigative consequence."

My take on this -- Dirty little secrets have a way of coming out. Much of what has been reported in the press about the incidents documented in the leaked files, and copies of the leaked files on-line, tell nothing new. The difference is that the US and British governments can not deny the stumbles, the blunders and the out right twisted spin that they've put out about the war in Afghanistan. I don't see this as so much helping Al Qaeda, as it may help the U.S. leadership to get this fight against Al Qaeda right.